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Expedition Diary - Congo Basin

Education for Nature

Judith Mashinya
© WWF

Conserving the Congo: Education for Nature

For almost 15 years, WWF’s Education for Nature (EFN) Program has been equipping conservation leaders with the training and practical experience to take on challenges in their home countries. Follow Judith Mashinya of WWF’s EFN Program as she travels through the Congo Basin to visit conservationists supported by WWF. Along the way, she travels across lagoons teeming with crocodiles and learns how to avoid a buffalo attack.

I photographed these two elephants walking along the beach in Gabon’s southern Loango National Park. On one side is the tropical rainforest and on the other is the Atlantic Ocean.
© WWF/Judith Mashinya

Part 8: Face to face

Before we set out today our guide briefed us on safety issues, including how to respond if we happened to come face-to-face with gorillas, elephants or buffalo. In the case of a gorilla encounter, he told us not to look the animal in the eye but instead to look down and avoid challenging gestures. If charged by a buffalo, we were to try and hide behind a large tree. I love seeing animals but I also hoped there would be no occasion where we would have to practice these responses.

We walked in thick rainforest for seven kilometers. We heard many birds and even spotted a couple of small antelopes called duikers. We heard the calls of gorillas, although we were not close enough to see them. We emerged from the forest onto a beautiful white sand beach with no one in sight but recent footprints of wild animals on the sand. Unfortunately, despite the isolation, there was lots of trash—mostly plastic bottles, food containers, and beach shoes—that had washed up all along the beach. We found bottles from South Africa, Togo, the Canary Islands and other far away places.

After lunch we walked the last five kilometers along the beach and came upon two elephants. It was an amazing sight—I had seen many elephants in the wild but never on a beach! Fortunately we were downwind so we were able to approach them within about 100 yards. It was a good day for wildlife viewing.