Salonga National Park (French: Parc National de la Salonga) is a national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, located in the Congo River basin. It is Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve, covering about 36,000 square kilometers or 3,600,000 hectares (8,900,000 acres). The park covers parts of the provinces of Mai Ndombe, Equateur, Kasaï, and Sankuru. In 1984, the park was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List because it protects a large area of mostly undisturbed rainforest and provides important habitat for many rare species. In 1999, the site was listed as endangered due to poaching and housing construction. After improvements in its conservation status, the site was removed from the endangered list in 2021.
Geography
The park is located in a rainforest area halfway between Kinshasa, the capital city, and Kisangani. There are no roads in the park, and most of it can only be reached by boat on rivers. Some parts of the national park are completely inaccessible and have not been thoroughly studied. The southern part of the park, where the Iyaelima people live, can be reached by the Lokoro River, which flows through the center and northern sections of the park, and the Lula River in the south. The Salonga River flows in a winding path toward the northwest through Salonga National Park until it meets the Busira River.
History
The Salonga National Park was first created as the Tshuapa National Park in 1956. It received its current borders through a 1970 order from President Mobutu Sese Seko. The park was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Because of a civil war in the eastern part of the country, it was added to the UNESCO World Heritage in Danger list in 1999.
Since 2015, the park has been jointly managed by the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature and the World Wide Fund for Nature. Ongoing discussions are happening with the two main groups of people living in the park: the Iyaelima, who are the last remaining residents, and the Kitawalistes, a religious group that moved there shortly after the park was created. There is close teamwork between park guards and the Iyaelima, as Iyaelima villages are used as guard posts. Bonobos are most common near Iyaelima villages, showing that they do not harm the park's most important species.
Ecology
Salonga National Park is located in the center of the Congo Basin. It protects the largest rainforest in Africa and the second largest in the world. The large size and complex ecosystem of this rainforest have allowed plants and animals to develop with little disturbance. As a result, the park preserves a very diverse and special environment. In the southwestern part of the park, 735 plant species have been identified. Of these, 85% depend on animals to spread their seeds, a process known as zoochory.
Many large mammals live in the park in high numbers, including Bongo antelopes, black-crested mangabeys, leopards, and bonobos. Studies of bonobos in the wild have taken place in the southern region. Bonobo populations are much higher near the Iyaelima settlements, likely because the Iyaelima people do not harm them and help protect them. Despite hunting, a population of forest elephants that can survive and grow remains in the park.
In addition to bonobos, the park is home to several primate species, such as the Dryas monkey, Thollon's red colobus, Allen's swamp monkey, golden-bellied mangabey, red-tailed monkey, potto, and dwarf bushbaby. Other mammals include the long-tailed pangolin, giant pangolin, tree pangolin, Congo clawless otter, spotted-necked otter, Angolan kusimanse, aquatic genet, hippopotamus, African golden cat, red river hog, blue duiker, yellow-backed duiker, sitatunga, bushbuck, water chevrotain, and forest buffalo.
The park also has many bird species, such as the cattle egret, black stork, and yellow-billed stork. The Congo peafowl, a threatened bird native to the Congo Basin and the national bird of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lives in both primary and secondary forests within the park.
Fifty-six fish species have been identified in the park, including the catfishes Clarias monsembulai and Synodontis nigriventris. African slender-snouted crocodiles also live in the park.
Access
The main way to reach the area is by car or by walking along a dirt road that goes southeast from Monkoto Airport. There are houses and villages on both sides of the road, which leads to Salonga National Park.