Kyle de Nobrega recently returned from a trip guiding clients in the lowland rainforests of the Congo Basin. As is usually the case for a rare journey of this type, Kyle and his guests push the travel envelope, exploring Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in northern Republic of the Congo along the Sangha River and sleeping out above the legendary Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic.
Africa is the longest-inhabited and second-largest continent made up of 54 recognised countries with over 1.2 billion people. Its diverse landscapes of rainforest, savannah, lakes and coast, highlands, and desert, host a quarter of the world’s mammal species, a fifth of its bird species and eight of the 36 recognised global biodiversity hotspots. Home to much of this biodiversity is the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest region, the Congo Basin, which stretches across 10 countries in central and western Africa and provides shelter and livelihoods for millions of people. The rainforests here are extraordinary in their sheer size and in their abundance of endemic species of plant, insect and wildlife.