Minkébé National Park

Central Africa > Gabon > Minkébé National Park

Summary

• Central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) & western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) are present in Minkébé National Park.
• The population sizes are unknown.
• The population trends are unknown.
• The site has a total size of 7,535 km².
• Key threats to great apes are hunting, mining, logging, and diseases, specifically Ebola Virus Disease.
• Conservation activities are not documented.

Site characteristics

Minkébé National Park is situated in northeast Gabon, bordering Cameroon to the north and Republic of Congo to the east. The forest in Minkébé is extremely rich in bird biodiversity, and has been designated an Important Bird Area (BirdLife International 2020). Minkébé is the name of an ancient village and colonial post that was built on a ridge and abandoned in the 1930s (BirdLife International 2020). The site forms part of the Tri-National Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM) transboundary conservation landscape, spread across Gabon, Cameroon, and the Republic of Congo (WWF).

Table 1. Basic site information for Minkébé National Park

Area	7,535 km²
Coordinates	1.813136 N, 12.569964 E
Designation	National Park
Habitat types	Subtropical/tropical swamp forest, subtropical/tropical moist lowland forest, subtropical/tropical dry forest, permanent rivers/streams/creeks (includes waterfalls)

IUCN habitat categories Site designations

Ape status

Table 2. Ape population estimates in Minkébé National Park

Species	Year	Abundance estimate (95% CI)	Density estimate [ind./ km²] (95% CI)	Encounter rate (nests/km)	Area	Method	Source	Comments	A.P.E.S. database ID
Gorilla gorilla gorilla & Pan troglodytes troglodytes	2012			0.3 (1.2-12)	Minkébé National Park	Line transects (Distance)	ANPN 2013

Threats

Poaching is a major threat, not just to great apes- between 2004 and 2014, more than 25,000 forest elephants were killed for their ivory in Minkébé, representing a 78-81% population decline (Poulsen et al. 2017). Gold mining has also been a major threat. In 2011, the Gabonese National Parks Agency (Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux / ANPN) and the Gabonese military expelled over 6,000 gold miners; illegal mining camps had grown exponentially as a result of soaring gold prices over the previous 2-3 years. Severe elephant poaching and other illegal activities were linked to these camps (ANPN 2013).

Table 3. Threats to apes in Minkébé National Park

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Quantified severity	Description	Year of threat
1. Residential & commercial development		Unknown
2. Agriculture & aquaculture		Unknown
3. Energy production & mining	3.2 Mining & quarrying	High	In 2011, about 6,000 gold miners were removed from the park (WCS-WWF 2013).	Gold extraction and presence of several illegal gold camps, in the park and in its buffer zone (BirdLife International 2020; ANPN 2013).	Ongoing (2020)
4. Transportation & service corridors		Unknown
5. Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	High		Commercial hunting for local bushmeat trade (BirdLife International 2020). Hunting camps and huntings signs (gun shots, trails, elephant carcasses) present at the park during a 2012 survey (ANPN 2013).	Ongoing (2020)
	5.3 Logging & wood harvesting	Present, but threat severity is unknown		Logging (BirdLife International 2020).	Ongoing (2020)
6. Human intrusion & disturbance		Unknown
7. Natural system modifications		Unknown
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases	8.5 Viral/prion-induced diseases	High		Extremely low densities of gorillas and chimpanzees were found between 1998-2000, compared to data collected before 1994. The decline resulted from Ebola outbreaks in 1994 and 1996 in the area (Huijbregts et al. 2003; Walsh et al. 2003).	Ongoing
9. Pollution		Unknown
10. Geological Events		Absent
11. Climate change & severe weather		Unknown
12. Other options		Absent

IUCN Threats list

Conservation activities

Table 4. Conservation activities in Minkébé National Park

Category	Specific activity	Description	Year of activity
1. Residential & commercial development	Not reported
2. Agriculture & aquaculture	Not reported
3. Energy production & mining	Not reported
4. Transportation & service corridors	Not reported
5. Biological resource use	Not reported
6. Human intrusion & disturbance	Not reported
7. Natural system modifications	Not reported
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases	Not reported
9. Pollution	Not reported
10. Education & Awareness	Not reported
11. Habitat Protection	Not reported
12. Species Management	Not reported
13. Livelihood; Economic & Other Incentives	Not reported

Conservation activities list (Junker et al. 2017)

Challenges

Table 5. Challenges reported for Minkébé National Park

Challenge	Source
Not reported

Research activities

Documented behaviours

Table 6. Ape behaviors reported for Minkébé National Park

Behavior	Source
Not reported

External links

Relevant datasets

A.P.E.S Portal

References

BirdLife International. (2020) .Important Bird Areas factsheet: Minkébé Forest Reserve. Retrieved from http://www.birdlife.org on 04/11/2020.
Huijbregts, B., De Wachter, P., Obiang, L., & Akou, M. (2003). Ebola and the decline of gorilla Gorilla gorilla and chimpanzee Pan troglodytes populations in Minkebe Forest, north-eastern Gabon. Oryx, 37(4), 437-443. doi:10.1017/S0030605303000802
Walsh, P., Abernethy, K., Bermejo, M. et al. (2003). Catastrophic ape decline in western equatorial Africa. Nature 422, 611–614. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01566
ANPN. (2013). Wildlife surveying in Minkebe National Park, 2012 – WCS-WWF collaboration. Online: https://www.wwf.de/fileadmin/fm-wwf/Publikationen-PDF/Preliminary_Results_of_Minkebe_Pilot_Study_070213.pdf
Poulsen, J. R., Koerner, S. E., Moore, S., Medjibe, V. P., Blake, S., Clark, C. J., Akou, M. E., Fay, M., Meier, A., Okouyi, J., Rosin, C., & White, L. J. T. (2017). Poaching empties critical Central African wilderness of forest elephants. Current Biology, 27(4), R134-R135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.023

Page completed by: A.P.E.S. Wiki team Date:29/12/2020