Sangha Trinational world heritage site set asides all doubts on ancient migration which invaded the ‘unknown world’ of Ptolemy after the Great Flood and volcanic eruption on the ‘first-land’.

Term Sangha means the ‘Buddhist Sangha of the monks’ who migrated and settled in Congo Basin. Trinational refers to ‘Tri-ratna’ of the Buddhist faith; the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

This transboundary heritage complex which involves the Lobéké National Park in Cameroon, Dzanga-Ndoki National Park in the Central African Republic and Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo marks the people who migrated from Sitatunga and Bongo. It is very interesting to see Sitatunga, Mukulungu, and Bongo as names of antelope species in the Congo Basin where ‘the intricate ecological linkages between the property and its surroundings forms a cultural landscape of its people’. Migrants carried with them the trees which were sacred and valuable to their life.

According to Unesco, ‘The property represents a wide spectrum of the species-rich humid tropical forests in Central Africa’s Congo Basin, and provides protection for a range of endangered species. The flora is enriched by species occurring exclusively in the many types of forest clearings. TNS protects a large number of tree species which are heavily commercially exploited elsewhere, such as the critically endangered Mukulungu. In addition to viable populations of forest elephants, significant populations of the critically endangered Western Lowland Gorilla and the endangered Chimpanzee occur both in and around the property, together with several endangered antelope species, such as the Sitatunga and the emblematic Bongo’.

Congo—Anga/Orongo

Mukulungu—Mukhalinga/Muchukunda, the Serpent that protected the Buddha

Sitatunga—Sitakunja/ or Sita-vana means the forest Sita

Bongo—Banga, refers to the sacred ‘frogs’ means the ‘benga’, name of a place.

Lobéké—Laba/naba-khanda

Dzanga-Ndoki—Ganga-dokhandi/Ganga-khanda

Nouabalé-Ndoki—Alavi or Alaba-dokhandi