Kahuzi-Biéga National Park

The Kahuzi-Biega National Park is a protected area near Bukavu town in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated near the western bank of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. Established in 1970 by the Belgian photographer and conservationist Adrien Deschryver, the park is named after two dormant volcanoes, Mount Kahuzi and Mount Biega, which are within its limits. With an area of , Kahuzi-Biega is one of the biggest national parks in the country. Set in both mountainous and lowland terrain, it is one of the last refuges of the rare species of Eastern lowland gorilla (''Gorilla beringei graueri''), an endangered category under the IUCN Red List. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1980 for its unique biodiversity of rainforest habitat and its eastern lowland gorillas. In 1997, it was listed on the List of World Heritage in Danger because of the political instability of the region, an influx of refugees, and increasing wildlife exploitation.

Geography

The park lies west of the Bukavu town in South Kivu Province, covering an area of . A small part of the park is in Mitumba Mountain range of the Albertine Rift in the Great Rift Valley, and the larger part is in lowland terrain. A corridor of width joins the mountainous and lowland terrain. The eastern part of the park is the smaller mountainous region measuring ; the larger part measures and consists mainly of lowland stretching from Bukavu to Kisangani, drained by the Luka and Lugulu rivers which flow into the Lualaba River. Two dormant volcanoes are set within the park's limits and lend their names to it: Kahuzi () and Biéga ().

The park receives an average annual precipitation of . The maximum temperature recorded in the area is while the minimum is .

Legal status

The earliest reserve, Zoological and Forest Reserve of Mount Kahuzi, was created on 27 July 1937 by the then Governor General of the Belgian Colonial administration. That reserve has been part of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park since November 1970. Five years later, the park was extended to cover 6000 km2. The park was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, under Criterion (x) for its unique habitat of rainforest and diversity of the mammal species, particularly the eastern lowland gorillas, ''Gorilla beringei graueri''.

Biodiversity

The park has a rich diversity of flora and fauna. As of a survey conducted in 2003 by the Wildlife Conservation Society, it protects roughly 349 species of birds and 136 species of mammals. Over 1,178 plant species have been observed in the highland regions of the park alone. Because of its varied topography and habitat types, Kahuzi-Biega National Park is also a hotspot of plants and vertebrate endemism for.

Flora

The park's swamps, bogs, marshland and riparian forests on hydromorphic ground at all altitudes are rare worldwide. The western lowland sector of the park is dominated by dense Guineo-Congolian wet equatorial rainforest, part of the Northeastern Congolian lowland forests ecoregion,"Kahuzi-Biega National Park". DOPA Explorer. Accessed 22 March 2022

/ref> with an area of transition forest between and . The eastern mountainous sector includes continuous forest vegetation from to over , and is one of the rare sites in Sub-Saharan Africa which demonstrates all stages of the low to highland transition, including six distinguishable primary vegetation types: swamp and peat bog, swamp forest, high-altitude rainforest, mountain rainforest, bamboo forest and subalpine heather. The montane rain forests are part of the Albertine Rift montane forests ecoregion. Mountain and swamp forest grows between and , bamboo forest grows between and , and the summits of Mounts Kahuzi and Biéga above have subalpine heather, dry savannah, and grasslands, as well as the endemic plant '' Senecio kahuzicus''.

Fauna

The national park protects a greater diversity of mammal species than any other national park in the Albertine Rift.Wildlife Conservation Society