Kakum National Park

Kakum National Park is one of the best known national parks in Ghana; it is in the southern part of Ghana, in what is known as the Central Region. The Park was first established in 1990 from an area of 350 square kilometers to the north of Cape Coast and Elmina near the small town of Abrafo. The entire area is covered with tropical rainforest.

In the Park gamekeepers were specially trained to make accessible to the visiting tourists some important tropical plants on the grounds and their relevant medicinal significance. Besides the impressive plant world, which partly also comprises rare species, the Kakum National Park presents rare animals, including the very rare and endangered Mona-meerkat, as well as pygmy elephants, forest buffalo, "zibetkatzen," and a highly developed bird world. Still, the observation of animals in this forest is extremely difficult because of the dense rainforest. In the course of the development of tourism, authorities and park managers plan in the future to add water holes or clearings, to make better observation possible.

Kakum National Park has a unique tourist attraction: the only round tour over a hanging bridge in the forest canopy level in all of Africa. Beside Kakum there are only four other round tours of this type. From the so-called Canopy Walkway, at up to 40 meters height, the visitor can approach the plants and animals in their living space which would otherwise be inaccessible for people. The Canopy Walkway passes over 7 bridges and runs over a length of 330 meters.The Walkway is definitely unique,however ,if you are going there for wildlife spotting think again as this is a rarity, most of the animals have long since migrated to other more remote parts of the park,this quote coming from one of the parks rangers.

External links

* [http://ghana-net.com/kakumnationalpark.aspx KAKUM NATIONAL PARK & MORE]
* [http://www.ecotour.org/destinations/kakum.htm Travel information from Conservation International.]
* [http://advance05.williamhaun.com/ghana/canopywalk/index.html Photo Gallery of Kakum National Forest's Canopy Walk]

"This article draws heavily on the [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakum-Nationalpark corresponding article] in the [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite German-language Wikipedia] , which was accessed in the version of 26 August 2006."