Country Area - 28,050 km²
Range Area - 19,701 km² (70%)
Protected Range - 21%
Information Quality Index (IQI) - 0.57
CITES Appendix - I
Listing Year - 1992 (year of accession)
Río Muni is the mainland portion of Equatorial Guinea, a country with a rapidly developing economy based on petroleum extraction, and associated infrastructure development, which is having a negative impact on wildlife. Around 80% of Río Muni is covered in mostly secondary tropical forest. Commercial hunting has been facilitated in recent years by the expansion of the road network across the country and the ongoing construction of a new capital city in the centre-east of the country. Elephant poaching is widespread, especially near roads. Hunting signs were found inside all protected areas during the course of a nationwide survey (Murai et al., 2013).
Although a protected area network was created in 1988, Monte Alén National Park is the only area that has any effective protection (Larziliere & Doumenge, 2015).
Equatorial Guinea published an elephant conservation plan in 1991, although this is now out of date (Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Forestry, 1991).
The estimated number of elephants in areas surveyed in the last ten years in Equatorial Guinea is 884 ± 676. This estimate applies to 19,704 km², which is 100% of the estimated known and possible elephant range in Equatorial Guinea.
In 2011 a systematic countrywide line transect survey was carried out (Murai et al., 2013) giving an estimate of 884 elephants (437-1,789). This replaces an estimate of 700 ± 330 from 2004 for the southern part of the Monte Alén National Park plus a guess of 300 for the remaining part of the park. There were no estimates from the remaining elephant range in Equatorial Guinea in the AESR 2007, so the new estimate covers a different area. Given that the current estimate for the entire country is lower than the previous estimate for Monte Alén National Park, a substantial reduction in overall numbers seems likely.
Elephants were most abundant within Monte Alén National Park and the Monts de Mitra region extending south towards Gabon and the Río Campo Nature Reserve (contiguous with the Campo Ma’an National Park in Cameroon) and the region to the east of the reserve. The range map has been modified to include new areas of known range in the eastern and western parts of the country.