Chinko Nature Reserve

Project Overview

Chinko is a rare and extraordinary meeting of forest and savanna, and home to unique and endangered species. But decades of political and civil unrest have left these important landscapes vulnerable to deforestation and poaching. African Forest Elephants (CR), African Wild Dogs (EN), Eastern Chimpanzees (EN), and a substantial population of Lions (VU) all thrive in the richly biodiverse ecosystems of Chinko.

Despite the rich biodiversity and ecological significance of Chinko, conservation efforts are often extremely difficult due to the country’s instability. Without formal protection, pastoralist communities have roamed freely, converting lands to cattle pasture and poaching wildlife.

There is a small window of opportunity to legally declare this landscape as a National Park. So in collaboration with Rainforest Trust and our local partner, African Parks, we have teamed up to conserve this landscape and ensure its long-term protection through sustainable management and the rehabilitation of damaged land. African Parks will deploy park guards to intercept pastoralist herders before they reach the park and guide them along specialized corridors to ensure they have access to outside lands for their livestock to feed. The protected area will also significantly expand protection to a massive wilderness that stretches across CAR and South Sudan.

Fact Sheet

Country: Central African Republic

Species at risk: 4

Acres Saved: 5,182

Trees Saved: 3,622,559

Tonnes of CO2 eq. Stored: 463,577

In collaboration with African Parks Network

Our local partner, African Parks is a non-profit organization that takes on direct responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of national parks in partnership with governments and local communities. By adopting a business approach to conservation, supported by donor funding, they aim to make each park sustainable in the long-term, thereby contributing to economic development and poverty alleviation. They currently manage eight parks in seven countries – CAR, Chad, Congo, DRC, Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia – with a combined area of 5.9 million hectares.