Ecosystem and Relict Cultural Landscape of Lopé-Okanda
The Lope-Okanda Ecosystem and Cultural Site demonstrates an unusual interface between dense and well-preserved tropical rainforest and remnant savannah environments, rich in species, including endangered large mammals and habitats. The site demonstrates ecological and biological processes by which species and habitats adapted to post-glacial climate change. It contains evidence of successive migrations of different peoples who left behind a wealth of well-preserved remains of habitation on mountaintops, in caves and around shelters, evidence of iron working, and some 1,800 remarkable petroglyphs (rock engravings). The property's Neolithic and Iron Age sites and the rock art found there reflect a major migration route of Bantu and other peoples from West Africa along the Ogowe River Valley to the north in the dense evergreen Congo forests and east-central and southern Africa, a route that shaped the development of all of sub-Saharan Africa.