The practices of local people have been shaping Gabon’s forests for thousands of years through a variety of cultural practices, including village establishment, agriculture, hunting, gathering, and governing their territories in keeping with socio-cultural traditions. The participatory historical mapping project is part of an effort to value the collective memory of local populations and to address the lack of documentation on the history of migration in Gabon. Long neglected or limited to colonial archives, these oral histories are nevertheless an essential resource for understanding the dynamics of settlements, their movements, and their territorial roots.

​The study addresses a dual challenge: scientific, by identifying new potential sites for ECOTROP research, and socio-cultural, by documenting the migratory history of the Awandji, Babongô, Kota, and Adouma peoples in collaboration with members from these ethnic groups. It aims to reconstruct maps of ancient villages and migration routes in order to connect traditional knowledge with contemporary academic research.