In humans, nutrition is a prerequisite for good health. Eating well is already a preventive treatment against many known and sometimes unknown diseases. If food is important for humans, its place is not negligible in the animal world, on the contrary. Indeed, animals take their food seriously, and some of them spend most of their lives looking for food. This food is varied and balanced for the inhabitants of the forest, the savannah and/or the oceans as well as any other environment sheltering wildlife. However, even if an elephant can swallow more than 200Kg of vegetable matter in one day, its diet will never be complete if it does not add to this already important feast an interesting volume of mineral salt. Just like the elephant, other giants of the wild such as the buffalo, the gorilla, duikers and monkeys all turn to these food supplements to ensure the balance of their meals. These minerals are collected by these animals in a special kind of store that is called in the language of conservation clearing.

         Apart from what is contained in the literature describing these environments, it is important to know that clearings are environments in which there is a high availability of salt and minerals that animals use for their food. These environments are generally open in the middle of a continuous forest and are colonized by grasses. Just below these grasses is a layer of muddy soil that is almost permanently flooded (both in the dry and rainy seasons). The animals turn this mud over to capture earthworms, but also consume it (elephants in this case) due to the high salt content of this mud. The clearings are considered to be areas of high conservation value in the field of wildlife protection, as they are the gathering places of the animals and provide them with valuable food supplements for their good health. Studies at the landscape level in the forest environment have shown that wildlife migration corridors allow the linking of different zones of high conservation value (strongly constituted by clearings) that animals move through seasonally and according to the threats they face from one site to another. Most of the programs of valorization of the ecotourism of vision in the forest environment gravitate around the valorization of these clearings because it is frequent for people to be able to observe animals in the clearings of day like night.

         Unfortunately for the animals, this information on their feeding habits is known by many people, including poachers. These poachers, in their hunting activities, try to identify clearings in the forest to make them privileged hunting areas. In this way, the task becomes much too easy for them because they can observe an animal at a reasonable distance (depending on the size of the clearing) and shoot it before it realizes the danger it is in. Some poachers with even worse intentions have developed strategies to lure animals into these already heavily used areas. This gives them a choice in the quantity and quality of their prey. When these sites fall within the boundaries of a protected area, they are usually specially managed to allow wildlife to flourish without becoming easy targets for poachers. Where ecotourism enhancement programs are undertaken, special measures are taken to ensure that animals continue to be adequately protected as they enter and leave the site.

         The clearings are of paramount importance for the survival of wildlife, they are crucial for the feeding of large numbers of animals throughout the forest and are of increasing interest for ecotourism development. However, they are also an area in which animals are very vulnerable to poacher attacks and today the question is whether the much vaunted sightseeing tourism in these areas does not pose a serious threat to the survival of wildlife. Feel free to share your opinion.