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Wildlife Of The Democratic Republic Of The Congo
The wildlife of the Democratic Republic of the Congo includes its flora and fauna, comprising a large biodiversity in rainforests, seasonally flooded forests and grasslands. The country is considered one of the 17 megadiverse nations, and is one of the most flora rich countries on the African continent. Its rainforests harbour many rare and endemic species, such as the chimpanzee and the bonobo. It is home for more than 10,000 types of plants, 600 timber species, as well as 1,000 bird species, 280 reptile species, and 400 mammal species, including the forest elephant, gorilla, forest buffalo, bongo, and okapi. Many of these wildlife species are threatened animals such as large lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. Five of the country's national parks are listed as World Heritage Sites: the Garumba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and Virunga National Parks, and Okapi Wildlife Reserve. All five sites are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage In Danger. Several environmental issues in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the common chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''). While bonobos are now recognized as a distinct species in their own right, they were initially thought to be a subspecies of chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes)'' due to the physical similarities between the two species. Taxonomically, the members of the chimpanzee/bonobo subtribe Panina (composed entirely by the genus '' Pan'') are collectively termed ''panins''. The bonobo is distinguished by relatively long legs, pink lips, dark face, tail-tuft through adulthood, and parted long hair on its head. The bonobo is found in a area of the Congo Basin in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Africa. The species is frugivorous and inhabits primary and secondary forests, including seasonally inundated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okapi
The okapi (; ''Okapia johnstoni''), also known as the forest giraffe, Congolese giraffe, or zebra giraffe, is an artiodactyl mammal that is endemic to the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo in central Africa. It is the only species in the genus ''Okapia''. Although the okapi has striped markings reminiscent of zebras, it is most closely related to the giraffe. The okapi and the giraffe are the only living members of the family Giraffidae. The okapi stands about tall at the shoulder and has a typical body length around . Its weight ranges from . It has a long neck, and large, flexible ears. Its coat is a chocolate to reddish brown, much in contrast with the white horizontal stripes and rings on the legs, and white ankles. Male okapis have short, distinct horn-like protuberances on their heads called ossicones, less than in length. Females possess hair whorls, and ossicones are absent. Okapis are primarily diurnal, but may be active for a few hours in darkness. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deforestation In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 31% of Earth's land surface is covered by forests at present. This is one-third less than the forest cover before the expansion of agriculture, a half of that loss occurring in the last century. Between 15 million to 18 million hectares of forest, an area the size of Bangladesh, are destroyed every year. On average 2,400 trees are cut down each minute. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations defines deforestation as the conversion of forest to other land uses (regardless of whether it is human-induced). "Deforestation" and "forest area net change" are not the same: the latter is the sum of all forest losses (deforestation) and all forest gains (forest expansion) in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bushmeat
Bushmeat is meat from wildlife species that are hunted for human consumption, most often referring to the meat of game in Africa. Bushmeat represents a primary source of animal protein and a cash-earning commodity for inhabitants of humid tropical forest regions in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Bushmeat is an important food resource for poor people, particularly in rural areas. The numbers of animals killed and traded as bushmeat in the 1990s in West and Central Africa were thought to be unsustainable. By 2005, commercial harvesting and trading of bushmeat was considered a threat to biodiversity. As of 2016, 301 terrestrial mammals were threatened with extinction due to hunting for bushmeat including primates, even-toed ungulates, bats, diprotodont marsupials, rodents and carnivores occurring in developing countries. Bushmeat provides increased opportunity for transmission of several zoonotic viruses from animal hosts to humans, such as Ebolavirus and HIV. Nomenclature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overhunting
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term applies to natural resources such as water aquifers, grazing pastures and forests, wild medicinal plants, fish stocks and other wildlife. In ecology, overexploitation describes one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity. Ecologists use the term to describe populations that are harvested at an unsustainable rate, given their natural rates of mortality and capacities for reproduction. This can result in extinction at the population level and even extinction of whole species. In conservation biology, the term is usually used in the context of human economic activity that involves the taking of biological resources, or organisms, in larger numbers than their populations can withstand. The term is also used and defined som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Issues In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Environmental issues in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the consequence of compounding social and economic problems, including lack of access to clean energy, clearing of lands for agriculture and economic development, and armed conflict. Major environmental issues in DRC include deforestation, poaching, which threatens wildlife populations, water pollution and mining. A dense tropical rainforest in the DRC's central river basin and eastern highlands is bordered on the east by the Albertine Rift (the western branch of Africa's Great Rift System). It includes several of Africa's Great Lakes. The civil war and resulting in poor economic conditions have endangered much of this biodiversity. Many park wardens were either killed or could not afford to continue their work. The five national parks, the Garumba, Kahuzi-Biega, Salonga and Virunga National Parks, and Okapi Wildlife Reserve, are listed by UNESCO as World Heritage in Danger. Displaced refugees cause or are otherw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It has 193 member states and 12 associate members, as well as partners in the non-governmental, intergovernmental and private sector. Headquartered at the World Heritage Centre in Paris, France, UNESCO has 53 regional field offices and 199 national commissions that facilitate its global mandate. UNESCO was founded in 1945 as the successor to the League of Nations's International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation.English summary). Its constitution establishes the agency's goals, governing structure, and operating framework. UNESCO's founding mission, which was shaped by the Second World War, is to advance peace, sustainable development and human rights by facilitating collaboration and dialogue among nations. It pursues this objectiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okapi Wildlife Reserve
The Okapi Wildlife Reserve is a wildlife reserve in the Ituri Forest in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, near the borders with South Sudan and Uganda. At approximately 14,000 km2, it covers approximately one-fifth of the area of the forest. In 1996, the Okapi Wildlife Reserve was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, due to its large population of endangered okapis and its high overall biodiversity. Ecology The wildlife reserve makes up roughly one-fifth of the total area of the Ituri Forest. As a Pleistocene refugium, the forest contains dense evergreen and semi-evergreen forests, dominated by ''Mbau'' trees (''Gilbertiodendron dewevrei''). The Nepoko, Ituri, and Epulu rivers flow through the reserve, surrounded by swamp forests. The granite outcrops in the north of the reserve protect critical habitat for '' Encephalartos ituriensis'', a threatened species of cycad. Because of its relatively stable climate during the repeated ice ages, the wild ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virunga National Park
, iucn_category = II , iucn_ref = , location = Democratic Republic of the Congo , map = Democratic Republic of the Congo , relief = 1 , coordinates = , area = , established = , nearest_city = Goma , photo =Virunga National Park-107997.jpg , photo_caption = , governing_body = Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature , website = , administrator =Emmanuel de Merode , embedded1 = , embedded2 = , visitation_num = , visitation_year = Virunga National Park is a national park in the Albertine Rift Valley in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was created in 1925. In elevation, it ranges from in the Semliki River valley to in the Rwenzori Mountains. From north to south it extends approximately , largely along the international borders with Uganda and Rwanda in the east. It covers an area of . Two active volcanoes are located in the park, Mount Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira. They have significantly shaped the national park's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salonga National Park
Salonga National Park 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 km2 or . It extends into the provinces of Mai Ndombe, Equateur, Kasaï and Sankuru. In 1984, the national park was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List for its protection of a large swath of relatively intact rainforest and its important habitat for many rare species. In 1999, the site has been listed as endangered due to poaching and housing construction. Following the improvement in its state of conservation, the site was removed from the endangered list in 2021. Geography The park is in an area of rainforest about halfway between Kinshasa, the capital, and Kisangani. There are no roads and most of the park is accessible only by river. Sections of the national park are almost completely inaccesible and have never been systematically explored. The southern region inhabited by the I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Garamba National Park
Garamba National Park is a nearly national park in north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is among Africa's oldest parks, and was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980 for its protection of critical habitat for northern white rhinoceroses, elephants, hippopotamuses, and giraffes. Garamba has been managed by African Parks in partnership with the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), since 2005. Overview Garamba National Park was established in 1938 and covers an area of a in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is bounded by Gangala-na-Bodio Hunting Reserve on the west, south, and east, and borders South Sudan on the north and northeast. It is part of the Sudano–Guinea savanna woodland, Guinean savanna zone. The park is one of Africa's oldest protected areas. It lies in the transition zone between two centres of endemism: Guinea-Congolian and Guinean-Sudanese savanna. These two biogeographic zones support a variety ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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