Observation of chimpanzees at Conkouati National Park

About 130 km from Pointe-Noire, straddling the two districts of Nzambi and Madingo-Kayes, the Conkouati-Douli National Park (PNCD), created in 1999, is the richest in the country in terms of biodiversity. Limited to the north and west by the Gabonese border, to the southwest by the ocean, it currently covers 795,500 ha, including a significant area of the ocean, the only marine protected area in Congo. Conkouati is a mosaic of habitats of unique richness in Congo: the coastline, its savannahs and mangroves, the lagoons and lakes between which the sub-littoral forest is inserted, the Mayombe forest, including the remote areas villages have been untouched since the departure of logging more than twenty years ago, and finally the savannah of the Niari plains. The richness of the fauna responds to these conservation conditions and this diversity of habitat: gorillas, chimpanzees, hippos, elephants and buffaloes, Nile crocodiles, sea turtles, manatees, dolphins and whales as well as a multitude of migratory birds. Around 7,800 people live in the 31 villages in and on the edge of the park: fishermen from the coast, mainly Vili, have been established there since the 13th century. As for the populations of the villages bordering the forest roads, they are ethnically heterogeneous, thanks to industrial concessions. The inhabitants traditionally live from hunting, fishing and agriculture: which still poses problems of cohabitation today.