Friday, June 24, 2016


Garamba National Park


The park's immense savannahs, grasslands and woodlands, interspersed with gallery forests along the river banks and the swampy depressions, are home to four large mammals: the elephant, giraffe, hippopotamus and above all the white rhinoceros. Though much larger than the black rhino, it is harmless; only some 30 individuals remain.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/136


Garamba National Park aims to protect the world's last known wild population of the critically endangered northern white rhinoceros. It comprises an area of savannah, marshland and forests in the far northeast of the DR of Congo, on the border with South Sudan.

The park was established in 1938, making it one of Africa's oldest national parks. It covers 492,000 ha. At an altitude of 700-1,000 m, Garamba is much flatter and has a different vegetation than the more mountaineous other Congolese WHS.

Since inscription in 1980, the park has been declared ‘In Danger’ twice. The northern white rhino population dwindled as a result of poaching from 1,000 in 1960 to 21 at the moment of WH inscription. It suffered further from 1996 on, due to the influx of South Sudanese refugees and rebels. In 2005 there were only four remaining northern white rhinos in Garamba National Park. However, they have not been seen since 2006 and it is feared they have been killed and the species has become extinct in the wild.

Other large mammals that inhabit the park include the hippopotamus, elephant, lion, leopard, chimpanzee and giraffe. The park’s elephant population has dropped significantly too, from 20,000 in the 1960s to 1,700 in 2014. 

http://www.worldheritagesite.org/sites/site.php?id=136

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