Goldminers move pay dirt at Minkebe. Some conservationists fear merchants in such camps encourage poaching by buying ivory, but Fay was surprised to find well-used elephant trails nearby.
The expedition picks its way through spiny Euphorbia, careful not to damage the fragile thicket, which would take years to grow back in the dry, thin soil of a granite outcrop.
An elephant charges photographer Michael Nichols in Odzala. Poachers once overran the park, but now a guard post down river has allowed elephants to reclaim their kingdom.
Midway on a trek across 2,000 miles of central Africa, ecologist J. Michael Fay encounters choking vegetation, impassable swamps, and rumors that the virulent Ebola virus has struck gorillas in Gabon. Fay’s team plunges ahead into an isolated…