Starting from the from the highlands of Guinea, the Moa River flows southwest toward the Atlantic Ocean. Along its path, the wide river hosts a cluster of islands. One of those is Tiwai Island, a 12-square kilometer piece of land in the southwestern region of Sierra Leone (about 30 kilometers from the Liberian border). In the Mende language, Tiwai means “big island”—appropriately, as it is one of the largest inland islands in Sierra Leone. In the late 1970s, Tiwai was recognized as a special biosphere for wildlife conservation. The island…
