Parc national de la Pendjari: Mapping Protected Savanna Landscapes and Atacora Mountain Geography

Pendjari is best known as one of the last and largest strongholds of West African savanna wildlife, especially for its viable populations of elephants, hippopotamus, buffalo and lions, and above all for its cheetahs, which are the park’s emblem species and are relatively easy to observe in the open grasslands along the Pendjari River. It is equally known for being part of the W-Arly-Pendjari complex, the single most important transfrontier protected landscape in West Africa, and for its dramatic scenery where flat sandstone plains meet the quartzite ridges of the Atacora Mountains and the permanent waters of the Pendjari River.

The history of Pendjari National Park dates back to the colonial era, when the area was first used as a hunting ground by the French administration. In 1954 it was given formal protection as a partial fauna reserve in the Pendjari loop, then upgraded to a total fauna reserve the following year; the Pendjari and Atacora game zones were created in 1959. In 1961 the reserve became Pendjari National Park, the foundation of the present-day protected area.

A new layer of recognition came in 1986, when UNESCO designated the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve under its Man and the Biosphere programme. The biosphere reserve encompasses the park itself as well as surrounding hunting zones and a buffer zone, and later became the foundation for a much larger transfrontier initiative. In 1996 Benin established the Centre National de Gestion des Réserves de Faune (CENAGREF) to manage both the Pendjari and W protected areas, accompanied at the same time by the creation of village associations (AVIGREF) that link surrounding communities to reserve management.

In 2007 the Pendjari River valley was recognized as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. In 2009 Benin formally submitted a candidacy file to UNESCO for World Heritage status, which was ultimately successful on 7 July 2017, when the park was inscribed as part of the W-Arly-Pendjari transnational World Heritage Site, acknowledging the area’s outstanding ecological processes and biodiversity under natural criteria (ix) and (x). In October 2020 the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve merged with neighbouring biosphere reserves in Burkina Faso and Niger to create the WAP transboundary biosphere reserve, covering more than 94,000 square kilometers.

A particularly important chapter began in 2017, when the government of Benin signed a partnership with African Parks to rehabilitate Pendjari, with the stated aim of roughly doubling wildlife populations within a decade, developing responsible tourism, strengthening the park’s profile as a destination, and delivering conservation-linked economic and social benefits to local communities. A major funding partnership of about 23 million US dollars was announced in January 2018, bringing in supporters such as the Wyss Foundation, National Geographic Partners and the Wildcat Foundation. The park was also affected by regional insecurity: on 1 May 2019 two French tourists were kidnapped inside the park by a jihadist group, after which the French foreign ministry formally advised against travel to the area, classifying the park as a red zone.

The landscape of Pendjari is defined by a striking contrast between flat plains and abrupt mountain edges. Most of the park sits on a sandstone and shale peneplain whose elevation varies between roughly 105 and 200 meters; because the bedrock is largely impermeable, the plain becomes heavily waterlogged in the rainy season and remains dotted with pools and marshes well into the dry period. To the south, the plain is bounded by the quartzite chain of the Atacora, which climbs to between approximately 400 and 513 meters and gives the landscape its dramatic southern skyline. A second, smaller ridge called the Buem runs roughly parallel to the Atacora within the park itself, adding further vertical relief.

Water shapes the scenery at least as much as the rocks do. The Pendjari River, the only permanent surface water in the park, flows through the area for around 200 of its roughly 300 kilometers, carving the landscape along the northern and eastern boundaries. During the dry season it breaks into a series of pools, but several key waterbodies remain wet year round. Among these, Mare Bali in the central savanna is the most important for wildlife viewing; other notable pools and marshes include Mare Sacrée, Yangouali, Tiabiga, and Diwouni. Together with the gallery forests that follow the river and the seasonal flooding on the plain, these wetlands create a park that feels greener and more dynamic than the surrounding Sahel.

Pendjari protects a remarkably intact mosaic of Sudano-Sahelian vegetation. Around 241 species of vascular plants in 53 families have been recorded on the site, distributed across seven to nine main vegetation formations depending on classification. These include riverine forests dominated by species such as Parinari congensis and Pterocarpus santalinoides, gallery forests of Khaya senegalensis and Vitex chrysocarpa along the waterways, dry dense forests of Anogeissus leiocarpus and Diospyros mespiliformis, open woodlands with Daniellia oliveri, wooded savanna rich in Combretum and Pterocarpus erinaceus, and various open savanna types ranging from tree savanna down to shrub and saxicolous savanna. Seasonally flooded marshy savanna, often featuring Terminalia macroptera, Mitragyna inermis and Acacia sieberiana, occupies the lowest, wettest areas of the plain.

Beyond its native vegetation, the landscape carries traces of older human use. Along the Pendjari River and the Atacora cliffs, mature specimens of African baobab (Adansonia digitata), African birch (Anogeissus leiocarpus), shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) and néré (Parkia biglobosa) indicate sites of former villages and fields, predating the reserve and lending the park a subtle cultural-vegetation overlap with the surrounding Atacora region. The combination of permanent water, varied soils and a wide gradient from valley bottom to rocky ridge gives Pendjari an unusually complete spectrum of West African Sudano-Sahelian habitats within a single protected landscape.

The wildlife of Pendjari is what distinguishes it from most other protected areas in West Africa. Among the large herbivores, African elephants are a major attraction, representing the West African savanna elephant, whose tusks tend to be slightly shorter than those of East African populations. Hippopotamus are abundant in the river and larger pools, while African buffalo form large herds, especially around the permanent marshes. The antelope community is exceptionally rich: topi (often called damalisque in French sources), roan antelope, Buffon’s kob, Defassa waterbuck (also called sing-sing), hartebeest and various smaller species occupy different combinations of savanna and wetland.

Carnivores are equally well represented. Lions are present in smaller numbers than in some East African parks, with roughly fifty individuals, which is thought to reflect competition from a large suite of other predators. Pendjari’s lions are notable among West African populations for the near absence of manes in adult males. Leopards, spotted hyenas, jackals and African wild dogs share the landscape with the cheetah, which is the park’s emblem species and is most often seen in the open grasslands along the Pendjari River. Reptiles are diverse, with Nile crocodiles, Nile monitors, Senegalese chameleons and agama lizards recorded, alongside a range of frogs and toads associated with the seasonal pools.

Birdlife is rich and varied. The mix of open savanna, riverine forest and permanent wetlands supports raptors such as bateleurs, tawny eagles and hooded vultures, large wading birds including goliath herons, as well as Abdim’s storks, pied kingfishers and small finches such as the red-cheeked cordon-bleu. Pollinators and other insects, including butterflies such as Cyligramma latona and Acraea caecilia, round out one of the most complete and least-degraded savanna faunas left in West Africa.

Pendjari stands at the heart of one of West Africa’s most ambitious conservation stories. It is the core of the Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, designated by UNESCO in 1986, and since 2017 it has been part of the W-Arly-Pendjari World Heritage Site, recognized for both its ecological processes (criterion ix) and its outstanding biodiversity (criterion x). In 2020 the Pendjari biosphere reserve merged with neighbouring reserves in Burkina Faso and Niger to form the WAP transboundary biosphere reserve, a single conservation landscape of more than 94,000 square kilometers.

On the ground, CENAGREF, created in 1996, has long managed the park alongside the W reserve and has worked with village associations (AVIGREF) to involve local communities in protection. Assessments by CENAGREF describe Pendjari and its hunting zones as the least-degraded of Benin’s protected areas, with flora still intact and a fauna that, while reduced, is not yet critically threatened. The park’s relatively low human population density and low demographic pressure have helped keep the ecosystem resilient.

Since 2017, the government of Benin and African Parks have run a partnership rehabilitation program aimed roughly at doubling wildlife populations within a decade, restoring key species, developing responsible tourism and channeling conservation benefits to surrounding communities. Major partners include the Wyss Foundation, National Geographic Partners and the Wildcat Foundation, with a roughly 23 million US dollar support package announced in 2018. By the end of 2020, GPS collars were being fitted to elephants and antelopes with UNESCO support to track movements and reduce human-wildlife conflict. At the same time, the park faces external pressures: agricultural and pastoral encroachment at its edges, poaching in the surrounding hunting zone, and regional insecurity, exemplified by the 2019 kidnapping of two French tourists, which has periodically affected the climate for tourism and visitor access.

While Pendjari is primarily a natural protected area, its landscape carries a long human history. Mature baobabs, shea trees, néré and other useful species along the Pendjari River and the Atacora cliffs mark the sites of former villages and cultivated fields, showing that the area was inhabited and used before the colonial-era hunting reserve was established. Today, local communities in Tanguiéta, Matéri and Kérou continue to live around the park, and the 1996 creation of AVIGREF, the village associations for reserve management, reflects a long-standing effort to integrate the surrounding rural population into conservation decision-making rather than exclude it. The park is also an important symbol of Beninese and West African regional identity, representing the country’s strongest remaining natural heritage landscape and a cornerstone of transboundary cooperation with Burkina Faso and Niger.

Pendjari’s principal highlight is its sheer quality as a West African savanna reserve: large concentrations of elephants, hippopotamus and buffalo, a full carnivore guild with cheetah as the emblem species, and unusually intact Sudano-Sahelian vegetation within a single protected landscape. The dramatic geography, with flat sandstone plains abruptly meeting the Atacora quartzite ridges and the permanent waters of the Pendjari River and pools such as Mare Bali, gives the park a striking visual character unusual in the region. Combined with its status as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve and its transboundary role at the heart of the W-Arly-Pendjari complex, Pendjari offers one of the most complete and ecologically significant wildlife experiences still possible in West Africa.

Park conditions follow a clear three-season rhythm. The rainy season runs from around mid-May to October and brings annual rainfall of roughly 1,000 to 1,100 millimeters, turning the plain into a mosaic of flooded grasslands and filled pools; access can be more difficult but the landscape is at its greenest. From November to February a cool, dry season dominated by the harmattan brings clearer days and easier travel, while March to mid-May is hotter and drier, with temperatures sometimes reaching up to 40 °C, when wildlife concentrates progressively around the remaining water sources. For general viewing, the early dry season offers a balance of good access, milder temperatures and reliable concentrations of animals at permanent water, while the later dry months concentrate wildlife even more tightly but bring greater heat and dust.