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Country Site
Area
(ha)
Average
no of
visitors/
month
Yearly
total
Mean visit/ha
mangrove/yr
Source of data
Cameroon
Ebojie
Marine
turtle
200
10
120
0.6
Visit records kept by
Association Nationale de
Protection des Tortues
Marines du
Cameroun « Kud’A Tube »
Gabon NA
NA NA
NA
NA
NA
Congo
Mazra Club
Touristique
100
70
840
8.4
Mazra Club Touristique
records
DRC
Parc
Mangrove
500
7
84
0.168
Conservation Service of
Parc Mangrove Muanda
Total
800
87
1044
1.305
Tourism
Though there were a scarcity of data on
recreation value of mangroves, available
information indicate that mangroves of Central
Africa are also potential tourisms sites; receiving
on average 1,044 visitors per year (Table 16). In
the RoC, some 840 visitors were recorded in
the Mazra Club Touristique. These relatively low
numbers of visitors show thatmangroves are not
priority tourism areas for these countries, and
that terrestrial ecosystems such as rainforests or
other wildlife sanctuaries are bigger attractions.
Overall tourism numbers for these countries
are not readily available for each country.
Furthermore, some countries such as DRC
generally do not have highly developed tourism
industries due to political and infrastructural
challenges. Tourism infrastructure in the
mangroves of Central Africa is not yet fully
developed and the potential has not yet been
fully realized; especially given how globally
important these ecosystems are. Payments
for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes could
explore improving ecotourism opportunities
and income in the region.
Table 16: Tourist visits to mangrove sites within Central Africa
Additional and non-market ecosystem
services
In addition to the ecosystem services outlined
above, mangroves also provide additional
services, some of which are non-market values
that are more difficult to quantify in terms of
dollar value. For themangroves of Central Africa,
these include biodiversity and habitat benefits,
cultural services (spiritual values, recreational
values), services associated with water quality
maintenance, and services associated with
cycling of nutrients. Although these are all
probably highly valuable to the communities
living around the mangroves, they have not
been quantified for the purpose of this study
due to lack of data or lack of methodologies for
measuring them.