1500 CONGO-KINSHASA - Virunga National Park (UNESCO WHS)

Located in the centre of the Albertine Rift, of the Great Rift Valley, the Virunga National Park (formerly named Albert National Park) stretches from the Virunga Mountains in the South, to the Rwenzori Mountains in the North, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, bordering Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda and Rwenzori Mountains National Park and Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda. It comprises an outstanding diversity of habitats, ranging from swamps and steppes to the snowfields of Rwenzori at an altitude of over 5,000 m, and from lava plains to the savannahs on the slopes of volcanoes. The wide diversity of habitats produces exceptional biodiversity, notably endemic species and rare and globally threatened species. Mountain gorillas are found in the park, some 20,000 hippopotamuses live in the rivers and birds from Siberia spend the winter there.

More than 2,000 premier plant species have been identified in the Virunga National Park, of which 10% are endemic to the Albertine Rift. It also contains more endemic vertebrate species than any other region of the African continent, and possesses numerous examples of them. The Park contains 218 mammal species, 706 bird species, 109 reptile species and 78 amphibian species. It also serves as refuge to 22 primate species of which three are the great ape - mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), the eastern plain gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) and the eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthi), with a third of the world population of mountain gorillas.

About the stamp
The stamp is part of a series of definitive stamps, issued in 2002 and depicted Joseph Kabila, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

References
Virunga National Park - Wikipedia
Virunga National Park - UNESCO official website

Sender: Mike
Sent from ??? (Democratic Republic of the Congo), on 14.03.2015