Profiles

Greg Carr — Where the Buffalo Roamed

Philanthropist Greg Carr Invests Big in African Conservation

Carr Foundation

For a man who made more than $200 million in the high-tech industry, Greg Carr spends an awful lot of time living in a tent. Carr, an Internews Network board member, spends about every other month living and working in a remote region of the war-torn East African country of Mozambique.

In one of the largest privately funded environmental projects in Africa, Carr has committed to spend up to $40 million in a comprehensive, 20-year effort to restore a remarkable national park in the center of Mozambique. And he is taking a very hands-on approach, meeting regularly with villagers and tribal elders in the region to persuade them that ecotourism holds more long-term economic promise for them than slash-and-burn farming and hunting.

Encompassing over 125,000 square miles of savannas and wetlands, Gorongosa National Park once had the densest wildlife in all of Africa, and hosted more lions than any place in the world. After 16 years of civil war, this former international tourist destination is a shadow of its former self: soldiers and poachers have killed many of the animals, while poor villagers continue to burn and clearcut trees to make room for farmland. When Carr first visited the park in 2002, a buffalo herd that once numbered 14,000 was down to about 50 animals.

"Gorongosa Park is a world treasure of biodiversity," says Carr. "Many of the thousands of species present have not yet been studied or named. Moreover, at one time Gorongosa had the largest density of lions in the world and we hope to restore those numbers.  Many people don't realize that lions in the wild are an endangered species because their habitat is disappearing. We'll restore that habitat, and in fact, we hope to increase the area of the Park."

Carr made his fortune in the 1980s and 1990s by pioneering voicemail and Internet services. He co-founded Africa Online and Boston Technology, and served as Chair of Prodigy.

In 1998, at age 39, Carr resigned from his for-profit boards and dedicated himself to humanitarian activities. He formed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University in 1999, where he had earned his Masters degree in Public Policy.

Carr joined the board of Internews in 2003, and also sits on the boards of Physicians for Human Rights, Witness, and the Idaho Human Rights Education Center. He directs the Carr Foundation.

More information on Carr’s Gorongosa project

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