In episode 1, we hear AnaBela’s spirited story of how, as a teenager, she abandoned her ballet lessons and secondary schooling to join Mozambique's liberation struggle which led to independence in 1975. After completing her master’s degree in economics 25 years later, she accepted the challenge of becoming the first manager of the recently created Niassa reserve - a territory the size of the Netherlands. She had basically no staff and an impossible budget. By the time she left ten years later, she had cultivated a public/private partnership which ensured an operational budget. Her staff had grown to 100.  She had placed Niassa firmly on the map of conservation.