Travel Guide Parc National De Nouabalé-Ndoki

A national park managed in partnership by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Ministry of Forest Economy, Nouabalé-Ndoki was created in 1993 on a 4,238 km² site of virgin forest originally earmarked for logging. By classifying the area, the government protected it from logging and mining, preserving endangered old mahogany trees and preserving species: 300 species of birds, 1,000 species of plants and trees, and large mammals such as chimpanzees, elephants, forest buffaloes and great apes (gorillas) whose presence, rare elsewhere, is now strongly associated with the image of the Congo. Today, the park is a rare example of a forest ecosystem in this totally uninhabited region, with a very low population density in the surrounding area. This conservation effort also extends beyond Congolese borders: the park is part of the Trinational Sangha (TNS), a complex of protected areas, listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2012, also involving Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The whole represents the largest conservation area in Central Africa, with over 746,309 ha of tropical forest, home to some of the largest gorilla and chimpanzee populations in Africa.