National park of Niokolo-Koba

The National park of Niokolo-Koba (PNNK) is a National park located at 650 km in the east of Dakar in the area of Tambacounda in the south-east of the Senegal close to the border Guinea.

History

Hunting preserve starting from 1926, then forest classified in 1951, reserve faunal in 1953, Niokolo-Koba obtained the statute of national park in 1954.

Admittedly, of the enlargings intervened in 1962, 1965, 1968 and 1969, but the accession of the country to independence having caused other governmental priorities, certain zones were left with the abandonment and the poaching became extensive.

Since 1981 the park is reproduced at the same time on the list of the World heritage of UNESCO and on that of the World network of the reserves of biosphere (M.A.B).

From the Years 1990, a collaboration followed between the Management of the national parks of Senegal and ORSTOM - become IRD (Research institute for the development) in the interval - allows in particular the annual enumeration of the animals present in the park.

In addition an ambitious programme of regrouping with the National park of Badiar, an protected area bordering located in Guinea, led to the new denomination currently in force, the " Complex ecological of Niokolo-Badiar".

Geography

The Fleuve Gambia runs through the National park like its two affluents: the river Koulountou and the river Niokolo Koba which gave its name to the park.

The relief of the park is rather flat with an altitude from 16 to 311 meters. The Mont Assirik is the culminating point. Immense plains, sometimes marshy in season of rain, separate from small hills of hardly 200 meters.
The relief becomes more broken in the extreme south-east on the buttresses of the mountainous solid mass of Fouta-Djalon where are born the rivers Niger, Senegal and Gambia. These buttresses form a natural border between the Senegal and the Guinea Conacry.

The pond of Simenti is only permanent park and attracts the animals of savanna which water themselves of a very salted water and are rolled in mud.

Fauna and flora

It is known for its very rich fauna with close to:

80 species of Mammalian S: elephant, Lion, leopard, Panther, Lycaon, Chimpanzee, Baboon, Hippopotamus and the éland of Derby (or large éland), Buffalo, Hippotrague, Colobe bai, kobus (cobe defassa), Sylvicapre de Grimm, etc
several reptiles: Varan of the Nile, tortoise, Crocodile of the Nile
330 species of birds: greater bustard, crowned Crane, calao terrestrial, martial Eagle, juggler, widowed Dendrocygne, etc

The flora consists of nearly 1500 species of plants:

trees: Baobab tree, néré ( Parkia biglobosa ), caïlcédrat, Rônier, etc

This park is composed of wooded savanna soudanienne where the bushes and the baobab trees dominate, of a dry forest as well as riparian forest (78% of the forests galleries of the country) and grassy formations in the floodplains.

The last elephants of the Senegal are on the Mont Assirik. After years of poaching and the very hard dryness of the Eighties, these elephants manage with difficulty to renew themselves gradually. They are under brought closer protection and are followed regularly.

The last élands of Derby also find refuge on the Mont Assirik. It is largest antelope of the world and can reach the weight of a ton.

See too

Literature and cinema

This exceptional and a little mysterious site did not fail to inspire arts and the letters.

In 1968, several scenes of film Franco-British the Star of the south , inspired of a novel of Jules Verne and interpreted by Ursula Andress, George Segal and Orson Welles (in the role of malicious), were turned in the park. With this occasion, a suspended bridge was built above the river “Niokolo-Koba”. The film did not make date in the history of the cinema, but the bridge always exists, allowing the crossing of four people to the maximum.
the Grigri of Niokolo-Koba is the title of an album of Cartoon of the series the adventures of Spirou and Fantasio , left in 1974.

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