Wildlife Of The Central African Republic
Wildlife in the Central African Republic is in the vast natural habitat located between the Congo Basin's rain forests and large savannas, where the human density was smaller than 0.5 per km2 prior to 1850. The forest area of 22.755 million ha, considered as one of richest storehouses of wild life spread over national parks, hunting reserves and community hunting areas, underwent a change over to an alarming situation of loss of wild life due to greed for ivory and bushmeat exploitation by the hunters, mostly Arab slavers from across the borders of the Central African Republic (Central African Republic) with Chad and Sudan.
Realising the serious threat to the wildlife, the colonists – French Administration – in 1935 and later the Government of the Republic of CRA, enacted laws and created National parks and preserves, which covered 16.6% of the country. The three most coveted national parks are the Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park with its reported "greatest concentrations of hippos in the world", the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park in the north; and the Dzanga-Sangha Reserve which covers rain forests. The Manovo-Gounda-Saint-Floris National Park, in particular was inscribed to the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites in 1988 in recognition of the diversity of life present within it in respect of its wealth of flora and fauna.
However, the legal instruments were not effective in controlling poaching activities for profits, as institutional support for protected areas has all along been weak with hunters and loggers not letting go their activities even in national parks. Most of the timber extracted from the CRA is exported to Europe.
The richness of the wild life of the Central African Republic is reflected in its about 3,600 species of plants, 663 birds, 209 mammals (includes two endemic species and 11 threatened species), 187 reptiles and 29 amphibians.
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