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Sapo National Park is a national park in Sinoe County, Liberia. It is the country's largest protected area of rainforest and its only national park, and contains the second-largest area of primary tropical rainforest in West Africa after Taï National Park in neighbouring Côte d'Ivoire. Agriculture, construction, fishing, hunting, human settlement, and logging are prohibited in the park.
Sapo National Park is located in the Upper Guinean forest ecosystem, a biodiversity hotspot that has "the highest mammal species diversity of any region in the world", according to Conservation International, and in the Western Guinean lowland forests ecoregion, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature's ecoregions classification scheme.
In 1976, the Liberian Forestry Development Authority was created to manage and preserve the country's forest resources. A year later, in 1977, the Division of Wildlife and National Parks was formed under the leadership of Alexander Peal, who served as its head until 1990. By 1982, seven protected areas has been proposed in Liberia, including three national parks. Of these, only Sapo National Park — named after the local Sapo (or Sao) tribe — was formally designated, in 1983, by the People's Redemption Council. At the time, and for twenty years, it covered an area of 1,308 km2 (505 sq mi) east of the Sinoe River and south of the Putu Mountains. The park's original boundaries were set and its management plan drafted by the Division of Wildlife and National Parks, in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, the World Conservation Union, and the Peace Corps. (Read more...)