Congo’s coastline is dissected by the snaking mass of the world’s second largest river – the mighty Congo - pumping huge volumes of water into the ocean each second. It is here where the warmer more turbid Gulf of Guinea meets the cooler waters of southern Africa. This transition zone encompasses some of the world’s most productive fishing areas, and a wealth of marine biodiversity....
Hands covered by red rubber gloves clap in time with the women’s song, “Salongo… alinga mosala!” (Work together, we like to work hard!). Members of the community join the singing as they move through Bomassa collecting rubbish and cleaning up the town’s main street. Across the planet attention has recently been drawn to the plastic pollution crisis. We are emptying millions of tons of rubbish...
Four poachers responsible for killing elephants in the periphery of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park were sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by the local district court on Thursday the 22nd of November. Leonard Beckou, the gang leader, is a repeat wildlife crime offender, having been arrested twice before in 2015 and 2016. His latest poaching raids were conducted close to local villages, sparking fear within...
On the 9th of November 2018 Her Excellency Rosalie Matondo, the Republic of Congo’s Minister of Forestry Economy; the US Ambassador, Todd Haskell; Paul Sabatine, Mission Director to USAID/DRC; the Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Congo program; and local authorities gathered in Sibiti in the Lekoumou Department to create, by official decree, Congo’s fifth national park - the Ogooué-Leketi National Park. ...
The Republic of Congo is home to 60% of the world’s remaining gorillas. A recent study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society pulled together survey data collected between 2003 and 2013 across central Africa and found that there are many more western lowland gorillas than previously estimated, but many of these gorillas are found beyond the boundaries of protected areas. In northern Congo, in and...
On Saturday the 8th of September 36 African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) were released from the Bomassa Rehabilitation Centre in the periphery of the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park. These parrots were part of a group of over fifty that had been recovering at the facility since late December last year. ...
They carve paths through the forest and disperse the seeds of gigantic trees. Their disappearance would not only mean the loss of our planet’s largest land mammal, but would also drastically change the habitat of hundreds of other species. Today is World Elephant Day, a day to reflect on the plight of the giants of our forests and savannahs, raise awareness and take a stand...
Over the past decade central Africa’s forest elephants have been hit by an unprecedented wave of ivory poaching. Elephant populations have declined drastically in the region. The Republic of Congo, harbouring a quarter of Africa’s remaining forest elephants, has not escaped this poaching crisis. Poaching gangs have become more organised, often traveling from neighbouring countries to exploit Congo’s wildlife. ...
Each morning at dawn the whistle blasts out through the fog, initiating a flurry of activity as the Ndoki rangers emerge from their tents and start their warm-up laps of the training camp. The forest towers above them, the training facility and its inhabitants dwarfed by the expansive Nouabale-Ndoki National Park. These brave men and women are the Park’s on-the-ground defence against a wave of...
The Nouabale-Ndoki National Park is a unique place – not a single road enters into the Park, and the tract of forest within its boundaries is some of the most intact in the Congo Basin. Despite good roads in the Park periphery, surveying remote zones of the Park, and moving between the Park’s two headquarters – one in the north-eastern periphery and the other on...