When driving through the Cameroonian countryside, it’s impossible not to notice the enormous trunks of forest giants loaded onto the trailers of trucks.

Across Central and West Africa, illegal logging is a serious issue. As the rainforests vanish, gorillas and other wildlife lose their natural habitat. Furthermore, logging roads grant poachers and smugglers access to areas that were once difficult to reach.

Near the Dja Faunal Reserve, timber harvesting is permitted and logging licences have been granted for most areas surrounding the protected zone. If widespread deforestation were to take place, wildlife populations would become isolated from one another. That is why it is so important not only to protect individual reserves, but also to preserve the corridors that connect them.