The Lake Télé Community Reserve is a protected area in the

Republic of the Congo The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a country located on the western coast of Central ...

History

The reserve was established on the 10 May 2001. In August 2010, the Cooperation Agreement between the governments of the

and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

(DRC) on the Lake Tele - Lake Tumba landscape provided for creation of a trans-national protected area including the Lake Télé Community Reserve and the Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe area in the DRC.

Geography and environment

The reserve is a huge area of inaccessible swamp forest, with no roads. Ite covers around Lake Télé. The soil under the reserve contains major stores of peat which is rich in carbon. This discovery makes conservation of the area even more crucial, as if disturbed the carbon could escape into the atmosphere exacerbating

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

. In light of this discovery, the Wildlife Conservation Society advocated expansion of the reserve.

Wildlife

In 2006 and 2007 researchers from the US-based

Wildlife Conservation Society The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a global 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, with a mission to save "wildlife and wild places across the globe". Founded in ...

investigated the region, finding evidence of an estimated population of 125,000

Western lowland gorilla The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in Montane ecosystems#Montane forests, montane, Old-growth forest, primary and sec ...

s. This was more than the current estimated total population of the species. The park has been designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

because it supports significant populations of many bird species.

References

Protected areas of the Republic of the Congo Protected areas established in 2001 Important Bird Areas of the Republic of the Congo Ramsar sites in the Republic of the Congo {{RCongo-geo-stub