Central Africa Program

The tropical forests of the Central African countries of Gabon, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea contain some of the largest contiguous undisturbed blocks of closed canopy habitat in tropical Africa. Documenting the biodiversity of this vast region poses enormous challenges.

Gabon alone contains as many as 7,000 plant species, with an estimated plant endemism rate of 10–13%. Though much work has been done over the past 30 years in cataloging the composition and distribution of the flora of Gabon, an enormous task remains. Only about 65,000 collections have been made of the estimated 200,000 specimens needed to catalogue Gabon's biodiversity. Collecting density maps of Gabon show large expanses of unexplored, remote terrain, indicating that many new plant species remain to be discovered.

In September 2002, in an unprecedented act of conservation, Gabon set aside 11% of the country as 13 national parks. In order to develop science-based management plans for the parks, there was an urgent need for well-designed and thorough biodiversity inventories. Immediately after the political declaration, priority conservation goals were to build capacity among local scientific institutions, to identify, target and recommend specific areas for special conservation concern, to collect baseline data, and to provide training programs for the sustainable management of the park system.