Abdel-Aziz Bello, Park Manager of W National Park in Benin, is a dedicated specialist in natural resource and biodiversity management, with 16 years of experience across forestry and wildlife management. Growing up near Pendjari National Park, he was captivated by the rivers, forests, and savannahs surrounding his home.
“In my secondary school, I was very good at biology. To learn my lessons, I used to go to the bush not far from our home where I felt more comfortable. One of our neighbours brought me to Pendjari National Park for the first time in 1992. And from time to time, the Manager’s wife, who originated from Porga, also took me to the park. This is how my love for wildlife was born, from discovering the landscapes and spotting animals there,” Abdel-Aziz recalls.
After earning an engineering diploma in Environmental Protection in 2004 and a master’s in Natural Resource and Biodiversity Management in 2014, Abdel-Aziz spent ten years at the National Forestry Office, restoring degraded forests and showing how conservation systems could be financially autonomous through combining timber production with biodiversity conservation. He later served at the Alibori Forestry Inspectorate before being appointed Director of W National Park in 2018, where he managed the transition to African Parks’ mandate. He formally joined African Parks in October 2020 as Deputy Park Manager and was promoted to Park Manager in 2022.
Under Abdel-Aziz’s leadership, W National Park, a 7,000 km² component of the transnational W-Arly-Pendjari (WAP) Complex (which spans Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and is the largest remaining intact ecosystem in West Africa), remains a stronghold for West Africa’s wildlife. The park safeguards the last known viable populations of species like the Critically Endangered north-west African cheetah and korrigum antelope.
Despite the challenging security context in northern Benin, Abdel-Aziz has built a committed team and strengthened relationships with communities that rely on the park. “We have achieved a number of objectives through surveillance and conservation actions using the technological and human resources provided by African Parks. This has allowed us to restore large animal populations, as shown by the 2024 census highlighting remarkable increases in elephant and buffalo,” he notes.
W team members also regularly engage with over 6,000 local schoolchildren, while communities benefit from sustainable livelihood opportunities, including beekeeping, shea tree and baobab harvesting, and fishing.
Abdel-Aziz’s work ethic, passion, and deep connection to both wildlife and people embody African Parks’ vision of biodiversity conservation, community development, and park sustainability. His journey has taken him from being a young boy exploring Natitingou’s landscapes to leading one of West Africa’s most critical conservation areas.