Evengue is a small Island (2 km²) in the Fernan Vaz Lagoon, 10 km south-east of the town of Omboue.
Here, there is a gorilla sanctuary and a centre of their reintroduction. A part of this population can be seen in natural conditions. Watching them is truly exciting. They are majestic, human-like and gorgeous. Their ways of behaving are very similar to ours and their look deeply touches a heart.
Loango National Park is a national park in western Gabon. It protects diverse coastal habitat, including part of the 220 km² Iguéla Lagoon, the only significant example of a typical western African lagoon system that is protected within a national park.
Situated between the Nkomi and Ndogo Lagoons, Loango National Park is the true jewel of Africa’s western coast. The naturalist Mike Fay called Loango ‘Africa’s Last Eden’ and this is where Michael “Nick” Nichols from National Geographic also took his well-known pictures of surfing hippos. Both men call Loango the ‘Land of surfing hippos’. The park’s 1,550 km of savanna, pristine beach, forest and mangroves are a must-see in Gabon. Loango National Park offers breathtaking panoramas and the unique opportunity to observe elephants, buffalos, hippos, gorillas and leopards venturing onto the white sand beaches.
After South Africa, the world’s largest concentration and variety of whales and dolphins can be found right off the Loango coast. The area has over 100 kilometres of uninhabited coastline and humpback and killer whales are easy to observe here. This is the most beautiful spot on Africa’s western coast – the place where forests, savannas, wetlands, lagoons and ocean all come together. Loango is renowned worldwide as a site for tarpon of record size, as well as many other large saltwater fish.
Gabon is a country in west central Africa sharing borders with the Gulf of Guinea to the west, Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, and Cameroon to the north, with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. Its size is almost 270,000 km² with an estimated population of 1,500,000. The capital and largest city is Libreville. Since its independence from France on August 17, 1960, the Republic has been ruled by three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions. The small population together with abundant natural resources and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in the region, with the highest HDI in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The earliest inhabitants of the area were Pygmy peoples. They were largely replaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes as they migrated.
In the 15th century, the first Europeans arrived. The nation’s present name originates from “Gabão”, Portuguese for “cloac”, which is roughly the shape of the estuary of the Komo River by Libreville.