Gregory C. Carr

Gregory C. Carr (born 1959) is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist. His main philanthropic venture is the restoration of Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, which has been ravaged by Mozambican Civil War and environmental destruction. He has pledged more than $100 million over 35 years to restore and protect the park's biodiversity, and to assist communities living adjacent to the park with health care, education and agriculture in a public-private partnership with the government of Mozambique.

Biography
Greg Carr was born in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1959. His parents are Taylor H. and Betty O. Carr. He attended Utah State University as an undergraduate, majoring in history, and received a master's degree in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School in 1986. Later that year, inspired by the breakup of AT&T, he and Scott Jones founded Boston Technology, one of the earlier firms to sell voice mail systems to telephone companies. Carr served as the chair of Boston Technology until it was purchased by Comverse Technology in 1998.

From 1996 to 1998 he was chair of Prodigy, an early global Internet service provider. He also co-founded Africa Online in 1996 and served as its chair until 1998.

In 1998 Carr resigned from his for-profit boards and dedicated himself to humanitarian activities. He was the founding donor to the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University in 1999. Through research and teaching, the Carr Center seeks to make human rights principles central to the formulation of good public policy in the United States and throughout the world.

In 1999 he also founded the Gregory C. Carr Foundation, a non-profit organization through which he has been involved in various projects including the Gorongosa Restoration Project. The Carr Foundation has committed to the 30 year restoration of Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique as well as to the sustainable development of the communities surrounding the park. The Gorongosa team has reintroduced species to the ecosystem, worked with the Mozambican government to extend the park's boundaries to include Mount Gorongosa and planted more than three million trees on the mountain, created an international restoration ecology science research center, established eco-tourism in the park, and provides health and education programs to the local communities living near the park's borders. National Geographic Television chronicled the park's restoration in their film Africa's Lost Eden, as well as the CBS News program 60 Minutes on October 26, 2008 and December 4, 2022. Carr has frequently been a keynote speaker and panelist on conservation and restoration at universities, conferences, and film festivals. Since 2012, he has guest lectured annually to undergraduate students at Princeton University and was a featured speaker in Princeton's Class of 2014 Last Lectures series.

In 2000, he co-founded the Museum of Idaho located in Idaho Falls, and in 2001 he opened the Market Theater in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theater showcased small independent and experimental productions. Carr has been active in human rights activities in his home state of Idaho. In 2001, he purchased the compound of the Aryan Nations, near Hayden Lake, Idaho after it was seized by court order following a successful lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center against the Nazi group. The land, donated to North Idaho College, is now a park. In 2002 he was the lead donor to the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise, Idaho. He was a close friend of biologist E. O. Wilson and served on the board of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation until Wilson's passing on December 26, 2021.

Awards and honors

 * Honorary PhD Utah State University. 2003
 * Idaho Technology Hall of Fame. 2013
 * Honorary PhD Boise State University. 2015

In the news

 * "New Future for Idaho Aryan Nations Compound" by Sam Howe Verhovek The New York Times, March 7, 2001
 * "Saving Gorongosa", Bob Shacochis, Outside, June 30, 2009
 * "The Monkey and the Fish", Philip Gourevitch, The New Yorker, December 21, 2009, p. 98
 * Carroll, Sean B. (May 22, 2016). "Resurrecting Mozambique's Magnificent Gorongosa". Sierra.
 * Paradise Lost, and Found Sun Valley Magazine, May 12, 2015
 * "In Mozambique, a Living Laboratory for Nature's Renewal" by Natalie Angier The New York Times, July 23, 2018
 * "A Comeback for African National Parks" by Patrick Adams The New York Times, Feb 20, 2019
 * "How Gorongosa National Park went from civil war battlefield to conservation leader" by Heather Richardson Independent, Feb 1, 2019
 * "Devastated by war, this African park's wildlife is now thriving - A generation after civil war, more than 100,000 large animals populate Mozambique's Gorongosa National Park, a rare spot of good news" by David Quammen National Geographic
 * "In Mozambique, Conservationists Try to Curb Child Marriage" Associated Press
 * "How Teeth Became Tusks, and Tusks Became Liabilities" The New York Times, Sep 11, 2018
 * "Women lead the charge in healing scars of war in Mozambique wildlife park" The Guardian, Sep 7, 2018
 * "Upgrading protected areas to conserve wild biodiversity" Nature, 2017
 * "Ecologists find a 'landscape of fearlessness' in a war-torn savannah" Princeton University News, Mar 7, 2019
 * Why Cyclone Idai was so destructive National Geographic, Mar 2019
 * Children living near national parks are healthier, more prosperous National Geographic, Apr 4, 2019
 * Opinion by Thomas L. Friedman The New York Times
 * Quammen, David (May 2019). "How one of Africa's great parks is rebounding from war" National Geographic
 * This Idahoan's team feeds 20,000 people after cyclone destroyed Gorongosa. Here's how to help Idaho Statesman
 * Stimulating Growth - Growing coffee to restore the rainforest and lift people out of poverty also reinforces Africa's greatest wildlife restoration initiative United Nations Development Programme
 * Zoo Boise set to open its first exhibit in more than a decade. Here's what you'll see. Idaho Statesman, July 9, 2019
 * A people ravaged by civil war found new life in Idahoan's team's effort to plant coffee Idaho Statesman, July 15, 2019
 * Mozambique peace accord brings hope of economic growth Associated Press, Aug 2, 2019
 * "Wild Pups Romp Again in an African Paradise" by Natalie Angier The New York Times
 * Coffee growers help reforest Mozambique's Mount Gorongosa Associated Press
 * Matthews, Cate (2019). "Greatest Places 2019: Gorongosa National Park". Time.
 * Thousands in Mozambique rebuild after devastating cyclones Associated Press, Aug 26, 2019
 * The wild experiment to bring apex predators back from the brink Wired, Mar 5, 2020
 * Inside Africa - The women behind the comeback: How one of Africa's national parks is thriving after war CNN Travel, August 10, 2021
 * The Awakening: How Hope Was Reborn In Gorongosa Mountain Journal
 * "How This Spot (in Mozambique) Got Its Leopard" The New York Times, Jan 10, 2021
 * "Gorongosa" Africa Geographic, April 21, 2021
 * "The National Park that survived a war" Independent
 * Utah State Magazine "Man on a Mission: USU Graduate Greg Carr Has Spent the Past 20 Years Leading Restoration Efforts in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park"
 * Return to Gorongosa 60 Minutes Mar 11, 2024 on CBSNEWS.com

Media

 * Girls Club Gorongosa on Vimeo
 * Dominique Gonçalves speaking about Gorongosa at National Geographic Society on Half Earth Day, 2017 on Vimeo
 * Seasons Greetings from Gorongosa Park - Message by Greg Carr on Vimeo
 * Greg Carr remarks at Boise City Club on Vimeo