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You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war. It is impossible to assess the damage of war until peace has been restored.

The Mozambican Civil War lasted thirty years. 900,000 died from fighting or from starvation. Countless were injured and nearly five million displaced. There was a hidden casualty. The war destroyed one of Africa's last jewels: The Gorongosa National Park. The park once boasted it had the most spectacular scenery and an ecosystem unmatched anywhere in Africa. The wildlife population was one of the densest in the world.

In December 1981 fighters attacked a campsite in the park and kidnapped several members of the staff including two foreign scientists. In 1983 the violence became so bad the park was forced to close. Aerial bombing destroyed the buildings and roads. Soldiers poached elephants for their ivory tusks, most of the hoofed mammals were hunted to feed the soldiers, and lions and big cats were hunted for sport. The civil war ended in 1991 but the hunting continued for a few more years. The large mammal populations had been reduced by 95%.

War is costly-not just in an economical sense. It costs lives and in the case of Gorongosa National Park it nearly cost a country its entire ecosystem. Yet, it can be a warning to the rest of the world. Here in a space so filled with life humans managed to close their eyes and forget that their actions have implications. In ten short years they managed to destroy what nature had sustained for centuries.

Rwanda is a small country-about the size of New Hampshire. In 1994 millions of Rwandans fled genocide. Over 800,000 Tutsis were killed but the ones that managed to escape fled to the Gishwati Mountains. They cut down nearly the entire forest which was 20,000 acres. They cleared the land to rebuild their lives and to plant fields of potatoes, corn, and maize. The refugees had no way of knowing that the trees maintained the soil quality. Now-the hills are scarred with erosion which cause landslides and kill dozens of people each year.

The people living in the depleted forest today- struggle to make due now that the soil is dead. The government lacks the resources to invest in the environment. Meanwhile the population grows and the amount of food harvested is down 40%. Fourteen years after the worst genocide of the 90's the land of Rwanda is still bleeding. The red earth is washed away and stains the blue lake nearby. The red tinged waters are tainted now with algae and the poison devastates the

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