Gola Rainforest

Gola Rainforest National Park was established in 2011 in south-eastern Sierra Leone, next to the Liberian border, and protects some 710 km². It is the country's largest remnant of tropical rainforest.

It forms part of the Upper Guinean forest block, a biodiversity hotspot reduced to less than a tenth of its original extent by logging, mining and farming. Gola preserves lowland rainforest in good condition and is home to emblematic species of the region: the pygmy hippopotamus, of which only a few thousand animals remain in the world and which lives only in this corner of West Africa, the western chimpanzee, the forest elephant and the white-necked picathartes, a bird that nests on rock outcrops and whose observation draws birdwatchers from around the world.

Its declaration as a national park was the culmination of a long process: the area had been a forest reserve since colonial times, and the civil war that devastated Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002 left the region ravaged but, paradoxically, halted its exploitation. In 2009 Sierra Leone and Liberia agreed to join Gola with the Liberian forest of the same name in a cross-border peace park, and management is funded in part by carbon credits, one of the first REDD+ projects in West Africa. The surrounding communities take part through benefit-sharing agreements.