Qualla: Bafing National Park

Bafing National Park: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. There are chimpanzees living at the very northern edge of where chimpanzees can live, in the dry woodlands of the Manding Plateau in southern Mali. They are the reason this park exists. Bafing National Park, established on the first of July, 2000, is the only protected area for chimpanzees in this whole stretch of West Africa, a band of trees and water holding on against the encroaching Sahel. It takes its name from the Bafing, the "black river" that gathers here before running north to help form the Sénégal.

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bafing National Park: The Last Forest for the Apes

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Woodland defines Bafing. Where much of this latitude is open savanna sliding toward desert, the park keeps a denser cover of trees, and that cover is what allows chimpanzees to survive here at all. These are western chimpanzees, a critically endangered subspecies, and the Manding...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bafing National Park: A Sanctuary on the River

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bafing belongs to a larger conservation idea. Together with the Kouroufing and Wongo National Park areas, it forms the components of the Bafing Biosphere, a network meant to safeguard a whole working ecosystem rather than a single fenced patch. The Bafing River threads through it...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bafing National Park: A Sky Full of Color

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. BirdLife International has named Bafing an Important Bird Area, and the roll call of species explains why. Violet turacos flash crimson under their wings as they break from the canopy. Blue-bellied rollers turn somersaults in the air. Fox kestrels hang on the wind, and Senegal pa...

Read more: Bafing National Park on Qualla

Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0