WCS Gabon - Loango

Highlights

Total Area:

1,550km²

Habitat Types:

• Marine
• Seashore
• Coastal lagoons
• Mangroves
• Salt marsh
• Coastal forest
• Swamp forest
• Rainforest
• Savanna
• Rivers
• Papyrus swamp

Wildlife Present:

Mammals - (>40 species) African forest elephant, western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, forest buffalo, red river hog, sitatunga, leopard, hippopotamus, West African manatee, West African humpback dolphin, humpback whale, killer whale.

Birds - (>300 species) African river martin, rosy bee-eater, Forbe’s plover, grey pratincole, Loango weaver, vermiculated fishing owl.

Reptiles - (>40 species) Nile crocodile, slender-snouted crocodile, dwarf crocodile, leatherback turtle, olive Ridley’s turtle.

Fish - Critical habitat for dwindling western African marine fish stocks.

… where large mammals, including forest buffalo, elephant, and hippopotamus regularly wander onto the beaches and even enter the Atlantic ocean

Contacts

Name : Tomoaki Nishihara
Title : WCS Loango project manager
Email :

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

www.wcs.org/africa

Mission

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.

WCS Strategies

• Site-based conservation
• Research
• Training and capacity-building
• New model development
• Informing policy
• Linking zoo-based and field-based conservation

Support this Project!

Contributions to this project can be sent to the WCS Africa Program in NY (address above)

Lagoon
Savanna –forest mosaic along the Louri Lagoon ©Peter Ragg

Loango National Park Operation Loango

One of thirteen national parks created in Gabon in 2002, Loango National Park protects diverse coastal habitat including part of the 220km² Iguéla Lagoon, the only significant example of a typical western African lagoon system that is protected by a National Park. The area also remains a relatively pristine example of how most of coastal western Africa must have been before more recent degradation, where large mammals, including forest buffalo, elephant, and hippopotamus wander onto the beaches and even enter the Atlantic ocean.

WCS is engaged in a collaborative venture with SCD (Societé de Conservation et Développement, a private tourism company) in Operation Loango, a unique effort to bring the private sector and an international NGO together to protect a National Park. WCS, partly funded by SCD tourism revenues, manages various conservation, monitoring, surveillance, and research activities in the Park, all aimed at maintaining the long-term integrity of this ‘window into the past’.

The Human Aspect

About 500 people inhabit the park’s vicinity. Local people are trained by WCS as eco-guides, who guide tourists, man surveillance posts, carry out patrols, gather scientific data, and support research teams, among other activities. Eco-guides serve as local ambassadors, spreading the word to nearby communities of the benefits of the project, which serves to improve relationships with the local people.

Threats

In the long term, if the Park is not self-supporting and/or making a significant contribution to the Gabonese economy, pressure will mount to harvest its natural resources. Recently loggers have opened roads close to the Park, which threatens the park through facilitating transportation of bushmeat, fish and the other natural resources. Illegal offshore fishing and at times petroleum spills, threaten important marine fish stocks and rare marine life.

WCS Activities

Research - Maintaining and supporting various research programs that currently include: cetaceans (primarily the annual migration of humpback whales that breed and mate in Gabonese waters), African forest elephants (satellite tracking to map local migration patterns), botany (mapping and cataloguing the botanical diversity of the park), socio-economic (monitoring local fisherman), marine turtles (monitoring and tagging nesting turtles), crocodiles, and archeological surveys.
Surveillance - Maintaining surveillance camps from which teams routinely engage in patrols to monitor and report on illegal fishing/hunting activities and wildlife movements. These teams have also been responsible for beach pollution surveys (e.g. trash, petroleum) and subsequent clean-up operations.
Logistical & Technical assistance - Assisting the Ministry of Water and Forests team at Iguéla in their various surveillance and education activities.
Rural development – Recruiting, equipping and training eco-guides from local communities to carry out the aforementioned surveillance activities. In addition, there is also a conservation / environmental education program which benefits Loango NP through inviting local school children to see the Park.
Collaboration – In addition to several Gabonese government institutions, other organizations involved with the project are the Smithsonian Institution, WWF, and the Max Planck Institute.

Important Next Steps

Most of the above-mentioned activities are ongoing and will continue into the future. Surveillance of illegal activities including coastal fisheries will be expanded in 2005. The conservation awareness and environmental education programs for local communities will be enlarged in collaboration with the government, with the WCS/Operation Loango support. More eco-guides will be hired and trained, to allow for more outposts around the Park, and having a bigger area of influence. A great ape study is planned for 2005.

INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION

GABON