By Hervé Bar

“The most dangerous animal here is man,” warns the patrol leader who tracks down poachers and gold miners in Comoé National Park, one of the largest in West Africa. Abandoned and ransacked during the political and military crisis that plunged Ivory Coast into chaos from 2002 to 2011, Comoé National Park is slowly coming back to life in this region, which has been brought back under the control of the authorities. But it remains threatened by human predation.

During a rare mission to this remote northeastern corner of Côte d’Ivoire, bordering war-torn Burkina Faso, a team was able to explore this immense, enchanting, almost untouched savanna, which covers an area one-third the size of Belgium.

Vultures and bicycle tracks –

There, under the blazing sun, they encountered herds of curious antelopes, clans of baboons barking like dogs, and families of warthogs sniffing the dirt tracks with their snouts.

“We see a lot of animals, the park is doing better,” Lieutenant Daouda Bamba, head of a patrol of ten guards from the OIPR, a paramilitary corps whose mission is to “track down and crack down on anyone who attacks the park,” told us.

“Since we stepped up our efforts in 2016, the animals have been at peace. They don’t flee systematically, which is a sign that they are no longer being hunted,” observes this Water and Forestry officer, Kalashnikov at his side.

Each in their own tent, the men camp in the tall grass. Their camouflaged uniforms smell of campfire, and breakfast of sardines is being prepared in the mess tin.

A sergeant tinkers with his drone, a “very valuable aid” for detecting any human presence. The guards carry batons and tear gas canisters on their belts. “When we catch intruders, it often leads to a fight.”

“Walking is our daily routine. We look for smoke from a fire, traces of bicycles or motorcycles. Or vultures circling overhead,” explains Lieutenant Bamba.

“There are three major threats to the park,” he explains: “poaching, illegal gold mining, and illegal grazing.”

Covering 1.14 million hectares (11,500 km²), Comoé, named after the river that flows through it for 230 km from west to east, is one of the largest parks in West Africa.

With its exceptional biodiversity, the reserve, created in 1926 and designated a national park in 1968, has long rivaled the most beautiful parks on the African continent.

“We had a wonderful time here. The wildlife was magnificent,” recalls Raynald Gilon, a former Belgian commando, iconic park ranger, and guardian angel for more than 30 years, his voice trembling. “Every day we saw animals in abundance.”

Elephants, lions, leopards, hyenas, hippopotamuses, buffaloes, various antelopes (wildebeests, red hartebeests, Buffon’s cobes), Nile crocodiles, fish eagles… attracted “6,000 to 7,000 tourists each season, most of them Europeans who arrived here by plane from all over the sub-region.”

In the small, dusty town of Kafolo, at the northwestern tip of the park, the Kafolo Safari Lodge, with its crumbling stone entrance towers and abandoned blue-bottomed swimming pool, still bears witness to this bygone golden age.

The six-hectare site, which had long been virtually abandoned, is now occupied by employees of a road construction company.

The Ivorian crisis took its toll. From 2002 onwards, the park was in the midst of territories controlled by rebels attempting to overthrow President Laurent Gbagbo.

The guards had to leave the premises, and the entire Comoé was left open to the four winds, at the mercy of poachers, gold miners, farmers… “It was a massacre, total destruction,” Raynald growls. “Everyone was looting, including the rebels who claimed to be protecting it!”

“Comoé almost died,” the old bushman laments. In a sad omen, the park was added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger in 2003.

– Insatiable “greed” –

With the crisis over, President Alassane Ouattara’s new administration is attempting to regain control of the situation. The government is working on a “vast emergency security project” and is investing heavily in training officers, mobile anti-poaching units, and the purchase of equipment.

“All of this allows us to really monitor the park and restore peace and quiet for the wildlife,” says Commander Henri Tra Bi Zah, one of the park’s managers.

These efforts were rewarded in 2017 when Comoé was removed from UNESCO’s endangered list, a first for an African park.

Today, various inventories show a “gradual increase in wildlife” and a “recovery trend,” according to the IUCN.

Three herds of elephants have been spotted, totaling nearly 200 individuals. Chimpanzees have returned. Lions and wild dogs are considered extinct, but leopards, spotted hyenas, and caracals are common. Antelopes number in the thousands, and buffalo are estimated to number 3,000.

However, it is necessary to venture dozens of kilometers deep into the savanna and sometimes face swarms of tsetse flies to hope to see one of these animals, mainly antelopes, as we have observed.

Comoé “is still coveted because it is rich in resources,” warns Commander Tra Bi Zah, who says that gold panning, “the biggest problem,” is “under control.”

– Tourists soon?

The park boundaries seem to be respected by the villagers. “We really don’t go in there. If you’re caught there, you go straight to prison,” says a farmer from Bambéla, sitting in front of his hut, a few meters from the edge of the savannah.

In 2024, 125 people, including 105 gold miners and 18 poachers, were arrested in the park, according to the OIPR, which has a total of 160 agents in the field.

The park is located in the immediate vicinity of the troubled border with Burkina Faso. No jihadists have been arrested or even spotted there recently, according to security sources interviewed .

The department of Bounkani is classified as “red” by Western chancelleries, much to the regret of the OIPR, which would like to revive local tourism by making the park a “strong link in the socio-economic development” of northeastern Côte d’Ivoire.

In Kafolo, a new hotel, with hunting trophies from the glory years hanging on the walls, welcomes NGOs, construction executives, and the occasional foreigner passing through.

“The park is struggling to recover from the disaster. (…) The revival is fragile,” says local MP Abdoulaye Karim Diomandé. “But there are good prospects,” he wants to believe.

Humaniterre with AFP