Bénoué National Park
Savanna and gallery forest along the Bénoué River — lions, hippos and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
History
Bénoué National Park protects about 1,800 km² of Sudano-Guinean savanna and riverside gallery forest along the Bénoué River, whose waters eventually cross into Nigeria to feed the Niger. Established in 1968 and named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1981, it is one of a cluster of parks in the North Region — alongside Faro and Bouba Njida — that historically drew big-game hunting concessions and now increasingly draws photographic safari visitors to see its lions, hippos, elephants and Kob antelope.
Beyond the facts
Culture & traditions
A living tradition or belief tied to the place, distinct from its recorded history.
The North Region around Bénoué is Fulani (Peul) country, where transhumant cattle-herding routes have crossed this land for centuries and still brush against the park's boundaries during the dry season. Customary authority here runs through Lamidats — Fulani sultanates such as the powerful Rey Bouba lamidat nearby — whose Lamidos hold real standing over local land and community affairs alongside the modern Cameroonian state, a parallel system of governance that predates the park by well over a century.