Land of the Surfing Hippos

Bonjour!


So this where it all starts. Sitting in my dads house, less then 24 hours until I fly out, coffee in one hand and a pile of clothes balanced precariously on top of the bag in which they're meant to be. Organization has never been one of my strong points, and it doesn't look like that's going to change any time soon...


So, just to get the introductions over and done with, I'm Josh Davis, a 21 year old Biology graduate, and I'm going to attempt to keep a blog to record and document the occurrences over the next year or so as I live in Loango National Park, Gabon. Here I'll be living in a tent, in the rainforest, studying a population of western lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) for the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology, so I suspect there'll be many stories to be told as I get to grips with the locals, the wildlife and the country. This is the beginning of a very exciting chapter of my life, and I'll try my hardest to keep and update this blog as often as I get access to the internet, which to be fair might not be all that often, so bare with me!


The question I hear most when telling others where I'm going, and what I'll be doing is: "So where actually IS Gabon?". This is very fair question, considering its a little known country in western central Africa, straddling the equator. To clarify things, and to make sure we're all on the same page, this is where Gabon is in the grand scheme of things:

Pretty small, and pretty unassuming, eh? Well that's where you'd be wrong. Gabon, unlike most developing nations, has managed to retain around 75% of its rainforest, due mainly to the fact that its still currently floating on off shore oil reserves. This, coupled with a population of just 1.5 million mean that the countries wildlife and biodiversity has managed to survive up until now relatively unscathed.


In 1999 American ecologist and explorer, J. Michael Fay, set out on a 2,000 mile long 'megatransect', starting in Cameroon, crossing the Congo and finishing on a strip of coast in Gabon. This stretch of coast Fay described as 'Africa's Eden', where Forest Elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and Forest Buffalo (Syncerus caffer nanus)  roamed the beach, the rainforest echoed with the chest beats and hoots of wild Gorillas and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes), Leatherback Turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) hauled themselves on land to lay their eggs, and Hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) surfed in the sea. Untouched by human influence, the wildlife still held sway in these parts, and Fay decided he wanted to keep it this way, and allow others to see its beauty. Fay lobbied alongside the President of Gabon, El Hadj Omar Bongo, and on the 1st August 2002 13 national parks were created, accounting for a total of 11% of the country, and that strip of coast became Loango National Park. 

As I say, I'll try to keep this as up to date as I can, adding a few photos along the way, so until next time,


Over and out!


Photo credit to: Michael Nichols, Mark Montag, Wikipedia and click-the-globe.net