Created in 2002, Minkébé National Park (MNP) is situated in the
extreme northeast of Gabon, and covers an area of about 7560km².
The Park is set within a huge forest block of 32260km² and is
among the more intact and isolated forests in Central Africa.
Today the forest is largely uninhabited, though in pre- colonial
times, settlements were scattered through the forest. During the
colonial era, resettlement planners moved villages toward roads
and navigable rivers. Today, temporary hunting camps occur on
the peripheries of the forest and gold mining communities live
in the interior near the park borders. Baka pygmies from Gabon
and southern Cameroon live throughout the northern sector of the
Minkébé forest, where they are involved in large-scale elephant
poaching for village-based gun owners and ivory traffickers.
Minkébé is well known for its wildlife which includes a high
density of elephants and other large mammals. However, the
elephants of Minkébé are known to be threatened by poaching,
notably in the nor