St Floris National Park

Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Central African Republic prefecture Bamingui-Bangoran, near the Chad border. It was inscribed to the list of World Heritage Sites in 1988 as a result of the diversity of life present within it.

The Park is the largest savanna park in west and central Africa, located at a major biogeographic crossroads of central Africa. It comprises three main zones: the wide grassy floodplain of the Bahr Aouk and Bahr Kameur rivers in the north, a gently undulating transitional plain of bushy or wooded savanna with occasional small granite inselbergs, and the Chaine des Bongo plateau in the south. The fauna of the Park reflects its transitional position between east and west Africa, the Sahel and the forested tropics: its large mammals include black rhinoceros, elephant, cheetah, leopard, wild dog, red-fronted gazelle and buffalo; a wide range of waterfowl species also occurs in the northern flood-plains. The site was added to the List of World Heritage in Danger because of illegal grazing and poaching by heavily armed hunters, who may have harvested as much as 80% of the Park's wildlife, and it is doubtful whether any black rhino survive.