A private Gabonese reserve where former mining infrastructure became a haven for great apes, forest wildlife, and savanna mosaic.
Parc de la Lékédi
Parc de la Lékédi is a privately managed natural reserve in southeastern Gabon, in the Haut-Ogooué region. It sits on a sandstone formation roughly 100 km from Franceville and about 50 km from the Congo border, with the nearest town being Bakoumba, just 7 km from its boundary. The reserve covers about 14,000 hectares of fully fenced land that blends savanna, tree savanna, forest, and wetland habitats, with two notable lakes and several rivers running through it.
Unlike most of Gabon's strictly protected national parks, Lékédi is a privately run conservation and resource estate managed by SODEPAL, a company whose majority shareholder is Comilog, the manganese mining subsidiary of the French Eramet group. The reserve is divided into three management modules, each with a different balance of ecosystems and a different management focus. Within these modules roam gorillas, chimpanzees, mandrills, sitatungas, forest buffalo, leopards, and a broad range of birds, all on native Gabonese forest and savanna species, plus a small introduced population of impalas from Namibia.
What makes Lékédi particularly distinctive is its layered mission. Beyond tourism and wildlife conservation, the reserve plays a key role in rehabilitating confiscated great apes, hosts scientific research on primates in collaboration with the CIRMF and CNRS, and operates a large tilapia aquaculture operation that was originally created to preserve local jobs after a mining cable transport ceased operation in 1991.
