Cameroon — Saving Ebo Forest

Only after arriving in Cameroon did I discover the importance of Ebo Forest. A remote tropical rainforest alive with chimpanzees, western lowland gorillas, and a host of rainforest birds, mammals amphibians and reptiles and of course an insane diversity of arthropods. The crime is Ebo Forest will likely be lost before many others ever discover its riches. The Cameroonian government has ignored pleas by conservationists and researchers for over a decade to gazette Ebo as a national park, or at least some level of protected status. As I documented Ebo chainsaws and bulldozers were already at work tearing at the surrounding forest — often illegally — preparing for palm oil plantations.