The wet season in northern Congo is a powerful thing to witness. Torrential rain can fall continuously for several days. Roads turn into sliding mosaics of water and mud. Rivers small and large swell up, rising so quickly you can almost see it. The air is heavy and people dash between houses in the brief dry spells. ...
Soaked to the shoulders, Christelle Nguizi, ranger, pulls herself through another reed-filled marsh. Ten days into a patrol in the south of Lac Tele Community Reserve, she’s lead a team of five men through flooded forest and across vast wetlands by boat, canoe and, when these can’t pass through, by foot. Their mission is to survey key elephant poaching hotspots in the south of the...
Roger Mombongo is wet again. Returning from a month on a boat, ranging up and down winding rivers which slide in and out of thick rainforest, he’s used to it now - but he’s still looking forward to a night at home. During this trip, he visited thirteen villages in the south of Lac Tele Community Reserve, to work with families who rely on fish...
If you take a plunge into the forest surrounding many of Lac Télé Community Reserve’s villages, you’ll quickly come across suspiciously neat rows of trees hiding amongst the undergrowth. Look closer, and you’ll see some have strange yellow pods, though many are rotting where they grow. Cacao trees, planted 40 years ago in many cases, are continuing to produce fruit. ...
“Mbese, ngolo, nzombo, mbenga…”: Nicolas lifts each fish up in turn, sounding out its rounded Lingala names before adding it to the growing pile in our bright plastic bowl. Finding 10 species in one catch, he says, is normal for this area. WCS-led surveys have so far identified around 170 species of fish from the Sangha River, the great, green ribbon winding through North Congo’s...