Akanda National Park ( French: ''Parc national d'Akanda'') is one of 13 National Parks in Gabon set up in 2002 by President

Omar Bongo El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba (born Albert-Bernard Bongo; 30 December 1935 – 8 June 2009) was a Gabonese politician who was the second President of Gabon for 42 years, from 1967 until his death in 2009. Omar Bongo was promoted to key positions as ...

after a two-year study by the DFC, WCS and WWF. The 13

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

s are designed to represent the biodiversity of the country and encourage tourism. Akanda National Park is located in the northeast of the country, near

Libreville Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon. Occupying in the northwestern province of Estuaire, Libreville is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea. As of the 2013 census, its population was 703,904. The area has been inh ...

, with coastline along the Mondah and Corisco bays. The national park is composed chiefly of

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

and tidal beach habitats.

Gabon Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...

has only 2.5% of the total

mangrove swamp Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...

in Africa, but Akanda together with the nearby

Pongara National Park Pongara National Park ( French: ''Parc national de Pongara'') is a national park in Gabon near the capital Libreville, on the south side of the Gabon Estuary and the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 929km2. The national park is composed chie ...

comprise 25% of the total protected mangrove in the continent. They play an important role in the ecosystem and help stabilise the coastline around Libreville. Human encroachment from both building and crop planting are a threat to both parks. Both of the bays are rich in marine life, and Corisco bay provides an important feeding area for

turtle Turtles are an order of reptiles known as Testudines, characterized by a special shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Cryptodira (hidden necked tu ...

s. Akanda is internationally important as a site for migratory birds and is home to the largest populations of such birds in Gabon. It is an

IUCN Critical Site The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natura ...

References

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Virtual Tour of the National Parks
{{authority control National parks of Gabon Protected areas established in 2002 2002 establishments in Gabon Ramsar sites in Gabon