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New wildlife parks in Gabon
By Gary Strieker (CNN)
(CNN) -- Conservationists are calling it a major victory for Africa's wildlife. The world heard about it earlier this month, at the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Gabon's president, Omar Bongo, announced his government's decision to create a new national park system protecting some of the most critically important rain forest habitats in central Africa's Congo basin. Gabon's rain forests shelter large populations of central Africa's distinctive wildlife, including endangered species like gorillas, chimpanzees and forest elephants. But many important forest habitats in the country have been threatened by rapidly expanding logging operations as well as a growing commercial market for meat from wild animals, and conservationists have been working with Gabonese authorities to identify and survey areas that may deserve to be protected by law. According to Lee White, a researcher in Gabon with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, Gabonese officials were eager to cooperate with him and other wildlife experts after President Bongo took a personal interest in the project. "Basically the government has adopted our proposal as its strategy," he says, "and it has taken the decision to set aside all of the proposed areas as national parks." The official announcement promises there will be 13 new national parks in the system, spread across the country. The combined areas of the parks will exceed 10,000 square miles, about the size of Belgium or the state of Maryland in the United States. Moreover, experts say, the parks will cover more than 10 percent of Gabon's total land area. Costa Rica is the only nation with a higher percentage, although the total size of its parks is much smaller. The parks will protect extensive tracts of undisturbed forests as well as broad savannas, spectacular waterfalls and isolated stretches of Gabon's Atlantic coastline. They'll provide sanctuaries not only for endangered rain forest species, but also for sea turtles nesting on beaches and humpback whales in coastal waters. Conservationists are calling President Bongo's decision a courageous one that sets a new standard for wildlife protection in central Africa. They say other central African political leaders have yet to take serious measures to stop rampant destruction of their nations' dwindling natural resources, and they're hoping that some of those leaders might now be encouraged to follow Bongo's example.
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