Odzala & the North

The north was a land of river traders and forest peoples long before colonisation. The Teke kingdom ruled the plateaus in the south of the region, the Mbochi and related peoples lived along the Alima and the other tributaries of the Congo, and the Aka and other hunter-gatherer groups moved through the forests of the Sangha and the Likouala, trading forest products with farming neighbours.

Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza reached the Alima in 1878 and returned in 1880 to sign the treaty with the Teke ruler, the Makoko, that gave France its claim to the region. France later handed much of the north to concession companies that extracted rubber and ivory with forced labour; reports of abuses led to a government inquiry headed by Brazza in 1905. Posts such as Fort-Rousset, now Owando, and Ouesso became the administrative centres of a region that remained thinly settled.

After independence the north supplied most of the country's rulers: Marien Ngouabi and Joachim Yhombi-Opango came from the Cuvette, and Denis Sassou Nguesso is from the Oyo area, which has since received major state investment. Odzala was first protected in 1935, Nouabalé-Ndoki became a national park in 1993, and in the early 2000s Ebola outbreaks killed large numbers of gorillas in and around Odzala. Since 2010 the conservation organisation African Parks has managed Odzala-Kokoua with the government.

The north is largely Lingala-speaking, with Lingala used along the rivers and in the towns alongside French and a range of local languages. The Mbochi and Kouyou of the Cuvette, the Teke of the Plateaux and a mosaic of smaller groups in the Sangha and the Likouala make up the farming population, while the Aka and other forest peoples, sometimes called by the outside term "pygmies", live mainly in the Sangha and the Likouala and face discrimination despite a law protecting indigenous rights.

Aka polyphonic singing, with its interlocking voices and yodelling, is a celebrated musical tradition, though its UNESCO intangible-heritage listing belongs to the Central African Republic. Their knowledge of forest plants, honey and game underpins much of the tracking and research work in the parks, where Aka guides are employed.

Christianity is the majority faith, as in the south, but belief in ancestors and forest spirits remains strong in rural communities. Village life is organised around lineages and chiefs, and visitors are expected to greet the local chief and explain their purpose on arrival.

Most of the north's people live in small towns and villages strung along the rivers and the main road. Owando, Oyo, Djambala, Gamboma, Ouesso and Impfondo are the main centres, each with a population in the tens of thousands at most, and large areas of forest have no permanent settlement at all.

Logging is the dominant industry. Pokola, on the Sangha, is the headquarters of one of the largest logging companies in the country, and roads cut for timber reach deep into the forest. Farming, fishing and river trade occupy most families: cassava fields near the villages, fish caught and smoked along the Sangha, the Likouala-aux-Herbes and the Alima, and goods moved by pirogue and barge. Conservation is a growing employer around the parks.

The rhythm of life follows the river and the rains. Boats arrive irregularly, markets swell when they do, and electricity and mobile coverage are patchy outside the main towns. The Likouala has hosted refugees from the Central African Republic and the DR Congo during periods of unrest across the borders.

The northern diet is the country's staple cassava — chikwangue loaves and fufu — eaten with whatever the rivers and forest provide. Smoked fish from the Sangha, the Alima and the Likouala is the most important protein, and the dried, blackened fish of the north is sold in markets as far away as Brazzaville.

Forest foods matter more here than in the south. Koko, the thinly shredded leaves of a wild forest vine, are cooked with palm oil and peanut paste; wild mushrooms and honey are gathered in season; and edible caterpillars are a prized seasonal delicacy. Game — antelope, porcupine and monkey — is widely eaten in the villages, though hunting protected species such as gorillas and elephants is illegal and the parks work to curb the bushmeat trade.

Palm wine is the everyday drink of the villages, with beer brought upriver in the towns. Lodges in the parks serve their own menus, largely based on imported supplies, with fresh produce bought from local farmers where possible.

Odzala-Kokoua National Park, in the Cuvette-Ouest and Sangha, is the region's headline sight. Its mix of rainforest, savannah and marshy clearings supports western lowland gorillas, at some of the highest densities recorded, together with forest elephants, forest buffalo, chimpanzees and bongo. The bais — open clearings where animals come to feed on mineral-rich soil — draw these animals into the open.

Further north, Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park covers a vast, roadless stretch of rainforest near the borders with Cameroon and the Central African Republic and forms part of the Sangha Trinational UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mbeli Bai is its best-known clearing, a long-running research site for gorillas and elephants, and the Goualougo Triangle is known for chimpanzees that had almost no contact with people.

Ouesso, on the Sangha River, is the gateway to this Sangha rainforest, and boats from its riverfront reach the logging towns and the park headquarters upstream. To the east, the Likouala swamps spread as a maze of flooded forest and grassy waterways between the Sangha and the Ubangi, part of the Cuvette Centrale peatlands, shared with the DR Congo, where the Lake Télé community reserve protects the swamp forest around Lake Télé. In the south of the region, the grassland of the Teke plateaus around Djambala offers wide views and a very different landscape.