White Man's Game ─ Saving Animals, Rebuilding Eden, and Other Myths of Conservation in Africa

A behind-the-scenes look at the celebrated yet troubled Gorongosa wildlife preserve, where Western attempts at philanthropy are colliding with African culture and spiritual beliefs

The stunningly beautiful Gorongosa National Park, once the crown jewel of Mozambique, was nearly destroyed by decades of civil war. For American multimillionaire Greg Carr, a tech mogul seeking new challenges, it looked like a perfect place for Western philanthropy: under his guidance, he promised, Gorongosa would be revived as an ecological paradise. But what of the local Mozambicans themselves, who had been living in the area for centuries? InWhite Man's Game, journalist Stephanie Hanes traces Carr's effort to tackle one of the world's biggest environmental challenges, showing how the ambitious reconstruction turned into a dramatic collision of cultures.

In vivid, you-are-there stories, Hanes takes readers on a virtual safari into this remote corner of southern Africa. She faces down lions and malaria, describes what it takes to transport an elephant across international borders, and talks to park workers and wildlife poachers--who sometimes turn out to be the one and same. And she details the powerful spirit world that, the locals believe, surrounds the sacred Gorongosa mountain: spirits which the Westerners often dismiss as superstition, but which ultimately prove a far greater obstacle than any of them imagined.

A gripping narrative of environmentalists and warlords, elephants and rainmakers, poachers and millionaires,White Man's Game challenges the way we think about development and conservation.