Bikoro Territory is an administrative area in
Équateur District of
Équateur province in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...
. The headquarters is the town of
Bikoro
Bikoro is a market town in Équateur Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, lying on Lake Tumba, south of Mbandaka.
It is the administrative center of Bikoro Territory.
In 2012, the estimated population was 7,426.
Bikoro was the ...
. The territory lies to the south of the provincial capital of
Mbandaka. It is bordered on the west by the
Congo River
The Congo River, formerly also known as the Zaire River, is the second-longest river in Africa, shorter only than the Nile, as well as the third-largest river in the world list of rivers by discharge, by discharge volume, following the Amazon Ri ...
, and contains
Lake Ntomba.
The lake covers about depending on the season, connected via the Irebu channel with the Congo river. Water may flow into or out of the lake through this channel depending on the floods. Lake Tumba has 114 species of fish and supports an important fisheries.
The lake lies at the center of the
Tumba-Ngiri-Maindombe landscape, the largest
Ramsar Convention
The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar site, Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on We ...
wetland in the world, a vast area of forest and permanent or seasonal lakes and marshlands that has great environmental and economic value.
Bikoro Territory is one of the remaining places where
bonobo
The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee (less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee), is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (the other bei ...
s still survive, a close relative of humans.
It is also home to the endangered
red colobus monkey and the
red-tailed monkey. Other large animals include the hippopotamus, crocodile and elephant.
The marsh forests are suffering from uncontrolled timber extraction and
slash-and-burn
Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody p ...
agriculture.
The main cash crops are coffee, cacao and rubber.
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]
References
{{reflist , refs=
[{{cite web
, url=http://www.forestlandscaperestoration.org/regional-networks/eastcentralafrica/bikoro/
, title=Bikoro
, publisher=Global Partnership on Forest and Landscape Restoration
, author=Joel Kiyulu
, access-date=2012-02-01
{{Dead link, date=June 2019 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes ]
Territories of Équateur Province