Dense forests, savannahs and glades, deserted beaches and wild coastlines, uninhabited lagoons, Loango Park is one of the last natural Eden’s on equatorial land, encompassing an incredible theory of ecosystems, where anthropisation has remained completely marginal and wild animals live totally undisturbed.
Covering a vast area of 1550 km², in the Ogooué-Maritime Region, the park encompasses an impressive environmental variety, between coast and hinterland, of aquatic, marine and lagoon environments, river ecosystems, small clearings and savannahs that suddenly open up between dense gallery forest or humid evergreen jungles. Among this intricate and labyrinthine vegetation, some living species have developed the ability to adapt, remaining small in size, in order to move more nimbly.
The heart of the lagoon is the Iguelà lagoon. If you take a boat up the lagoon’s course, it is possible to travel safely into its interior, around Akaka, to observe discreet and silent wildlife, hidden among the dense mangrove and rainforest vegetation. Amongst the foliage, papyruses, damp lianas and tangled trunks, whole families of gorillas and chimpanzees, small elephants and countless birds make their home, while placid dwarf crocodiles glide through the water in search of fish.
On the small clearings and savannahs that occasionally break through the dense vegetation of the hinterland, it is not uncommon to encounter panthers, leopards, herds of warthogs, gazelles and numerous buffaloes. But one of the most impressive sights in Loango is to be seen on the coasts, on the pristine and paradisiacal beaches of fine sand, where lute turtles come to lay their eggs, while elephants and hippos come to seek refreshment directly in the ocean waters.
It was here that the famous National Geographic images of hippos “surfing” the Atlantic waves were captured. A surreal spectacle, in a marine scenery criss-crossed by schools of dolphins, barracudas, humpback whales and orcas.
Loango is probably one of the main successes of a much-contested domestic policy, which has used the slogan of ‘Green Gabon’ as a workhorse, establishing as many as 13 protected areas and national parks, on 15% of the territory, the other 85% being covered by virgin or semi- virgin areas, which are almost impenetrable.
At the northern and southern ends of Loango Park, two of the most spectacular natural scenarios of the Gabonese coastline open up, the Fernan Vaz lagoon (also called Nkomi) and the Ndogo lagoon. It is here that the Lumbu and Nkomi people have adapted and integrated to live among the wildlife and impassable vegetation, if not through the river and lagoon waterways, in perfect symbiosis, knowing their secrets, dangers and potential. These are the wild lands of the ancient kingdoms of Loango and Cama, described by the half-breed adventurer Jean Michinet, the only landing places where Portuguese explorers and European missionaries managed to arrive, to which the Mission Sainte-Anne remains a testimony, with its church of the same name designed at the end of the 19th century by Eiffel.
Here, the population moves around on small wooden pirogues and lives mainly on fishing, among traditional villages scattered in the watery theory of lagoon labyrinths and small islets, including Evengué, a veritable “orphanage” for young gorillas.
Sette Cama, Olende, Omboué, Sante-Anne and Mpivié are villages and clusters of houses lost in a maze of green tunnels, bamboo walls and mangrove vaults, where in the past European slave outposts and the ivory trade with local kingdoms did not stop the bursting power of an explosive nature and endemic wildlife.
