Classroom lesson · Korup Rainforest · 🇨🇲 Cameroon

Korup Rainforest

One of Africa's oldest and richest rainforests

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Korup is a vast ancient rainforest in south-west Cameroon that has existed for more than 60 million years — since before the dinosaurs disappeared. It is one of the oldest rainforests in all of Africa and is packed with more species of plants, insects, birds and mammals than almost anywhere else on the continent.

Tell me more

Korup National Park covers about 1,260 square kilometres of trees so tall and thick that almost no sunlight reaches the forest floor. Scientists call this kind of old, undisturbed forest a 'primary rainforest', and Korup is one of the finest examples left in Africa. Walking inside it is like stepping back millions of years in time.

Korup is home to an astonishing number of living things. More than 400 species of trees grow there, along with over 600 species of butterflies. Chimpanzees, forest elephants, drills and many kinds of monkeys all share the forest. Even the rivers inside the park are packed with unique fish that live nowhere else.

Scientists who study plants especially love Korup. They have found that some of the trees and plants in Korup produce chemicals that might one day help make new medicines. Local communities have used plants from the forest for traditional remedies for generations, and researchers are working with them to learn more.

Because the forest is so precious and old, Cameroon made it a national park to protect it. Rangers and local communities work together to look after the trees, rivers and animals. Eco-tourism — visitors who come to see the forest without harming it — helps provide money to keep the park safe.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01If a forest is 60 million years old, what might have lived there long before humans arrived?
02Why is it important to protect old forests even if we never visit them?
03How do you think scientists discover new species in a rainforest?
04What might local communities lose if a rainforest they have lived beside for centuries was cleared?

Try this

Classroom activity

Make a rainforest layers poster. Draw four layers: the emergent layer (tallest trees poking above), the canopy (a thick ceiling of leaves), the understorey (smaller trees and ferns), and the forest floor (dark, damp, full of mushrooms and insects). Add animals to each layer and write one fact about why that animal belongs there.

Korup Rainforest

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Discussion prompts

Classroom activity

Other things that make Cameroon special

Want your class to meet Cameroon?