Korup National Park, Cameroon Photograph by © WWF-Canon/Mauri RAUTKARI   Western Africa: Coastal parts of Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, and Nigeria Tropical and Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests   20,200 square miles (52,200 square kilometers) -- about twice the size of Maryland Vulnerable

· Wettest Forests in Africa
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
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Wettest Forests in Africa

The Cross-Sanaga-Bioko Coastal Forest ecoregion is one of Africa’s richest in forest bird diversity. This exceptional species richness extends to plants as well. In fact, these lush forests are home to half of the endemic plants of west tropical Africa, including six whole families of plants that are found only in tropical Africa. These plants are well nourished by heavy, year-round rainfall. Some areas receive as much as 400 inches (10,000 mm) per year and the humidity is always close to 100 percent. The forests also are home to lowland gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, and even forest elephants.

Special Features

There are 3,000 to 3,500 endemic West African plants found in this ecoregion. Some of the plants here show similarities to those in the forests of South America, suggesting that these species have been around since before the separation of Gondwanaland into the continents of Africa and South America more than 100 million years ago!

	The Central African Goliath frog, which lives in this ecoregion, is as big as a human infant!

Wild Side

From the spectacular, creamy white Charaxes superbus to the strong-flying Charaxes acraeoides, there are more butterfly species in this ecoregion and the adjacent areas than in any other forests in Africa. In these dense and lush forests you might find a chimpanzee using a blade of grass to fish termites from a mound or a lowland gorilla nibbling on leaves. Oil palms line the rivers, their nuts yielding an important food source for local people. An abundance of monkeys, such as Preuss’s red colobus and drill, swing in the branches of large cassia trees. As forest elephants march through the forests, they create paths used by many other species, including antelopes such as blue duikers, yellow-backed duikers, and bushbucks.

Cause for Concern

Commercial logging and agriculture are the greatest threats to the Cross-Sanaga-Bioko Coastal Forest ecoregion. In addition, bushmeat hunting of large mammal species including antelopes, monkeys, chimpanzees, and gorillas is a growing problem. In some areas, this trade is fully commercialized and is the major source of protein for nearby towns. In other areas, lowland gorillas are hunted for their supposed magical and medicinal properties. There is also pressure to establish teak, rubber, wood pulp, oil palm, and banana plantations in the forest zone of Nigeria.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.