Sangha River

Sangha River

The Sangha River is a tributary of the Congo River, formed by the sources of the Mambéré and Kadeï rivers at Nola, in the south-west of the Central African Republic. The Sangha River is a year-round steamboat navigation route below Ouesso and periodically all the way to Nola. Its swampy lower reaches are divided into several estuaries and are linked by different streams to the Likouala aux Herbes, Likouala and Ubangi rivers. The Sangha River is a freshwater ecoregion in Africa. Here lives the manatee, who lives entirely in water. The wetlands in the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Congo are protected Ramsar areas. The Sangha Trinational area is located in the north-west of the Congo Basin, at the junction of Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Congo, and comprises three contiguous national parks covering a total area of approximately 750 000 hectares. Most of the area is unaffected by human activity and is dominated by a wide range of wet tropical forest ecosystems, with abundant flora and fauna, including Nile Crocodiles and the Goliath Tigerfish, a top predator. The forest clearings are home to herbaceous species and Sangha is home to a significant Forest Elephant population, the critically endangered Western Lowland Gorilla and the endangered Chimpanzee. The area's environment has maintained a huge continuity of ecological and evolutionary processes on a large scale and a high biodiversity, including many endangered species.