This year, more than 20 young Congolese men and women joined the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation team of ecoguards in northern Congo. They work day in and day out, sometimes risking their lives, to protect the most threatened wildlife species.

Each year, the effort to protect biodiversity in Nouabalé-Ndoki national park intensifies. The number of poachers is increasing and they are better organized and equipped military-grade weapons.

“Given the worrying escalation of poaching, it is time for the Government of the Republic of Congo, together with its WCS partners through the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation, to develop sustained and adaptive management strategies”, said Marcel Ngangoue, Warden of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, at the closing ceremony of the training of new ecoguard recruits.

Transparent and professional recruitment

After an initial phase of selecting applications on criteria such as level of training or age, candidates were subjected to a series of physical tests and general skills. Recruitment is transparent and open to all: men and women, Indigenous and Bantu.

The rigorous and comprehensive training allows the selected young trainees to reach the level of professionalism necessary to be a successful ecoguard. The Director General of the Congolese Agency for Wildlife and Protected Areas (ACFAP), Mr. BOCKANDZA-PACO, congratulated them “for the endurance, perseverance and discipline that characterized you throughout the training, allowing us to reassure ourselves on the future protection of wildlife and its habitat.”

Beyond wildlife, people

Being a guardian of the fauna and flora requires, in addition to knowledge about animals and navigation in the forest, a deep sense of people’s interactions with the environment. This is why our training supervisors provide courses on protected area legislation, fundamental human rights, judicial procedures, international humanitarian law and wildlife offences.

As Director General BOCKANDZA-PACO pointed out when recalling the Constitution of Congo, “throughout your missions related to the exercise of the judicial police, you are required to ensure respectful treatment of the people, regardless of the nature of the offence committed.”

A mission

Leaders including Warden Marcel Ngangoue, who was recently awarded the African Ranger Prize, and representatives of the Ministry of Forest Economy and Kabo District, as well as WCS and the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation staff gathered during the training course ceremony to celebrate the promotion of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park ecoguards. The new recruits have demonstrated through impressive demonstrations of agility and technical proficiency, their commitment to being an ecoguard.

Mr BOCKANDZA-PACO said it best when he concluded, “the job you are called upon to do is a noble one. You have to love it. It must be exercised out of love, out of vocation. It is noble because we are willing to sacrifice our lives to protect our natural ecosystem that provides all of humanity with what it needs for its survival.”