may have used the valley during the Bantu expansion, leaving behind remains of polished stone axes and pottery. During that time, small villages were constructed on the hilltops with large rubbish pits. Later, when iron-working appeared in the valley around 2000 years ago, the hilltop villages became larger, with nearby iron furnaces, and agriculture began to flourish. Although over 1600 petroglyphs have been discovered dating from around the time of the beginning of iron-working, it appears that the valley was abandoned sometime between 600 and 1200 AD, before being repopulated by the present-day Okanda people in the 14th and 15th centuries. Tourism and Conservation The park contains a small research station, named as Mikongo and run by the Zoological Society London, based in the village known as Mikongo, from which it gets its name. There exists infrastructure to cater for tourists at the base, including several chalets and a large open air dining room, from which the rainforest is a mere five meters away. The park also hosts CEDAMM Training Centre, a Wildlife Conservation Society-run international conservation education center. Because of global climate change, the dense forest ecosystem is expanding into the savanna ecosystem in the north, leading to the loss of habitat diversity in the park. As a result, annual controlled burns of the savanna have been conducted in the park to reduce the encroachment of the forest vegetation and to provide the required vegetation for the diet of the forest buffalo. References External links Wildlife Conservation Society Virtual Tour of the National Parks World Heritage Sites in Gabon National parks of Gabon Protected areas established in 2002 2002 establishments in Gabon Western Congolian forest–savanna mosaic