Badingilo & Boma National Parks

Situated in the south of South Sudan, Badingilo and Boma national parks make up nearly three million hectares and form an integral part of the larger 20-million-hectare ecosystem that stretches through the Jonglei corridor and to the White Nile. Known as The Boma Badingilo Jonglei Landscape (BBJL), this landscape is home to the largest land mammal migration on Earth, where millions of white-eared kob, Mongalla gazelle, tiang and Bohor reedbuck merge in Badingilo during the wet season for breeding, before migrating north and east towards Boma National Park and the Sudd, and into Gambella National Park in Ethiopia. This is a remarkable and unmatched wildlife phenomenon across a landscape of immense ecological importance.

Decades of instability and ethnic conflict have severely impacted the lives of local people in and around Badingilo and Boma. In 2022, to ensure the long-term ecological, social, and economic sustainability of these globally important parks, the government of the Republic of South Sudan signed a 10-year management partnership agreement with African Parks. The partnership includes the wildlife corridors and proposed extension zones in the broader landscape – an area of well over three million hectares. These national resources are the lifeblood of the White Nile ecosystem and provide sustenance and livelihoods for millions of people.

This commitment by the South Sudanese Government is an important step in the long-term protection of these vital ecosystems and in securing lasting benefits for people and wildlife. In 2023, the government committed to understand and safeguard the landscape further by partnering with African Parks to conduct the first comprehensive aerial survey of the BBJL, which confirmed that approximately six million antelope traverse this remarkable landscape every year – the largest land mammal migration on the planet.

There is an opportunity to protect and develop the parks to support both people and wildlife. Through effective management, infrastructure, conservation law enforcement, and engagement with local communities, the parks have the potential to continue providing natural resources to the communities in the landscape and more broadly to the people of South Sudan in a way that supports sustainable development.

Badingilo & Boma Highlights

• It is now known that Boma and Badingilo contain the largest land mammal migration on Earth, as millions of white-eared kob, Mongalla gazelle, tiang, and bohor reedbuck move across the Boma Badingilo Jonglei Landscape and into Gambella National Park in Ethiopia.
• Both parks are proposed UNESCO World Heritage Sites and together form an Important Bird Area (IBA).
• The parks also support an important population of Critically Endangered Nubian giraffe (a subspecies of northern giraffe), Critically Endangered northern lion and north-east African cheetah.

• The significant numbers of people that live inside and on the boundaries of the parks comprise different ethnic groups, including the Dinka, Murle, Anyuak, Jie, Toposa, Nyangatom, Nuer, Mundari, Bari, Lokoya, Madi, Luluba, Lopit, Boya. Each has distinct traditions, culture, and livelihood activities connected with nature and the landscape.

 

Partners

On 25th of August 2022, African Parks signed a 10-year management agreement with the Ministry of Wildlife Conservation and Tourism to restore and develop Badingilo and Boma national parks, with the aim of safeguarding  important wildlife sanctuaries in South Sudan and securing lasting benefits for people and wildlife.

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