Lopé National Park is a

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 ...

in central

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 ...

. Bordered by the Ogooué River to the north and the Chaillu Massif to the south, the park takes up roughly 4912 square kilometers. Although the terrain is mostly monsoon forest, in the north the park contains the last remnants of grass

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

s created in

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...

during the last ice age, 15,000 years ago. It was the first protected area in Gabon when the Lopé-Okanda Wildlife Reserve was created in 1946, and in 2007, the national park and surrounding Lopé-Okanda landscape were added to the

World Heritage List A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNES ...

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

because of its biodiversity, unique savanna-forest transitional zone, and the spectacular

petroglyphs A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

in the region.

Ecology

Lopé National Park has dry weather compared to the rest of Gabon, being located in the

rain shadow A rain shadow is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds, known as its leeward side. Evaporated moisture from water bodies (such as oceans and large lakes) is carrie ...

of the Chaillu Massif. In addition, there a low band of rainfall along the Ogooué River. As a result, the landscape contains a complex mosaic of dense tropical rainforests and savannas. The boundary (called an

ecotone An ecotone is a transition area between two biological communities, where two communities meet and integrate. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local (the zone between a field and forest) or regional (the transition between forest and gras ...

) between the two habitats has shifted since the last ice age, with the rainforest expanding into the savanna, although the dry climate has allowed the savanna ecosystem to persist in the north of the park. Because of the complex environment, the national park contains unusually high biodiversity across many taxa. Over 1,550 plant species have been recorded to date, with many regions of the park yet to be explored fully. In a survey of land snails in the park, 74 species were found from 12 different families. The park also provides critical habitat for the

leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...

, protecting healthy populations of its prey species including the

red river hog The red river hog (''Potamochoerus porcus'') or bushpig (a named also used for the '' Potamochoerus larvatus''), is a wild member of the pig family living in Africa, with most of its distribution in the Guinean and Congolian forests. It is rarel ...

, African forest buffalo, and cane rat. Other mammal species found in the part include the endangered giant pangolin and

tree pangolin The tree pangolin (''Phataginus tricuspis'') is one of eight extant species of pangolins ("scaly anteaters"), and is native to equatorial Africa. Also known as the white-bellied pangolin or three-cusped pangolin, it is the most common of the ...

, often sharing nests with Microchiroptera bat species.

Human History

Lopé National Park and its surroundings contain evidence of almost continual human occupation over the last 400,000 years. The Ogooué River Valley is much less forested than its surroundings, making an open landscape that may have been used as a corridor and migration route from the coast to the interior of Africa. The oldest Stone Age tools currently known were discovered at Elarmékora in the central region of the valley, in addition to several other Stone Age archeological sites. In the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

, between 3500 and 2000 years ago, the Bantu people may have used the valley during the

Bantu expansion The Bantu expansion is a hypothesis about the history of the major series of migrations of the original Proto-Bantu-speaking group, which spread from an original nucleus around Central Africa across much of sub-Saharan Africa. In the process, t ...

, leaving behind remains of polished stone axes and pottery. During that time, small villages were constructed on the hilltops with large rubbish pits. Later, when iron-working appeared in the valley around 2000 years ago, the hilltop villages became larger, with nearby iron furnaces, and agriculture began to flourish. Although over 1600

have been discovered dating from around the time of the beginning of iron-working, it appears that the valley was abandoned sometime between 600 and 1200 AD, before being repopulated by the present-day Okanda people in the 14th and 15th centuries.

Tourism and Conservation

The park contains a small research station, named as Mikongo and run by the Zoological Society London, based in the village known as Mikongo, from which it gets its name. There exists infrastructure to cater for tourists at the base, including several chalets and a large open air dining room, from which the rainforest is a mere five meters away. The park also hosts CEDAMM Training Centre, a Wildlife Conservation Society-run international conservation education center. Because of

global climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, the dense forest ecosystem is expanding into the savanna ecosystem in the north, leading to the loss of habitat diversity in the park. As a result, annual

controlled burns A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A control ...

of the savanna have been conducted in the park to reduce the encroachment of the forest vegetation and to provide the required vegetation for the diet of the forest buffalo.

References

External links

Wildlife Conservation SocietyVirtual Tour of the National Parks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lope National Park World Heritage Sites in Gabon National parks of Gabon Protected areas established in 2002 2002 establishments in Gabon Western Congolian forest–savanna mosaic