Few things are normal about the Matatuine region of southern Mozambique, in southeastern Africa. The scrub land is untouched. The beaches are pristine.
Elephants graze in tall reeds.
Shy game animals like red forest duiker and gray reedbuck bounce through the brush. They are the surprising survivors of 15 years of civil war and drought that decimated wildlife in the rest of the nation. The unusual blend of wildlife and rare environmental features gained the area designation as one of the world's 200 special biodiversity sites by the 1992 U.N. Earth Summit. The government-approved project would bring badly needed investment and tourism to one of the world's poorest countries, struggling to recover from the war that ended in 1992. But it also would change forever the environmental balance of the Matatuine area, which begins just 18 miles south of Maputo, the capital.