1,200 km²
• Evergreen moist tropical rain
forest.
• Cloud forest.
Mammals - forest elephant, western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, leopard, buffalo, mandrill, black colobus monkey
Birds - unknown
Reptiles - 48 species identified
Gabon National Parks Office, Missouri Botanical Garden, Boston College, WWF, Smithsonian Institution, National Herbarium Gabon.
WCS assists the Gabonese government to manage 7 other National Parks, and facilitates and finances various other research/ conservation projects.
Botanical work points to the highest diversity
in Equatorial Africa, distinguishing the Cristal Mountains as a
global biodiversity hotspot.
Name : Han Overman, PhD.
Title : Project director
Email :
hoverman[AT SIGN]wcsgabon[DOT]org
Address :
Wildlife Conservation Society,
BP 7847,
Libreville,
Gabon.
For more information, see www.wcs.org/africa
Wildlife Conservation Society International
Conservation,
Africa Program,
2300 Southern Blvd.,
Bronx, NY 10460, USA
The Wildlife Conservation Society's International Conservation program saves wildlife and wild lands by understanding and resolving critical problems that threaten key species and large, wild ecosystems around the world.
• Site-based conservation
• Research
• Training and capacity-building
• New model development
• Informing policy
• Linking zoo-based and field-based conservation
Contributions to this project can be sent to the WCS Africa Program in NY (address above)
INSELBERG VIEW – Scattered inselbergs in Cristal Mountains
Landscape. ©C. Wilks
The Cristal Mountains NP is one of the 13 Parks created in 2002 by the Gabonese president, setting aside some 11% of the country for conservation. Park locations were based on biological inventories, socio-economic studies and reconnaissance flights organized in large measure by WCS.
The Cristal Mountains harbor remarkable plant diversity. Its location on the Equator, some 75 km inland from the Atlantic coast, combined with the presence of an elevated plateau with steep hills (300-900 meters above sea level), has resulted in a stable moist climate throughout geological times, and the area has been identified as an important Pleistocene Refuge during the Ice Ages. Ongoing botanical work points to the highest floral diversity in Equatorial Africa, thus distinguishing the Cristal Mountains as a global biodiversity hotspot.
The still largely unexplored area also protects significant populations of large mammals, including elephant, gorilla, chimpanzee, buffalo and leopard.
Human density is low (<1 km-1) and concentrated along a poorly maintained road dividing the park in two 600 km2 forest blocks separated by a 25 km wide zone. No people live inside the park. Human resource use mapping and monitoring of socio-economic and health status will quantify if/how local lives are influenced by the Park. A continuous presence in villages provides a two-way communication channel, and helps to reduce negative impacts. Mostly local or regional people are hired for park management activities. Weekend tourism from the nearby capital may add to local revenues.
Many economic stakeholders (logging, water, hydro-electricity, and mineral mining companies, as well as bushmeat and ivory traders) are found in the region. A network of old forestry roads, the absence of law enforcement and proximity to major market towns makes commercial hunting the most immediate threat.
An epiphytic orchid © C. Wilks
Collection of human, animal and plant data by Boston College, WCS and the Missouri Botanical Garden started in 2004, providing sound baseline information before the Park was effectively managed on the ground. Conservation outreach and environmental education programs have begun operating in villages adjacent to the Park.
Informative contacts with logging companies which surround the Park, combined with physical demarcation of Park boundaries and verification and publication of intrusions, has stopped logging inside the Park.
Negotiations are underway between the National Parks Administration and the hydro-electric company (which provides power to the capital) based on the edge of the Park, in order to establish a management headquarters in buildings owned by them.
WCS has assisted the Gabonese authorities, with help from WWF, to conduct anti-poaching missions in and around the Park in an effort to stem the illegal bushmeat trade.