Dzanga-Sangha

Declared in 1990, it protects a stretch of Congo rainforest shared with the indigenous Baka people, traditional hunter-gatherers who work actively with the park's conservation and research programmes. Its greatest attraction is the Dzanga Bai, a vast natural clearing formed by mineral deposits in the ground which draws dozens of forest elephants daily — a genetically distinct and smaller species than the savannah elephant — along with bongos, sitatungas and other large forest mammals that are rarely seen in the dense interior of the forest, making the clearing one of the finest places in the world to watch African rainforest wildlife from a single vantage point.