Taï National Park

Listen first. Before you see anything, the forest reaches you as sound. There is a steady hum of insects and the drip of water from leaves high above. Somewhere far off, a branch cracks. The air is thick, warm and damp, and it smells of wet soil and rotting wood. Underfoot, the ground is soft with fallen leaves. Light arrives in thin green shafts, broken many times on its way down. This is Taï National Park, and you are standing inside one of the last great forests of West Africa.

The park lies in the southwest of Côte d'Ivoire, west of the town of Soubré. The Sassandra River runs past Soubré, and further west, the Cavally River marks the border with Liberia. Between these two rivers lies a block of forest of more than three thousand square kilometres. It is the largest surviving area of primary rainforest in the region. Primary means the forest has never been cleared. The trees around you grew here long before any farm or road.

This forest is part of what scientists call the Upper Guinean forest. That is a belt of rainforest that once stretched along the coast of West Africa, from Guinea through Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire towards Ghana. Over the last century, most of that belt became farmland, timber, and towns. What remains is broken into scattered islands. Taï is the biggest of those islands. For many plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth, this is the main home they have left.

The protection of this place came in stages. The colonial administration first set the area aside as a forest reserve in the early twentieth century. It became a national park in the 1970s. In 1982, UNESCO added Taï to its World Heritage List, recognising its value to the whole world. Later, it was also named a biosphere reserve. These titles are more than labels. They tie the forest to international support, research, and long-term monitoring.

Now, here is the first surprise. The chimpanzees of Taï use tools — and they use them in a way that changed how scientists think about our closest relatives. They crack hard nuts with stones and heavy pieces of wood. They place a nut on a root or a flat rock, which works as an anvil. Then they strike it with a hammer. Young chimpanzees take years to master the skill. Mothers have been observed helping them, adjusting the nut or the grip.

Long-term research on these chimpanzees began in the late 1970s, led by the Swiss primatologist Christophe Boesch. The study continues today and is one of the longest of its kind. Researchers have even dug into the forest floor at old nut-cracking sites. They found broken stones and nut shells that show this behaviour is very old. In other words, chimpanzees here have their own kind of archaeology — a record of culture passed down over many generations.

The chimpanzees are only part of the story. Taï is home to many monkey species, including the Diana monkey, with its white beard and bright chest, and several kinds of colobus. Different monkey groups often travel together for safety. Their alarm calls ring through the canopy when an eagle or a leopard comes near. If you hear a sudden burst of loud calls above you, something has probably alarmed them. Stop, look up, and wait.

Here is the second surprise. This forest shelters the pygmy hippopotamus. It is a shy, rare animal, much smaller than its river cousin, and it lives alone in the forest near streams and swamps. It mostly moves at night, so very few visitors ever see one. The park is also home to forest elephants, leopards, and several kinds of small forest antelope called duikers. Many of these animals are rarely seen. You are more likely to find their tracks in the mud.

The trees deserve attention too. Some rise very high, with wide flat roots called buttresses spreading out from the trunk like walls. These buttresses help hold the tree upright in thin tropical soil. Lianas, which are woody vines, climb towards the light. Mosses, ferns, and fungi cover fallen logs. Rain here is heavy for much of the year, and the forest floor holds that moisture. Everything you see is part of a cycle of growth and decay that never really stops.

The forest also has a place in medical history. In the 1990s, a researcher working with the chimpanzees here fell ill after examining a dead animal. Scientists identified a new type of Ebola virus. It was later named after this forest. The researcher recovered. Since then, health studies of wildlife in Taï have helped scientists understand how diseases move between animals and people. This is one reason visitors are asked to keep their distance from the apes.

The park lives under real pressure. Côte d'Ivoire is one of the world's largest producers of cocoa, and much of the land around Taï is now cocoa farms. Illegal hunting, small-scale gold mining, and farming inside the park boundaries have all been serious problems. Rangers, researchers, and local communities work to protect the forest. Villages near the park also take part in ecotourism, which gives local people a direct reason to keep the forest standing.

If you visit with a guide, you will usually start early, when the forest is cooler and the animals are most active. Walk slowly. Speak quietly. Watch where you place your feet, because roots and wet clay can be slippery. On some routes, guides lead visitors up a rocky hill called Mont Niénokoué. From the top, the forest spreads out in every direction as a rolling green carpet. It is one of the few places where you can see how large this forest really is.

Take a moment now, wherever you are standing. Look at the trunk nearest to you. Notice its bark, the insects moving across it, the moss in its cracks. Listen again for the hum, the drip of water, the distant calls. Each of these sounds comes from a living thing that depends on this forest. As you walk on, and later as you return towards Soubré and the open farmland, remember the edge where the tall trees stop. That edge shows what protection has saved here.