Gabon

The Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape of Lopé-Okanda demonstrates an unusual interface between dense and well-conserved tropical rainforest and relict savannah environments with a great diversity of species, including endangered large mammals, and habitats. The site illustrates ecological and biological processes in terms of species and habitat adaptation to post-glacial climatic changes. It contains evidence of the successive passages of different peoples who have left extensive and comparatively well-preserved remains of habitation around hilltops, caves and shelters, evidence of iron-working and a remarkable collection of some 1,800 petroglyphs (rock carvings). The property’s collection of Neolithic and Iron Age sites, together with the rock art found there, reflects a major migration route of Bantu and other peoples from West Africa along the River Ogooué valley to the north of the dense evergreen Congo forests and to central east and southern Africa, that has shaped the development of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Situated on the equator in northern Gabon the largely pristine site encompasses an area of almost 300,000 ha crossed by a network of picturesque blackwater rivers. It features rapids and waterfalls bordered by intact rainforest, which make for a landscape of great aesthetic value. The site’s aquatic habitats harbour endemic freshwater fish species, 13 of which are threatened, and at least seven species of Podostemaceae riverweeds, with probable micro-endemic aquatic flora at each waterfall. Many fish species in the property are yet to be described and parts of the site have hardly been investigated. Critically Endangered Slender-snouted Crocodiles (Mecistops cataphractus) find shelter in Ivindo National Park which also boasts biogeographically unique Caesalpinioideae old-growth forests of high conservation value, supporting, for instance, a very high diversity of butterflies alongside threatened flagship mammals and avian fauna such as the Critically Endangered Forest Elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla), the Endangered Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) as well as the Vulnerable Grey-necked Rockfowl (Picathartes oreas), Mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx), Leopard (Panthera pardus), and African Golden Cat (Caracal aurata), and three species of Pangolin (Manidae spp.).