Korup National Park

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The Korup National Park is in western Cameroon against the Nigerian border. It has 1259 km² of tropical rainforest known for its high biological diversity, including more than 50 species of large mammals. The national park was established in 1986.

One reason for its importance is that it is in an area which remained rain forest throughout the drying-out periods during the Ice Age when icecap advance caused severe global cooling which caused much tropical rainforest to be replaced by semi-xerophytic scrub or savannah.

The Korup National Park is part of the Korup Project, which also consists of three forest reserves and a park buffer zone for agriculture and rural development. The three forest reserves are called Nita-Ali, Rumpi Hills and Ejagham.

However, the Korup National Park was not set up completely without conflict; the project developers faced friction with the local villagers and had difficulty gaining their trust and co-operation. There are 29 villages in the Korup area, six of them were located in the national park. These six villages had to be relocated to the park buffer zone, which caused considerable anger and resentment amongst the local people.