Wildlife Photography Hides in Gabon

Gabon is arguably the most spectacular wildlife destination in all of Central Africa — a country that has set aside 11% of its territory as national parks and where 80% of the land mass remains intact rainforest. Loango National Park on the Atlantic coast is uniquely cinematic: the only place on Earth where photographers can capture forest elephants and hippopotami surfing Atlantic waves on the same beach, then track habituated western lowland gorillas in dense jungle the same afternoon. The iconic National Geographic photography by Nick Nichols was shot at Loango. Lopé National Park (UNESCO World Heritage) is the world's premier mandrill photography destination — in July, up to 800 mandrills gather in spectacular supergroups during the mating season, producing extraordinary documentary-grade images of the world's largest monkey species. The same park offers daily western lowland gorilla tracking and forest elephant photography in ancient savannah-forest landscapes. Ivindo National Park holds Langoué Baï — one of Africa's greatest forest clearings where up to 90 forest elephants gather daily at a mineral-rich opening, photographed from a three-tiered observation platform in the fifth-largest forest clearing in equatorial Africa. Pongara National Park, just 60 minutes by boat from Libreville airport, hosts one of the largest leatherback sea turtle nesting concentrations on the West African coast. Akanda National Park provides flamingo, pelican, and African River Martin photography within 30 minutes of the capital.