West Lunga National Park is a remote wildlife haven in dense forest in the North-Western Province of

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

. It lies between the West Lunga River and Kabompo River about 10 km north of the gravel road from

Solwezi Solwezi is a town in Zambia. It is the provincial capital of the mineral-rich North-Western Province. Solwezi is also the administrative capital of Solwezi District, one of the eleven districts in the North-Western Province. Location Solwezi ...

Kabompo Kabompo is a town in north-western Zambia, lying on the Kabompo River with a population over 88,000 people. It is surrounded by teak forest and is home to a Roman Catholic mission. Its most significant activity is the production of honey. You als ...

, and covers about 1700 km². The national park is the only one in Zambia covered by forest, categorised in the small Cryptosepalum dry forests ecoregion, which exists only in a few patches in the south west of the province extending a little over the border into Angola. ''

Cryptosepalum ''Cryptosepalum'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. There are 12 species, mostly trees. They are native to sub-Saharan Africa,Van Der Burgt, X. M., Poundje, M., & Sene, O. (2014)''Cryptosepalum korupense'' Burgt, sp. nov.(Le ...

'' trees (called "mukwe" locally) are evergreen and grow densely with a closed canopy. The ecoregion forms the largest evergreen forest in Africa outside of the equatorial zone. Although the rainfall in the area is quite high (above 1,000 mm per year) the soils are sandy and well drained so apart from the rivers there is a lack of surface water. A few patches of

Miombo The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located primarily in Central Africa. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) characterized b ...

woodland and grassland also exist in the park. The park lacks management, facilities, and roads. There is no accommodation and no towns nearby, visitors must be completely self-sufficient. (The Zambia Tourism website does not even mention the park.) It is reached by a dirt track from the main road to the park gate and base at Jivundu in its south-west. The lack of water and thickness of the forest has kept the human population low in the region, and despite some poaching and the absence of protection, the forest is believed to be still fairly rich in wildlife. Smaller forest mammals such as duiker and

bushpig :''"Bush pig" may also refer to the red river hog. The bushpig (''Potamochoerus larvatus'') is a member of the pig family that inhabits forests, woodland, riverine vegetation and cultivated areas in East and Southern Africa. Probably introduce ...

s live there, and recent reports also mention

puku The puku (''Kobus vardonii'') is a medium-sized antelope found in wet grasslands in southern Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and more concentrated in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Nearly one-third of all puku are found ...

hippopotami The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

Nile crocodiles The Nile crocodile (''Crocodylus niloticus'') is a large crocodilian native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries. It is widely distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, occurring mostly in the central, easter ...

, vervet monkeys, and yellow baboons. The game guards say there are buffalo, roan antelopes,

sable antelope The sable antelope (''Hippotragus niger'') is an antelope which inhabits wooded savanna in East and Southern Africa, from the south of Kenya to South Africa, with a separate population in Angola. Taxonomy The sable antelope shares the genus ''Hi ...

Lichtenstein's hartebeest Lichtenstein's hartebeest (''Alcelaphus buselaphus lichtensteinii'')Wilson, Don E. & Reeder, DeeAnn M. (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142 ppAvailable ...

s, impalas, elands, and elephants.Zambia Travel Guide: "West Lunga NP"
''Bradt Guides''. Retrieved 11 November 2007.

References

{{authority control National parks of Zambia Geography of North-Western Province, Zambia Kabompo River Tourist attractions in North-Western Province, Zambia Important Bird Areas of Zambia Central Zambezian miombo woodlands