Nigeria protected areas
	Cross River State’s forests showing Cross River National Park and Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary
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Cross River State is one of 36 states in Nigeria and located in the south east of the country right on the border with Cameroon. In terms of biodiversity, it is far a way, the most important state in the country. Nigeria has lost over 90% of its rainforests and more than half of the remaining 10% is found within Cross River State.

These forests, along with those in South west Cameroon, support one of the greatest concentrations of plant and animal life on the African continent with a high proportion of endemics making it one of the richest forests in Africa in terms of biological diversity and of worldwide importance as one of Africa’s 5 forest biodiversity hotspots. The Cross River/Cameroon forests form a centre of endemism that stretches from the Cross River in Nigeria to the Sanaga River in South West Cameroon and is believed to have been a moist forest refuge during the Pleistocene Ice Ages. The unique nature of Cross River State tropical forest is due in part, to its high annual rainfall of over 4000 mm and relatively short dry season. Consequently this forest together with that immediately adjacent in South West Cameroon, is classified as the only true evergreen rainforest in Africa.

Over 60% of Nigeria’s endangered plant and animal species are found only within these forests. These include 132 tree species listed by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre as globally threatened. Of the 6000 plant species that grow in these forests, many are unique to this part of Africa and as many as 200 species have been recorded from a single 0.06 ha plot, a diversity matched only in exceptionally rich sites in South America. The zone is the centre of endemism for various plant taxa including several tree genera - Cola, Diospyros, Garcinia and Dorstenia and the ginger and arrowroot plant families (Zingiberaceae).

The fauna of these forests is also exceptionally rich. With well over 1000 species recorded, for example these forests are far richer in butterflies than any other part of Africa. Apart from butterflies, the invertebrate fauna is little known but is thought to be extremely rich. The area is also a centre of endemism for frogs, birds and four primates, including the recently described and highly endangered Cross River Gorilla subspecies (Gorilla gorilla diehli), the drill forest baboon (Mandrillus leucophaeus) and two guenon monkeys (Cercopithecus preusii and Cercopithecus erythrotis).

To protect this rich biodiversity, the Federal Government designated half the high forest in Cross River State as a National Park in 1991. The unprotected forest remaining outside the park is classified as Forest Reserve or community forest. In May 2000 the Cross River State Government formally gazetted Afi Mountain, situated in the north western portion of the Afi River Forest Reserve, as the Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary, because of its important population of gorillas and drills.