Dzanga-Ndoki

Dzanga-Ndoki National Park was established in 1990 at the south-western tip of the Central African Republic, in the Sangha-Mbaéré region, where the borders with Cameroon and the Republic of the Congo converge, and protects some 1,220 km² across two separate sectors, Dzanga and Ndoki. In 2012 it was inscribed on the World Heritage List as part of the Sangha Trinational.

Its most celebrated feature is the Dzanga bai, a forest clearing of several hectares on saline soils to which dozens and sometimes more than a hundred forest elephants come daily to drink and to extract minerals from the ground. It is the place in the world where this species, hard to see in closed forest, can best be watched, and continuous study there has produced much of what is known about its social behaviour and its communication.

The park is also home to western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, bongo and sitatunga, and is the territory of BaAka communities, hunter-gatherers whose knowledge of the forest has been decisive for research. In 2013, during the Central African political crisis, an armed group stormed the Dzanga station and killed several elephants in the bai itself, an episode that drew international attention and that illustrates the fragility of conservation in the region.