Korupt?

Korup National Park, located in the anglophone Southwest Province, is what I imagine my own environment might look like if the hillsides were not currently brimming over with coffee farms and oil palm cultures or other similar signs of human habitation.

Traveling along the paved road, just until Loum in the Littoral Province, before turning down a bumpy, dirt road towards the the anglophone border and the provincial hotspot of Kumba, the farming culture was actually quite intense, including monocultures of banana/plantains, papaya and even thin, leaning corridors of African rubber trees.

We were only able to reach Kumba by dusk, and spent a night in a cheap and clean hotel, waking before sunrise to catch a cab to the park office and south entrance in Mudemba. A small taxi was quickly loaded with six passengers of disproportionate size. We were luckily transferred to a more equitably distributed car halfway to Mudemba and made good time, arriving at the park office and negotiating a guide before being dropped off 10km through palm plantations at the park entrance. A wide, rushing river separated the oil palms from the park, and was accessible only by a crickety suspension bridge, with cracks wide enough between the wooden planks to get a good idea of the menacing fall bellow and no guard rails.

Once across the bridge, our guide took off at the pace of someone who steps frequently into an old growth tropical rainforest. I was, however, more content to linger behind, gawking at the size and convoluted limbs of the massive lowland, canopy trees.

Dangling curtains of prospecting strangler fig roots brushed our foreheads and obstructive liana lattices left us crawling awkwardly with our bulky sacs.

After setting up camp in preconstructed cabins, we headed towards a nearby waterfall. Though it was still early afternoon, the canopy kept our stroll shady. Presence of troops of leaping monkeys were betrayed by the rustlings between the dense blanket of interconnected branches and vines. Occasional grey parrots whistled on the other side of the protective layer along with the whooshing slice of hornbill wings taking flight.

We arrived at the waterfall just before it started raining, so we started back in the light sprinkle and prepared beans and rice in the sheltered kitchen.

The second day we hiked with our packs to 'chimpanzee camp' about 11km up from our first camp. Korup's reputation for fungal diversity and big trees was clear, but as for its rich animal diversity and being home to more than 50 species of large mammals, including the highly endangered and endemic to Cameroon, Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus),I can offer no testimony.

Korup is the first park to have been established in Cameroon, back in 1986, when Paul Biya was just commencing his presidency. Establishment of the boundaries called for displacement of existing villages, and WWFs involvement brought in stricter enforcement of rules and regulations regarding hunting rights and regulations. To this day there are still some settlements that exist within the park boundaries, though I am not sure of any of the details regarding their states of development or projected plans. WWF is also no longer directly involved in the management of the park. Located flush with the Nigerian border, the park is also rumored to be a route of passage for poachers and illegal border crossing. The dense vegetation of a rainforest is also not the most optimal for surprising animals. There are so many places to hide, but we still saw signs of forest elephant tracks and scats next to their trails.

I was however, tired and satisfied upon reaching the Chimpanzee camp, but a bit disappointed to find that we would be sharing the premises with 20 Cameroonian students, conducting a study for the Smithsonian, which involved measuring DBH of selected tree species.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hiking out to a lookout point up a near but steep incline to get a more panoramic view of the entirety of the forest, and a hazy view into Nigeria.

By the time we got back to camp the researchers had also returned and were enjoying an evening of washing laundry in the river, singing songs and playing soccer. What little hopes we still had of wildlife viewings, were completely dashed.

We made it back to the precarious bridge by 10am the next morning and after spending several hours in the Mudemba car park, were on our way back to Kumba. This time, however, the ride was not so quick, as the driver had many errands to run, including buying and transporting barrels of moonshine and bushels of plantains along the way. We reached Kumba by dark, and headed to Limbe the next day for a day of black sand, sunshine and subtle waves.