National Parks Round the World (12)
<h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > Sapo, the pearl of the Congolese rainforest in West Africa</h1>
< h1 toutiao-origin="h2" > Speaker: Zhu Yongjie, Professor of Beijing Forestry University</h1>
<h2 toutiao-origin="h3" > Sapo is a window into the Congolese rainforest in West Africa</h2>
Sapo National Park is the only national park in the West African nation of Liberia. To this day, the world knows very little about the Congolese rainforest, which is still a mysterious existence for the world, and there is not much written information to refer to. Although some national parks or nature reserves have also been established in the surrounding countries, complete written information is lacking. Sapo National Park is one of the few ways to gain insight into this mysterious and dangerous rainforest. This forest is the country's only remaining tropical lowland rainforest and is the second largest rainforest national park in West Africa after the Tay National Park in Côte d'Ivoire. This park is one of the most abundant areas in the country with the richest variety of flowers, and there are many varieties that are endemic to the region.
Sapo National Park is Liberia's largest rainforest reserve and the country's only national park, which international conservation groups call "the region with the highest diversity of mammal species in the world."
Congo Basin rainforest
The Republic of Liberia is located in western Africa, bordered by Guinea to the north, Sierra Leone to the northwest, Côte d'Ivoire to the east and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. The country is close to the equator and has a long coastline in the Atlantic Ocean. The main features of the terrain are flat coastal plains in the west and rolling low mountains in the northeast transition to plateaus.
Under the sun's rays, the warm Atlantic currents turn large amounts of water into clouds and continue to transport them to the equator-adjacent regions of West Africa, where the world-famous Congolese rainforest is created. Congolese rainforests have long been considered hotspots for biodiversity. Moist coastal forest ecosystems extend from Liberia to Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and other countries. The rainforest here is seriously threatened by deforestation and coastal development activities.
There are almost no winters in Liberia, rain all year round, and humid heat is the main feature of the climate environment in the country's coastal areas. Between May and October, when the rainfall is heavier, it accounts for almost three-quarters of the year. Most coastal areas receive about 4,000 mm of rain per year, and the northern inland areas are drier, receiving only half as much rainfall as the coastal areas.
Liberia's humid, hot and rainy environment provides a good living environment for many organisms, in the forests of Liberia, there are many species endemic to the region, there are more than 2,000 kinds of vascular plants, including 225 species of trees, there are 140 species of mammals, more than 600 species of birds and 75 species of reptiles and amphibians, as well as countless microorganisms coexist with animals and plants in the rainforest, playing the role of scavengers in the ecosystem, decomposing various biological residue fragments and turning them into simpler substances to return to the soil.
There are many microorganisms in the rainforest that parasitize other wild animals, and if people eat or raise wild animals, mosquito bites that have bitten these animals may be infected with bacteria or viruses, and there is a risk of disease, such as the Ebola virus in Africa, which has caused the world to panic. In fact, there are more dangerous microorganisms hidden in the Congolese rainforest.
Southeastern Liberia has high rainfall, evergreen forests and a wide variety of vegetation. Sapo National Park is typical of this forest type. All endemic species in Liberia live in the rainforest. The central and northwestern parts of the country have moist semi-deciduous forests with slightly lower rainfall. According to 2009 estimates, Liberia's forest cover represents approximately 32 per cent of the country's total area, with 11 protected national forest areas.
Patches of mangroves are distributed along the coast and near the mouths of many rivers, usually along the banks of the lower reaches of the river. Mangrove ecosystems are habitats for crustaceans and fish, and also have the functions of flood control and soil erosion control. However, Liberia's mangroves are already threatened by excessive logging, with locals cutting mangroves as a source of living energy and leaving few original mangroves.
Biodiversity hotspot areas
Sapo National Park is home to approximately 125 species of mammals, including leopards, monkeys, chimpanzees, antelopes, elephants, African golden cats, Cush's badgers, large forest pigs, spotted otters, water shrew deer, anteaters and pangolins. The Red River Hippopotamus, which lives in the rainforest rivers, is endemic to Liberia. African manatees are also found along the coast and in many river ecosystems. The Cussi badger found in the forest is probably the rarest mammal, and it wasn't until 1989 that live bodies were captured.
Surveys confirm that chimpanzees live in the center and western region of Sapo National Park, with populations estimated at 500-1640. The main reason why chimpanzees survive here is the custom of the local Sapo people - respect for chimpanzees, hunting chimpanzees is a taboo.
Liberia recorded 695 species of birds in 2016, of which 21 were rare. These rare species include the white-backed vulture, the crested vulture, the Balia gull, the parrot and the hornbill. There are large numbers of flamingos living in coastal swamps and lagoons. The African feathered grebe that lives in the park is a national bird.
Reptiles and amphibians include rhino Nile crocodiles and pygmy crocodiles. They live in the coastal mangrove swamps. West African crocodiles live deeper inland. Lizards, chameleons, geckos and snakes are widely available and are common in parks. Liberia has 3 species of sea turtles and 3 species of freshwater turtles. Due to the abundant rainfall, the frogs that live in the park include African toads, tropical clawed toads and crowned bullfrogs, and some tree frogs live in leaves. Freshwater fish found in lakes, streams and saltwater swamps include African brown knifefish, Guinean kini medaka, goldenpolkili and Normandy mermaids.
The only national park
Liberia is one of the world's least developed countries as advertised by the United Nations. The agricultural population accounts for 72% of the total population, the country has 3.8 million hectares of arable land, less than 13% of which has been developed, and food is not self-sufficient. Not only is food not self-sufficient, but living energy is also heavily dependent on forest resources. Harvesting forest wood to make charcoal is an important means of livelihood, and transporting this charcoal to towns can be exchanged for other goods or money needed. Sapo National Park is the largest rainforest reserve in Liberia, and the protection of Sapo National Park is a microcosm of the protection and management of the world's second largest rainforest in West African countries, and the protection and management of Congolese rainforest is also one of the international community's hot spots on forest issues.
Sapo National Park is located in Senoi County, southwestern Liberia, and Sapo National Park covers an area of 1,804 square kilometers. To the north of the park is the Putu Mountains and to the west is the Seinoy River. The terrain of the park is generally flat and even, the terrain is not high, there are some small hills in the north, and Mount Miputu in the north of the park is 640 meters above sea level, which is the highest place in the park. There are many creeks and rivers between the hills, and the Senoui River is the largest river in the park. There are large swampy wetlands along the coast, and uninhabited forests are the main body of the park.
The park has a tropical climate with temperatures between 22°C and 28°C. The average relative humidity of the forest is 91%. A 1983 survey of the park showed that 74 per cent of the park's woodland, 13 per cent of its swampy forest and 13 per cent of its seasonally flooded woodland. Some trees in the forest can grow to a height of 70 meters.
According to conservation groups, Sapo National Park is "the region with the highest diversity of mammal species in the world." In 1976, the Liberia Forestry Development Authority was established to manage and protect the country's forest resources. In 1977, Liberia's Department of Wildlife and National Parks was established. By 1982, Liberia had proposed plans to establish 7 protected areas, including 3 national parks. But in the end, only Sapo National Park was officially designated a national park in 1983.
According to the relevant laws and regulations of the country, agriculture, construction, fishing, hunting and logging activities are prohibited in the national park. The initial boundaries of the national park were set by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks Management in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and its management plan was also drafted by the Ministry.
The social environment poses a threat
In the mid-19th century, the United States immigrated a portion of its liberated slaves to Liberia. On July 26, 1847, American immigrants declared independence and established the Republic of Liberia. Since then, the descendants of American immigrants have been the leaders of the country, managing the Native Americans. In 1926, the American Firestone Rubber Company obtained a land concession in Liberia to grow rubber, becoming a country within a state in Liberia.
After the outbreak of World War II, the United States built military bases here. For more than a century, Liberia was ruled by people of black American descent. This situation has resulted in large disparities in the appropriation of resources and the distribution of economic benefits between descendants of Liberian American immigrants and indigenous peoples. Such discrepancies eventually led to civil unrest. In 1980, 17 Native American soldiers in the military staged a coup d'état and established a military junta that ended the rule of descendants of black immigrants in the United States. Since then, the newly established military government has split into three parties, forming a warlord melee with the political forces of the original regime. Since then, despite the constant intervention of the international community, the civil war has almost never stopped. Warlords fought each other, and Liberia experienced more than 20 years of civil war. Civil wars cost a lot of goods and money, and the conquests between different factions have led to rampant corruption, hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of people displaced.
During liberia's civil war, Sapo National Park fell into the hands of defeated rebels and much of the park's infrastructure and equipment was damaged or destroyed, including wildlife rehabilitation and conservation facilities built in 1989. Of the park's 33 employees, 3 died and 7 became refugees. During the time controlled by the rebels, in order to obtain funds, the rebels have logged forests and sold wild animals, illegally obtaining funds to bribe senior commanders, weapons and mercenary combatants. There have also been studies that indicate that logging and poaching became more common after the end of the first Liberian civil war in 1996. It was not until 1 October 2003, when the United Nations peacekeeping force took over Liberia and began to disarm the parties to the civil war, that Liberia gradually began to move towards peace. The Act on the Construction of Sapo National Park, passed on 10 October 2003, expanded the area of the park to 1,804 square kilometers, an increase of more than 37 percent. The bill recognizes the park as "vital to the conservation of biodiversity in Liberia and throughout West Africa." At the same time, the Tongnimba Nature Reserve, located on the border of Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire, became the second protected area in Liberia, covering an area of 135 square kilometers.
In the final months leading up to liberia's civil war, hordes of fighters and civilians entered the park, some to escape conflict and others to harvest timber or explore for gold, eventually developing into a full-blown gold rush. Followed by gold prospectors are hunters who poach the park's animals. According to the United Nations Mission in Liberia, by March 2005 an estimated 5,000 people were living in the park.
A new hope for Sapo Park
It was not until September 2005 that the park was completely emptied with the participation of international organizations, the Government of Liberia and United Nations peacekeeping forces. However, due to the remoteness of Sapo, lack of security and poor medical conditions (which are important in the rainforest), Sapo National Park is not much visited.
Like other West African countries, Liberia has entered a period of peace, and the living conditions of the people need to be improved, and what the people can do at present is to ask for land from the forests, develop agriculture, and feed themselves first. Some operators harvest rainforests in the area around the park and develop rubber plantations and oil palm plantations. Large areas of primary forest are destroyed and biodiversity is reduced. The local people will still harvest trees and make charcoal, because this is a limited living energy, and the local people cannot provide other living energy for the people.
How to develop more sustainable programmes to use, protect and manage rainforests is a difficult problem for many developing countries. As Liberia's socio-political stabilization has led to an action plan for Sapo National Park, which aims to educate the population to "protect and sustain Liberia's rich biodiversity, forest resources and culture" from 2017 to 2027.
Properly protecting the rainforest and developing the agricultural economy has always been a contradiction, and to develop agriculture, it is necessary to reclaim the rainforest, and reclaiming the rainforest will destroy the local ecological environment.
Source: China Green Times
After hundreds of millions of years of vicissitudes, the planet we inhabit has left many natural wonders that shock the soul. Governments around the world have protected these wild and vibrant natural wonders and established national parks with their own characteristics. Since February 3, China Green Times has successively launched a large-scale series of publicity actions of "National Park Global Tour", inviting Mr. Zhu Yongjie, a professor at Beijing Forestry University, to walk with you into the world-famous national parks, explore the past and present lives of global nature conservation classics, and appreciate the magical beauty of the world's natural vientiane.
National Park Circumnavigation
(1) Luvenzori, Mountain of the Moon
National Park Exemplar Kruger Nature Sculptor's Masterpiece Zion Natural Dome Theater Bryce Canyon Bay Poetry Painting Arcadia (6) Eurasian Intersection Magnificent Sochi (7) Kasbah Stolby Country Park Model Swiss Saxon (9) Greek Pantheon Mount Olympus (10) Volcano National Park with Diane Fossie here is the human home of Virunga