Africa's Lost Eden

It was said to be "the place where Noah left his Ark." Lush floodplains in central Mozambique packed with wild animals and more than 500 species of birds. But in 1977, civil war engulfed the area, and close to one million people lost their lives. Many thousands of buffalo, zebra and hippos were slaughtered for meat, and elephants for ivory. Of the 14,000 buffalo that roamed the savannah before the war, fewer than 15 remained; of the 3,000 zebra, just five. The legendary Gorongosa Wildlife Park had become an empty Eden with a broken ecosystem. Africa's Lost Eden documents the extraordinary efforts of conservationists fighting to restore the park and replenish the animal populations. Travel to South Africa, where an unprecedented effort is under way to relocate elephants and hippos to Gorongosa, even as the wounded landscape is vulnerable to drought and fire. For a war-wounded country desperately seeking a symbol of hope, the stakes couldn't be higher. (Source: National Geographic Wild Channel)