Information
Republic of Congo
Republic of Congo is situated in Central Africa, with a little smaller land area than Japan. The estimated population in 2004 is 3,000,000, which is less than one forty seconds of the population of Japan. Besides French as an official language, many other languages such as Lingala, Monokutuba, Kikongo, etc. are spoken. Primary industry is oil. (Source: CIA-The World Factbook)
Congo which is often reported in the media with regard to UNPKO is a neibouring country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire). In Republic of Congo, there has been no big conflict after the civil war in 1997.
Odzala
National Park
(Parc National d'Odzala-Kokoua)
Odzala National Park is located in the northwest of Congo, 500 km from the capital Brazzaville. Ministry of Forest and Economy is managing the park with ECOFAC, a conservation and development project funded by European Union. The area is 13,540km2, which is 6.4 times as large as Metropolis of Tokyo.
To go to Congo
from Japan, you fly to Brazzaville via Europe (Paris) or South Africa.
From Brazzaville, two hours' fly by a chartered plane, or two days' drive
takes you to Odzala. There is another route from Gabon.
For several hours from the capital, comfortable paved roads continue, with little traffic. (left photo)
In approaching Odzala, roads are covered with tree leaves, full of bumps and potholes. (right photo)
Tourism
In order to see wildlife, you need to take a motorized
dug-out canoe from Mboko, the base camp of the park, and go along the
rivers to clearings called 'bais' or 'saline'. In some viewing points,
there are simple tented lodges.
Animals to be seen
lowland gorilla, forest elephant, sitatunga, black and
white colobus, spotted hyena, giant forest fog, red bush pig, forest buffalo
Village
Mbomo
Mbomo is located on the southwestern border of the park.
There is a district office of Mbomo, which belongs to Cuvette West Region.
The population is about 3,800 in 2002. There is a headquarter office of
the park,
About
this site
This web site was produced by a Japanese independent researcher
Mikiko Hagiwara, who conducted a research on human-elephant conflict in
Mbomo from November 2003 to December 2004, funded by the US Fish and Wildlife
Service Elephant Conservation Fund. The photos were taken during this
period, and texts are based on her experience.
The website producer thanks to those who appear in this site for their
cooperation. They are villagers of Mbomo and I know all of them. Matondo
mingui!
The producer of the site holds the copyright of all the photos, and is
responsible for the contents of the texts.
