Qualla: Chinko https://qualla.com/chinko en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Chinko https://qualla.com/chinko Chinko: Introduction https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. Nearly seven thousand square miles of savanna and woodland sit on a volcanic plateau 2,000 feet above sea level in eastern Central African Republic. African wild dogs hunt here. Leopards stalk antelope through gallery forest. Lions move along the drainages. The Precambrian bedrock underfoot has eroded over millions of years into alluvial soil rich enough to support a density of wildlife that was once common across this whole belt of Africa and is now almost nowhere else. This is Chinko. It exists because a small group of people decided, against substantial evidence that such things no longer work, that it should exist - and then kept showing up to do the work.

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Chinko: A Safari That Became a Project https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. In 2005, Erik Mararv and his family acquired a hunting concession in the Chinko drainage. The following year they launched Central African Wildlife Adventures, a safari operation. For six years, they built what was needed to reach the country: two airstrips, guest rooms, hundreds...

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-a-safari-that-became-a-project.mp3 0:06 2 full Chinko: African Parks Takes Over https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. In December 2014, African Parks - a nonprofit that manages protected areas across the continent in public-private partnerships with host governments - signed a fifty-year agreement with the CAR Ministry of Water, Forest, Hunting and Fishing to manage Chinko. The timing was bleak....

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-african-parks-takes-over.mp3 0:06 3 full Chinko: The Cost of the Work https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. In January 2017, a helicopter chartered by African Parks crashed in Chinko, killing the park's head of law enforcement, his deputy, and the pilot. Rangers across Africa die in the course of this work - sometimes in confrontations with armed poachers, sometimes in accidents like t...

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-the-cost-of-the-work.mp3 0:06 4 full Chinko: Larger, Every Year https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. In April 2020, the CAR government and African Parks signed a revised agreement extending the core protected area to 24,335 square kilometers and the total protected management area to 55,000 square kilometers over 25 years. The expansion reflected something real: the rangers were...

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-larger-every-year.mp3 0:06 5 full Chinko: What the Plateau Allows https://qualla.com/chinko/ Photo credit Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael, CC BY 2.5. Chinko works because the land itself is rich. Rain and freshwater sources are plentiful. The alluvial soils support abundant vegetation, which supports abundant prey, which supports the carnivores. The volcanic plateau rises distinctly above the surrounding lowlands, creating nat...

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Image: Aebischer Thierry and Hickisch Raffael | CC BY 2.5

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/9/0/f/chinko-wp/s90f-chinko-what-the-plateau-allows.mp3 0:06 6 full