6Views 0Comments
Inside Africa’s green heart, where wildlife rules the roost
The “Wabêafrîka”, as its citizens call themselves in the Sango language, are among the world’s poorest by per capita GDP, but their natural endowments are beyond measure. Beside one of the world’s highest concentrations of forest elephants, Dzanga-Sangha National Park is home to western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bongo, pangolins, buffalo, sitatunga, giant forest hogs, duikers, mangabeys and other monkey species. These animals were hunted for fun in the 1970s by the CAR’s former dictator and self-declared emperor, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, alongside his friend, France’s then-president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (until his young daughter chastised him for it).
WWF began its involvement in the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas region in 1987, responding to a severe elephant poaching crisis (but there was a wider goal of preserving the forest environment of the BaAka Indigenous people). In 1990, the national park was established, and in 1994 the WWF began protecting its unique and endangered wildlife from poachers (who use guns made from motorcycle handlebars), artisanal miners and loggers. Now, the WWF hopes to make the Dzanga Sangha region of CAR an ecotourism destination and create economic opportunities for local communities. It will be a feat. Reaching Dzanga Sangha involves either driving two days on an untarmacked road from the capital, Bangui, or – as we did – chartering a Cessna and cruising over broccoli-like forest, its oceanic expanse only broken by the occasional ribbon of red-earth road.
The forest elephants that gather daily in the Dzanga Bai are being monitored and researched by Ivonne Kienast, the German-Argentinian project manager of Dzanga Forest Elephant Project. “I once saw one that was blue,” she tells me from the Dzanga Bai’s observation deck as we ogle that bright yellow juvenile. “I don’t know where it came from.” Elephant behaviour is on fascinating display here. Some mothers are more hands-on than others, and some females are violent, like the one who bites off the babies’ tails. “She’s a psycho,” Kienast frowns. One time she even witnessed cannibalism, which goes to show how complex and idiosyncratic elephant behaviour can be. Our exit from the observation platform is briefly delayed by a bull that approaches too close for comfort. Once the coast is clear we return to our vehicle after walking through forest scented with wild garlic and wading calf-deep through glistening swamps that throng with flora and fauna. On the banks, butterflies race around in huge eddying swarms; an elephant mother and calf saunter nearby across the water; and during the drive back to our lodge, a young gorilla nips across the road in front of our car and scuttles into the bush. This place is truly wild.
