Africa on the Ground
A fast, brown river running past a low island covered in dense rainforest.

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Sierra Leone

Gola-Tiwai Complex

A natural property on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2025.

Historic site

The Moa River beside Tiwai Island, Sierra Leone. Photo: Dorothy Voorhees, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources beyond UNESCO and Wikipedia: 1 (1 press). Check each source's status in the list at the end of the card. It was published without a prior review by people from the place. If something is wrong or missing, tell the project.

This card keeps two kinds of knowledge apart: what the documented record says, and what the people who know the place say. Each is labelled, so a reader always knows which one they are reading.

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In the record

What UNESCO says

UNESCO describes the property in these words: “This serial property includes the Gola Rainforest National Park and the Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary. Part of the Greater Gola Landscape, it lies within the Upper Guinean Forest, a biodiversity hotspot. The area hosts more than 1,000 plant species (113 endemic), 55 mammals (19 globally threatened), and key species like the African Forest Elephant and Pygmy Hippopotamus. It also supports up to 448 bird species, including the endangered White-necked Rockfowl. Rich in freshwater fish, butterflies, and dragonflies, the site provides vital habitats and ecosystem services, reflecting high conservation value and ecological integrity.”[1]

Inscribed
2025[1]
Category
Natural[1]
Criteria
ix, x[1]
Area
71,202.7 hectares[1]

Background

Wikipedia's list of World Heritage Sites in Sierra Leone says the country accepted the World Heritage Convention on 7 January 2005 and that the Gola-Tiwai Complex, added to the list in 2025, is its first site, with four more on the tentative list.[2]

Keeping it safe, as reported in 2025

France 24 reported in July 2025 that Tiwai Island, in the Moa river, measures just 12 square kilometres and has 11 species of primates, among them western chimpanzees, king colobus and Diana monkeys, as well as pygmy hippopotamuses and critically endangered African forest elephants. Gola is the largest expanse of tropical rainforest in Sierra Leone.[3]

The Gola-Tiwai complex is Sierra Leone's first UNESCO site. UNESCO's director general called it a jewel of biodiversity and a model of community management. The report tells the story through Tommy Garnett, who founded the Environmental Foundation for Africa in 1992 and, with it, saved Tiwai from near destruction during and after the civil war.[3]

It names deforestation, poaching and climate impacts such as disease outbreaks and severe weather as the main dangers.[3]

Not yet sourced
  • Almost everything. The sources found say only when the site was listed. What the complex is, who lives around it and what its protection involves must be researched from scratch.
  • Local voices: none yet.
  • That report is a profile of one conservationist: the communities of the Koya and Barri chiefdoms and the rangers are not heard in it.

Sources

  1. Institutional[1] Gola-Tiwai Complex. UNESCO World Heritage Centre, World Heritage List (open data, CC BY-SA 4.0). whc.unesco.org retrieved 7 Oct 2026
    Read from UNESCO's open-data record (data.unesco.org, dataset whc001); the web page itself could not be opened from this project's tools. Texts are UNESCO's own.
  2. Encyclopedia · to verify[2] List of World Heritage Sites in Sierra Leone. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org retrieved 7 Oct 2026
    Used for background that the UNESCO record does not give. Each statement is limited to the article's lead and opening sections; confirm against specialist sources.
  3. Press[3] The activist who fought for Sierra Leone's first World Heritage site. France 24, 13 Jul 2025. www.france24.com retrieved 7 Oct 2026
    A profile of one conservationist, Tommy Garnett: it tells the story through him.