Salonga National Park

Salonga National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (inscribed 1984) in Tshuapa Province, DRC, covering roughly 36,000 km² of pristine lowland rainforest — Africa's largest tropical rainforest reserve. Established by presidential decree in 1970, it was listed as a World Heritage Site in Danger in 1999 due to poaching and encroachment, and was removed from that list in 2021 following conservation progress. It has been co-managed by the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) and WWF since 2015. The park protects bonobos (with notably higher populations near Iyaelima settlements, where local communities actively protect them), forest elephants despite ongoing hunting pressure, and the Congo peafowl — DRC's national bird. Large sections of the park remain almost completely inaccessible and have never been systematically explored. Access is extremely difficult, with no roads through most of the park; travel is by river, charter aircraft to Monkoto, or trekking.

By Plane

Charter flight from Kinshasa or Kisangani to park airstrips.

By Boat

River access on the Salonga, Tshuapa, and Ruki rivers.

River boats and walking with rangers.

Bonobos in the wild. The pristine rainforest interior. River systems.

Guided forest walks. River boat trips. Bonobo tracking.

Self-catering. Bring all supplies.

Bring water purification.

Basic ICCN camps.

No facilities.

Boende (200 km west by river). Mbandaka (further west by river).