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Jasper Doest

A hungry elephant is caught by an infrared camera raiding a patch of spinach and sorrel in Pascal Mambwete’s backyard garden near the park. As settlements expand into areas traversed by elephants, the gardens are a tempting source of needed nutrition.

Dressed in a pink hoodie, a scarecrow wards off crop-raiding animals on a plantation near Mikongo, one of six villages inside the park. People living close to the protected animals would like more help from Gabon’s government to prevent the destruction of their crops.

Albertine Idjando Loko, who lives in the town of Lopé, works on her plantation, which, unlike most backyard gardens, is protected by a fence. It keeps elephants out but not monkeys. Protecting people’s crops and livelihoods, park officials say, makes poaching less appealing.

Landry Babenangoye, head of Lopé’s anti-poaching efforts, cradles tusks removed from a dozen elephants hit and killed by trains in 2021. The ivory is collected from slain elephants to prevent it from reaching the market.

An enraged elephant tries to defend itself after it was hit by a train that crosses paths the animals use. Elephants are known to freeze on the tracks. Park officials decided this one was too severely wounded to be saved. After it was killed, the park director distributed the meat to people in the area.

In a plop of elephant dung, a Detarium macrocarpum seedling sprouts. Forest elephants are the main way seeds are dispersed in African rainforests. The animals travel long distances in search of food and leave their seed-riddled poop along the way, fertilizing future trees.

A park employee measures the circumference of some elephant dung as part of a study to assess how climate change is affecting the diet of forest elephants. After the dung’s volume is recorded, it’s dunked in a river to help field researchers separate the seeds, which will be used to determine what the elephant ate.

A baby elephant walks with its family on one of many paths that generations of forest elephants have cut through the rainforest, leading from tree to fruit-bearing tree. Elephants pass on the knowledge of what to forage, where to find it, and when it’s likely to be ripe.

Edmond Dimoto, assisted by Lisa-Laure Ndindiwe Malata, surveys the flowers, fruits, and leaves of a tree in Lopé. For 25 years, he has hiked in the forest nearly every month to help create the longest continuous study of tropical trees in Africa.

The doughnut-shaped fruit of the Omphalocarpum procerum grows on its branches and trunk, which is common for rainforest trees. Scientists believe it’s an adaptation to promote pollination by insects, such as ants, found in the trees.