Nouabalé-Ndoki: The Congo Basin Park That Went a Year Without Elephant Poaching

Created in 1993 with WCS support, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo protects a block of Congo Basin rainforest that grew to 4,334 km² in 2023 with the addition of the gorilla-rich, previously unlogged Djéké Triangle. WCS manages the park under a public-private partnership with the Congolese government through 2038, running ranger patrols, control rooms, and wildlife-crime units to counter armed cross-border poaching gangs. Five-yearly landscape surveys estimate roughly 3,200 forest elephants and 2,200 western lowland gorillas living inside the park, with populations remaining stable thanks to sustained law enforcement. That enforcement paid off in 2023, the park's 30th anniversary year, when for the first time on record no elephant poaching was detected inside its boundaries.