The Congoâs Salonga National Park is a book that examines interactions between human communities and the global biodiversity that is sheltered by Salonga National Park. The book is not a review of research that has been ongoing in Salonga National Park over several years now. Rather, it is a book that takes a birdâs-eye view to look at how the forests, waters, and species in the wider Salonga landscape interact to give birth to what the Salonga National Park is. As such, the book treats the Salongaâs wildlife, its forests and waters, and Salonga National Parkâs contemporary human history within the regional framework.
The book examines how the material environmental attributes act on ecological processes. It is an effort to show how abiotic components of a given landscape are actually what cause life to be what it is in a given landscape. Abiotic factors are made of all the physicochemical characteristics of the environment including climatic factors (temperature, rainfall, light, wind, etc.) and soil edaphic traits such as texture and structure of the soil and its chemical composition. However, these factors happen to be the way they are and where they are because of the physical geological history of the land, i.e. how the land is laid out and what that layout forces other abiotic and biotic components to be. It has been known for some time that mountains, for example, have a different weather pattern because of the effects of elevation on the climate. Different weather patterns conduce to different types of life diversity. This is commonly called altitudinal effects, and it is a fact that naturally layered life systems are a factor of the elevational zoning whereby distinct elevations conduce to differentiated and differentiable environmental conditions. The same can be said of why there is higher biodiversity in the mountainous corridor of the Albertine Rift Valley of the African Great Lakes Region or even in the case of the higher endemism of Madagascar. In fact, geological history as well as the fact of being located physically at one place but not at another diversifies biodiversity across the earth. This latter fact is known as latitudinal effect whereby variations of physical and biological quantities are a factor of changes in latitude; these can be one way or the other traceable back to changes in the intensities of sunrays, which are known to decrease as the latitudes increase.
Both altitudinal and latitudinal effects on biodiversity have been studied abundantly and should not be reviewed here. What has to be said here is, however, that the numerous studies of altitudinal effects on biodiversity do focus mostly on higher elevations, not where altitudes are rather meager or even negative. It this latter situation that makes this book an important contribution, or so it is meant to be taken; the book discusses the inverse of the known altitudinal effect. The book is about how lower altitudes shape the lowland landscape and, subsequently, the life forms these lowland landscapes shelter. It uses a case study of one of the lowest altitude forests across the world, the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I worked in Salonga National Park from 1997 to 2004 and remained connected to the work being done by ecological researchers in this area until very recently. The idea of writing this book is part of that work history, which led to many questions of which the most important to my mind has been why species such as bonobos and the elephants (the only two species discussed at some length in this book) are distributed as they are in this massive forest area. For years, mainstream theoretical assumptions such as the intensity of poaching, human settlements, habitat fragmentation, etc. have guided my reflections but none was convincing enough as to why it should be the root cause of the current situation of Salonga National Park. This was because the habitats can hardly be qualified as fragmented in Salonga National Park; indeed, it is still relatively intact, which does not mean to be understood as pristine or immaculate. Permanent and significant human settlements are rather sparsely distributed and have human densities that are rather very low, which is far from being stagnant over the years; indeed, despite historic low birth rates, the regionâs population is currently increasing but at a pace that will not fill the area with numerous individuals in decades to come. This leaves only wildlife poaching as the single factor that could explain why biodiversity has been devastated in Salonga National Park. But why has poaching proliferated over years in this area? Even more interestingly, why are human densities so low and why, in a world with the scramble for natural resources, has the area remained relatively intact? Even during the colonial era, why has the area remained relatively outside the reach of grips of the dire colonial invasion?
My reflections on those questions grew as I was moving back and forth in Salonga National Park and trekking through deep muddy and deep brown waters and hacking through thick forests made of Marantaceae and lianas. I thought to write years before now but could not understand what would be the thread of the argument that would lead to a somewhat unifying cause that affects what is known as Salonga National Park today. The idea to think about water came in May 2014 after meeting with Jan Vansina at Madison (Wisconsin). Without realizing that I was looking for a reason that would be good enough to explain why Salonga National Park is currently what it is, Jan Vansina started telling me of his views about how the physical environment may have shaped the culture of the Bakuba communities he has worked on in the Kasai and vice-versa. After the conversation I began to see pieces of this book coming together in my mind: I clearly began to see that it is because the area of Salonga National Park is very low in its altitude that it has so much surrounding water and these massive quantities of water dictate the forms that life can take. Put in ecological terms, the shape of the lithosphere under the emergent features of Salonga National Park has come to make it possible that the hydrosphere dominates the entirety of the region. With that much water, to sustain life, only species able to adapt to water conditions can survive and those that cannot live underwater have had to adopt strategies that would support being compacted to available terra firma soils. As the book strives to show, life in Salonga National Park has evolved around water as a driving factor, around which nature nurtured a human culture that is so inextricably related to water. But the water in Salonga National Park is as it is because of the geological depression of the region. Hence, beyond water it is the physical layout, the geological history, that has left its marks on what can be seen in Salonga National Park today. Even the poaching, which seems to be the only good reason to explain the paucity of indices of charismatic large mammals in Salonga National Park, has its roots in the physical layout of the landscape that comprises Salonga National Park. Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 5, the driving force for the poaching in the region is its low human density, which causes high lawlessness because low human densities, in turn, are reasons for not having sufficient law enforcement services. But low human densities are caused by several factors correlated with lower altitudes and water as discussed in chapter 2.
Apart from points made about how the physical land layout drives the ecology of a tropical forest landscape, The Salonga Forested Freshwater Landscape is, secondly, a book that also looks at how important the waters stored in the ecological conditions described in the first seven chapters are in the Congo Basin and the wider world. The book argues that the roles the Salonga freshwater and associated ecosystems (including its forests, swamps, and watersheds) play are not ecologically important only for the Congo Basin but they also have significance at the regional continental scale and beyond. The Salonga ecosystems contribute significantly in the preservation of immense quantities of freshwater that serve the Congo River downstream; the biodiversity it shelters contributes functionally in maintaining life on earth, and its ecosystems can be said to genuinely contribute to maintaining the continental and world climate and associated weather patterns in good conditions.
The chapters that deal with providing details for a sustained argument to substantiate the claim that the Salonga forests, swamps, and watersheds are enormously important include Chapter 8 that discusses the specifics of the Salonga freshwater ecosystems within the Congo Riverâs ecosystems. This chapter provides a large overview of water ecosystems in the Congo and compares these ecosystems using water quantities, levels of pollution, vegetation coverage, and human density around each basin. Water quantities, levels of pollution, vegetation coverage, and human densities are also used in Chapter 9 to define blue spots, a concept defined as areas that are still in relatively good shape, lightly impacted by human development, and hold significant quantities of freshwaters to be able to support, if need be, a significant portion of human communities in the areas adjacent to the blue spot itself. From the idea of the blue spot, Chapter 9 identifies the African blue spots. In the process of getting to this point, the chapter reviews, albeit briefly, the current conditions of freshwaters worldwide.
In some chapters, as just said above, there is an insistence on the effects of altitude but this insistence is to adhere to the explaining paradigm of what made Salonga National Park look like we see it today. Beyond that, the book goes above descriptions. It is organized in 11 self-contained chapters that can be read without having to go through preceding materials or chapters that follow. The first four chapters are focused on describing the current status of Salonga National Park. This status is read through the lenses of the natural history of the region. Chapter 1 describes Salonga National Park in its geological and ecological features; it explains how the area of the park has become what it is because of its geological history. Chapter 2 is a reconstruction of the ancient history of Salonga National Park and brings to light important facts such as the discovery of sharpened quartz gravels with milky sparkles that date back as far as 40,000â3,000 BP at Nkemasoni along the Luilaka and Momboyo Rivers and how human communities created a network of human forest footpaths that interconnected with the central and eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Chapter 3 discusses the distributions of human and wildlife with regards to the physical environment of Salonga National Park. It argues that lower human and wildlife densities observed in the park are causally linkable to the fact that the area has so much water, which is due to its low altitudes. Chapter 4 is about the physiognomy of the forest types in Salonga National Park not only in terms of basal areas but also of canopy covers by forest types. Basal areas and canopy covers by forest types are discussed within the framework of the geological history of the region. The chapter concludes that some of the Marantaceae forests in the south-eastern part of Salonga National Park can genuinely be tracked back to the glaciations that occurred in Pleistocene and were savannas being reconverted into forest whereas others are clearly linked to the human dynamics in the region.
The following chapters (5 through 7) look at Salonga National Park through the perspectives of what it provides to human communities. Chapter 5 presents the relative abundances of mammalian species against the human densities in Salonga National Park. Unsurprisingly, the chapter found a negative relationship between mammalsâ signs and human activity signs, a finding which was interpreted using the framework of the mainstream wildlife ecology where it is generally accepted that high human densities would decrease wildlife abundances. It is the argument of the chapter that a lack of sufficient authority, which was due to the direness of conditions imposed by the water-locked environment, had conduced a situation of no manâs land where armed poaching proliferated. Chapter 6 narrates on the fact that long established human footpath trails in the region embodied the evidence that pristine forests and the African wilderness are just a myth. It says that even though it was once thought to offer a proof of claims of pristine forest, Salonga National Park epitomized the syndrome of empty forests. However, the chapter demonstrates that the value of Salonga National Park should not be neglected once one has concluded that wildlife species are reduced to thin numbers. Salonga National Park contributions to local, provincial and community levels, as well as to all of humanity, includie the historical service Salonga National Park provided as a Pleistocene forest refuge that gave the possibility for life to bounce back once the dry period elapsed. Chapter 7 clarifies the concept of resilience and what contribution preserving biodiversity globally and, specifically, conserving species bring to the resilience; it argues that Salonga National Park being part of an ancient forest refuge allowed it to significantly contribute to the biological and ecological resilience of the entire region, which cushioned and maintained social and economic resilience for local communities.
Chapters 8 and 9 present the significance of the Salonga forested freshwaters within the Congo and in Africa. Chapter 8 provides reasons why Salonga National Park is the bluest spot of the Congo Basin. The concept of blue spot heavily draws its comprehensible meanings from the parallel idea of the ecological hotspots, which are defined as the most biodiverse areas of earth. Reasons for the Salonga National Park to stand as the bluest point of the Congo Basin included lack of development infrastructure due the remoteness of the entire region and the natural obstacles posed by the land layout and the soil structure that is essentially soft soil on swamps. Following the same line of argument, Chapter 9 compares the Salonga freshwater ecosystems with other African major freshwater basins. Again, the chapter reaches the conclusion that even in Africa the Salonga National Park freshwater ecosystem is the bluest point. The chapter also compared the Amazon basin and the Congo Basin and found that conditions in this latter basin were better than in the former. Because Salonga National Park landscape is the bluest in the Congo Basin, it was suggested that it could also have better ecological conditions than those prevailing in the Amazon. The chapter did not want to go that far because geographies differed significantly.
The last two chapters (10 and 11) are about what to do with the current experience and knowledge the biodiversity conservation community possesses on Salonga National Park. Chapter 10 reviews the possibility of solving the conflict between the indigenous people residing near the north-western border of Salonga National Park in its southern part. Using the example of the Yealima whose communities remained within the park after it was created, it is argued that this specific case offers an opportunity to the Salonga National Park management authority to assess whether any presence within the park is harmful or not. The chapter argues that biological surveys should be conducted and their results compared with results of similar studies on other sites of Salonga National Park to see if the presence of human communities within the park has had a negative impact. The assessment should include anthropological and cultural studies before concluding to accept the presence of indigenous people inside the park or not. Finally, chapter 11 reviews the progress that has been made in Salonga National Park in the light of the conditions that prevailed in the late 1990s. Going through numerous reports, the chapter argues that progress and improvements have been, indeed, achieved in Salonga National Park over that last quarter of century. New species were discovered, anecdotal reports signaled an elephant comeback, and there are many more scientific papers now than ever before. Despite these achievements the chapter makes the point that there are still so many things to be done in Salonga National Park, as far as scientific research is concerned. Finally, there is a short discussion of the added-value of the public-private management model, which is now implemented in Salonga National Park. While the model seems to have proved to be sufficiently good in other protected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the chapter also sees the model as holding the potential to push Congolese authorities to withdraw from their own responsibilities to properly manage their own protected areas.
As hinted above, the idea of writing this book germinated through a long process. I would like to make it plain here that had it not been for the chance I was offered to work as the field director for the Zoological Society of Milwaukee (ZSM), I may have never had put my feet in Salonga National Park. I visited Salonga National Park the first time as I was recruited by Gay E. Reinartz of the ZSM to be part of the expedition that comprised Ellen Van Krunkelsven and Dirk Draulans in 1997. In 1997, the Democratic Republic of Congo was coming out of the first episode of its more than two-decade long cycle of war. The mission was, in many ways, the first of its type in the northern part of Salonga National Park and, despite being too risky in terms of security, ignited the currently ongoing interest in the park. Indeed, before that mission funded by ZSM very few scientific expeditions were able to reach Salonga National Park; even the presence of the bonobo Pan paniscus remained questionable even though Angela Meder briefly observed the species in the area near Monkoto in the southern part of Salonga National Park. The 1997 field scientific mission had the value of putting an end to the question on whether bonobos existed in Salonga National Park; it confirmed the speciesâ presence and sparked the interest of the research in this massive area. For that reason, I wish to thank Gay Reinartz for having accepted me to be part of that mission and leading the fieldwork of the ZSM for several years after that mission. Truly speaking, it was from the days I worked with ZSM that I visited most of Salonga National Park both north and south; it is also from that experience that I gained a global view of what connected the micro ecosystems of this massive area. Needless to say that many views and some of the data presented in this book are from that time though they are solely mine and do not engage ZSM or anyone else. While I pride myself on having been able to begin the Etate Study site and to have established its patrol post, my pride is humbled when compared to the significance of the decision made by Gay Reinartz to invest resources in Salonga National Park at a time where no one would have thought of the whole area and when human needs were so immense in the aftermath of a war that took huge tolls economically, socially, and, above all, humanly. The discussion of the patchiness of the distribution of bonobos in Chapter 3 is part of discussions I had with colleagues while in the field and while crafting strategies of the intervention of the ZSM in the field. Most of the data from my time in ZSM has already been published and wherever they are presented in this book, original publications are appropriately credited. After I left ZSM, I joined the Wildlife Conservation Societyâs program on forest elephants, which conducted the first regional-wide survey of elephants. By regional it is meant to say Central Africa. While I was working as the technical assistant to the regional elephant survey coordinator, I physically participated in the survey of a large part of Salonga National Park, which led to the finding that herds of elephants that were expected to remain in Salonga National Park either were low in number or had been poached down to less than one-tenth of what they were thought to be. This helped me broaden my firsthand knowledge of Salonga National Park, and the discussions presented on elephants in Chapter 3 are significantly influenced by that time and the discussions I have had with colleagues who were part of that survey.
Apart from Jan Vansina and Gay Reinartz, I would like to thank several colleagues I have worked with in Salonga National Park, including Omari Ilambu, Mafuta Ngama-Nkosi, Edmond Isomana, and Lisalama Wema-Wema, with whom I trekked through the forests of Salonga National Park. During those forest treks, I was fortunate to work with some wardens from the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature, including people such as Albert Bofenda, Jean Botomfie Mupansuon, Mulonda Amba, Asanzi Mbwes, and Tshobo Masunda. Eco-guards were also part of my education on Salonga National Park, particularly people such as Bunda Bokinsthi and Nkenga Isasi, etc. Certainly, the list is very long; many thanks to even those whose names do not appear here. Sadly enough, Omari Ilambu, Lisalama Wema-Wema, Albert Bofenda, and Bunda Bokinsthi passed away and will not have the chance to read their names on this book.