In the very heart of The Gambia, far from the beaches of the coast, the river widens and wraps around an archipelago of five jungle-covered islands: this is River Gambia National Park, known for its 'Baboon Islands'. Since 1979 it has been home to the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project, a pioneering project that rescues chimpanzees from illegal trafficking and returns them to a semi-wild life on the islands. Today more than a hundred chimpanzees live in four communities on the river, one of the greatest conservation achievements for the species in Africa.
The visit is always made from the water, by boat, because the islands are closed to landing to protect the animals. At sunrise or sunset, the boat trip lets you see chimpanzees on the bank, families of hippos snorting in the river, crocodiles, baboons, red colobus monkeys and dazzling birdlife. It is one of the most authentic and least crowded natural spectacles in all of West Africa.
This guide explains how to visit River Gambia National Park from Kuntaur or from the lodges of the middle river, what you can see, how much the boat trip costs, when to go and where to stay in deep Gambia. It is an experience for anyone who wants to go beyond the coast and discover the wild river, the rescued chimpanzees and the riverside life of the country's interior.
River Gambia National Park was created in 1978 to protect five river islands, the 'Baboon Islands', and the following year it became home to the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project, founded by Stella Brewer Marsden. The project — which had begun in the late 1960s in the Abuko reserve and spent time in Senegal — moved its chimpanzees rescued from trafficking and laboratories here, and over the decades successfully reintroduced them to the islands. Today more than a hundred chimpanzees live in four semi-wild communities, alongside hippos, crocodiles and exceptional wildlife, which can only be watched from the water.
Read the full history ↓The deep Gambia: rescued chimpanzees on the Baboon Islands, the ancient megaliths of Wassu and old colonial Georgetown on an island in the river.
Read the history of The middle river and the interior →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In the middle reaches of the River Gambia, near the village of Kuntaur and some 300 km inland from the coast, the river widens and wraps around a group of five forest-covered islands. These are the so-called 'Baboon Islands', a small river archipelago that forms the core of River Gambia National Park. They take their name from the baboons that live there, but their worldwide fame comes from other primates: chimpanzees.
The setting is very different from the brackish lower river near the coast. Here the water is fresh, gallery forest and tropical rainforest line the banks, and wildlife is abundant: hippos, Nile crocodiles, monitor lizards, red colobus monkeys, green monkeys and an incredibly rich birdlife, in a country that is already one of the world's great birdwatching destinations. This is deep Gambia: rural and wild.
To protect this exceptional ecosystem, the Government of The Gambia declared the area River Gambia National Park in 1978. The park's creation came just as a project to return rescued chimpanzees to the wild needed a safe, isolated home: the islands, surrounded by water and hard to reach, offered the perfect setting.
The story of the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project (CRP) is tied to one remarkable woman: Stella Brewer Marsden. The daughter of Eddie Brewer, founder of Abuko Nature Reserve, Stella began taking in baby chimpanzees rescued from dealers and traffickers in the late 1960s. In the early years she tried to reintroduce these orphans into Abuko reserve itself, near the coast.
In 1974 the project was formalised and moved to Niokolo-Koba National Park in neighbouring Senegal, in search of a more suitable environment. But a serious incident with a community of wild chimpanzees forced a rethink. In 1979 Stella and her team moved the surviving chimpanzees to the newly created River Gambia National Park, giving them a new home on the Baboon Islands, cut off by the river and with no wild chimpanzee population to clash with.
That first group of around ten chimpanzees was the seed of one of the longest-running and most successful rehabilitation projects in the world. By 1982 there were already more than twenty, spread across several islands. Stella Brewer devoted her life to these animals, told her story in books and became a leading figure in West African conservation. She died in 2006, but the project she founded carried on under the guidance of her family and her team.
The CRP's work is delicate and long-term. The chimpanzees that arrive at the project are often victims of the illegal pet trade, of the trade in infants (whose capture often means the mother is killed) or of past use in circuses and laboratories. Many arrive traumatised, malnourished or without having learned the behaviours typical of their species. Rehabilitation aims to restore their health, their social skills and their ability to fend for themselves.
Once they have recovered, the chimpanzees join the communities living on four of the park's five islands. There they lead a semi-wild life: they forage, climb, form social hierarchies and breed. The project team supplements their diet and monitors their health, but interferes as little as possible. The birth of young on the islands, generation after generation, is the best proof of the programme's success: today the population is well over a hundred individuals.
For conservation and safety reasons, tourists are strictly forbidden from landing on the islands, and the project even limits access for its own staff on certain days of the week so as not to disturb the animals or expose them to human diseases. Chimpanzees share more than 98% of their DNA with humans, which makes them vulnerable to our viruses, hence the extreme caution. All tourist viewing is done from the water, at a distance.
River Gambia National Park is much more than its chimpanzees. This stretch of the river is home to one of the country's best hippo populations, easy to spot from the boat at sunset, as well as Nile crocodiles basking on the sandbanks. The banks and islands are the territory of baboons (which give the place its name), western red colobus monkeys (an endangered species) and green monkeys.
The birdlife is spectacular: African fish eagles, numerous kingfisher species, bee-eaters, hornbills, herons and a host of raptors and waterbirds make the middle river one of The Gambia's top birdwatching destinations, in a country with more than 560 recorded species in a tiny territory. The mix of gallery forest, savannah and river creates an extraordinary diversity of habitats.
All this richness makes a boat trip through the park a one-of-a-kind river safari: in just a few hours you can see chimpanzees on the bank, snorting hippos, crocodiles, several kinds of monkey and dozens of birds, without the crowds of other African destinations. It is Gambian nature at its purest, protected by the river's isolation and by constant conservation work.
Today the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Project and River Gambia National Park are a symbol of conservation in West Africa. The project relies on donations, sponsorships and carefully regulated tourism: boat trips bring in income and raise awareness, but they are organised so as not to disturb the animals or put their health at risk. It is a model of how well-managed nature tourism can fund the protection of endangered species.
The park is also part of the middle-river circuit, together with the Wassu stone circles (a World Heritage Site) and historic Janjanbureh Island (Georgetown), so you can combine nature, archaeology and colonial history in a single trip inland. The area's riverside lodges and camps, many of them eco-friendly, involve local communities and offer an alternative to the beach tourism of the coast.
Visiting River Gambia National Park means glimpsing a story of second chances: that of dozens of chimpanzees torn from their habitat and returned, against all odds, to a dignified life on the islands. On a continent where great apes are increasingly threatened, this small archipelago in the middle of the River Gambia is a rare and hopeful example that rehabilitation is possible.
