Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.
In the Central African Republic, a country often seen mainly through the lens of instability, a different story is unfolding in its southwest.
In March, Mongabay Africa program director David Akana and I spent time in and around Dzanga-Sangha National Park, speaking with researchers, conservationists, community members, and park officials. What we heard was not quite reflected in the usual narrative.
Bayanga, the town at the park’s edge, has seen a modest rise in visitors. Dzanga Bai, where forest elephants gather in high densities within the park, and a population of habituated lowland gorillas, remain the main draws. According to local officials, around 800 tourists visited in 2025, a small figure by global standards, but meaningful locally.
“There is growth,” said Gervais Pamongui, a deputy director of the Dzanga-Sangha Protected Areas. He attributed this to both the site itself and a degree of stability that has held in the region. Others made similar points, though often with caveats.
A tour guide, Léonce Madomi, described the country’s reputation for insecurity as “both true and false,” noting that Bayanga has largely avoided the disruptions seen elsewhere.
Lodges report steadier business. Guides and trackers have more consistent work. Some residents point to income that supports school fees or medical care. Yet the gains are uneven and limited in scale. Tourism employs a narrow slice of the population, and basic constraints remain, from poor roads to food shortages.
The model is still developing. Revenue-sharing arrangements are in place between communities, the park, and government agencies, with the park and its management partners supporting local services, including health facilities and a mobile clinic, a solar farm to supply the town with power, a human rights center, a community radio station, and other services in the surrounding area. There are plans to upgrade Dzanga Bai’s viewing platform. Even so, it is not clear that wildlife tourism alone can support a broader local economy.
For now, Dzanga-Sangha stands as a partial answer to the challenges facing conservation in places with limited economic opportunity. It has created visible benefits, but its future will depend on whether those gains extend beyond the park and into the wider local economy.
Read the full story by David Akana here.
Banner image: Most tourists who travel to the Central African Republic are drawn by the western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Dzanga-Sangha National Park. Image by Rhett A. Butler/ Mongabay.
Facts Only
* Mongabay Africa program director David Akana and another individual visited Dzanga-Sangha National Park in March.
* Visitors to the park are drawn by forest elephants and habituated lowland gorillas.
* Local officials reported around 800 tourists visited in 2025.
* Deputy director Gervais Pamongui attributed growth to the site and regional stability.
* A tour guide noted the country's reputation for insecurity is both true and false regarding Bayanga.
* Lodges report steadier business.
* Guides and trackers have more consistent work.
* Some residents use tourism income for school fees or medical care.
* Revenue-sharing arrangements exist among communities, the park, and government agencies.
* Park management partners support local services such as health facilities, a mobile clinic, a solar farm, a human rights center, and a community radio station.
* Plans exist to upgrade Dzanga Bai’s viewing platform.
Executive Summary
Travel to Dzanga-Sangha National Park in the Central African Republic has seen a modest increase in visitors, with forest elephants and habituated lowland gorillas remaining the main attractions. Local officials reported approximately 800 tourists visited in 2025. While some local officials noted growth due to site stability, other observers provided caveats regarding regional insecurity. Lodges have reported steadier business and more consistent work for guides and trackers, with some residents citing income supporting necessities like school fees or medical care. However, these gains are uneven, as tourism employs a narrow segment of the population, and broader constraints such as poor roads and food shortages persist.
The framework for development involves revenue-sharing arrangements among communities, the park, and government agencies. These arrangements fund local services, including health facilities, a mobile clinic, a solar farm, a human rights center, and a community radio station. Plans are underway to upgrade the viewing platform at Dzanga Bai. Despite these initiatives, it remains unclear whether wildlife tourism alone can establish a wider local economy. Currently, the area serves as a partial solution for conservation challenges in regions lacking economic opportunities, showing visible benefits while future economic integration remains an open question.
Full Take
The narrative surrounding tourism in Dzanga-Sangha reveals a tension between localized conservation success and systemic economic constraints. The fact that visible benefits—like infrastructure projects and local service funding—are being implemented alongside persistent issues like food shortages and poor roads suggests that an externally focused economic activity, even one linked to conservation, functions as a partial palliative rather than a comprehensive solution. This raises the critical question of whether dependence on tourism inadvertently masks deeper structural dependencies or shifts risk without fundamentally altering existing inequalities.
The uneven distribution of benefits highlights a pattern where formal structures (revenue-sharing) coexist uneasily with informal constraints (basic shortages). The focus on creating visible assets (solar farms, clinics) demonstrates an attempt to build resilience from within the conservation framework, yet the concluding assessment points toward an unresolved challenge: whether this specific model can transcend its boundaries to support a broader local economy. This necessitates inquiry into how external economic flows are mediated and what agency remains for communities to shape development independent of conservation mandates.
What is the mechanism by which infrastructural investments translates into sustained economic sovereignty? How do frameworks built around biodiversity, when applied to regions facing deep instability, avoid becoming another form of dependency that reinforces existing power imbalances? What conditions must be met for localized gains in resource management to translate into generalized prosperity beyond immediate service provision?
Sentinel — Human
The text reads like a synthesized report based on direct fieldwork interviews, balancing tourism statistics with complex socio-economic caveats about regional stability and local infrastructure.