All activities / Wildlife Safaris / Lope National Park
Wildlife Safaris in Lope National Park
A forest-and-savanna mosaic in the centre of Gabon, a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the few places on earth to see giant hordes of mandrills, alongside forest elephants, buffalo and lowland gorillas.
Why here
Lope is where you go to see mandrills, the huge, blue-and-red-faced forest monkeys that gather here in the largest groups of any primate on the planet, hordes that can number several hundred and occasionally over a thousand animals. Unlike the deep-forest parks, Lope is a mosaic of savanna and rainforest, so wildlife spills into the open and can actually be watched: mandrills, forest elephants, buffalo, sun-tailed monkeys and, with patience, lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. Researchers have studied this fauna continuously from the SEGC field station since 1983, and that long science presence is now the backbone of a small ecoguide tourism programme that walks visitors to radio-collared mandrill hordes and uses portable hides to watch them undisturbed. UNESCO inscribed Lope in 2007 as the Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape of Lope-Okanda, recognising both the wildlife and thousands of years of human history, from ancient iron-working to rock art, layered across the same hills.
Best months
The long dry season from June to September gives the firmest tracks and the best mandrill viewing, though the horde's movements are followed by researchers rather than fixed, so sightings depend on where the collared animals are that week. Mandrill trekking starts and ends at the SEGC research station and can take four to six hours over hilly, humid terrain. Elephants and buffalo are seen year-round on the savanna edges.
Getting there & around
Lope is one of the easier Gabonese parks to reach, connected to Libreville by the Trans-Gabon railway, with a station near the park and lodges nearby; there is also an airstrip. Mandrill trekking permits and ecoguides are arranged through the park and its research station in advance, and numbers are capped. Bring good walking shoes, rain protection and insect cover for wet, hilly forest. An e-visa is required for most visitors; check your government advisory for Gabon before travel.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (1)
WCS Gabon
OrganizerWCS Gabon is the country programme of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which in October 2025 signed a co-management agreement with Gabon's national parks agency for Lope, Loango, Ivindo and Mayumba. At Lope it built the mandrill tourism programme around the SEGC research station, operating since 1983, training local ecoguides and using portable hides so small groups can approach the park's radio-collared mandrill hordes, forest elephants and buffalo without disturbing them.