Blog

Inspiration, discovery and conservation in action from Congo’s wild places.

over 100 African grey parrots seized in northern Congo

Posted on January 29, 2017

Last month over one hundred illegally captured African Grey Parrots (Psittacus erithacus) were seized in northern Republic of Congo, not long after the world’s most trafficked bird was offered extra protection at the CITES CoP in September 2016. The seizures, leading to the arrest of three trans-boundary traffickers, took place during operations carried out by teams of rangers and investigators working under the Nouabale-Ndoki Foundation, a public-private partnership between the Congolese Government and WCS Congo...

A VITAL PIECE OF NATURAL HERITAGE TO BE SAVED

Posted on January 11, 2017

by Tim Rayden

Ten years ago, in 2006, the government of Congo committed to the creation of a new protected area: the Ogooué Leketi National Park, to make a trans-frontier protected zone with the Plateau Batéké National Park in Gabon. The forest was, at the time, one of the last intact areas in southern Congo, naturally protected by the two rivers, the Ogooué and the Leketi, from which the park would take its name. It is priority site...

the sound of conservation

Posted on November 30, 2016

by Terry Brncic

Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project and WCS-Congo are launching a new study using hidden microphones in the forest to better monitor forest elephant populations and movements, pinpoint the gunshots of poachers, and record the biodiversity in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Congo. Any animal (including humans) that makes a loud noise can be detected and recorded by the acoustic devices. Elephants are exceptionally good subjects for acoustic monitoring because they communicate using low frequency rumbles which can...

Hippos in the rainforest

Posted on November 16, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

A team of 6 six rangers congregated in the Joint Operations Centre at Bomassa Park HQ. Maps and photos taken during patrol flickered across the monitor screen as Christian Molango, the patrol leader, detailed what they encountered as they scouted along the banks of the Ndoki river. Then, something unusual caught everyone’s attention – a pair of hippos appeared on the screen....

Conkouati-Douli’s turtle guardians

Posted on October 29, 2016

by Bryan Curran

On October 01-03 2016 the WCS Conkouati-Douli National Park team co-sponsored with Congolese NGO RENATURA a training session in the village of Belello for the teams which will monitor and protect Congo’s beaches during the current marine turtle nesting season. Forty-eight trainees (30 from WCS Conkouati and 18 from RENATURA) spent two days learning how to identify the different turtle species that frequent Congo’s Atlantic coast, as well as how to measure and tag...

mitigating human-elephant conflict in Bambama

Posted on September 28, 2016

by Sam Nziengui Kassa

WCS’s community development team is working with farmers in the periphery of the proposed Ogooué Leketi National Park to reduce the impacts of elephant crop raiding. Over recent years, the communities in the district of Bambama have suffered increasingly from incidents of crop raiding. Local farmers are exasperated by the problem, and can resort to desperate measures to protect their fields, with serious consequences for the elephants. ...

Dismantling northern Congo’s trafficking networks

Posted on September 13, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

The fight to protect northern Congo’s forest elephants has reached boiling point. In the past two months 32 poachers have been arrested, over 100 kilograms of ivory seized and six semi-automatic weapons detained across the Ndoki landscape. This includes the arrest of an ivory trafficker tied to one the most notorious poaching rings in northern Congo. ...

Sustainable agroforestry two years down the line

Posted on September 8, 2016

by Tim Rayden

This week marks the second anniversary of a collaboration between WCS Batéké Project, and the National Afforestation Service of the Congo’s Forest Ministry. The collaboration was set up in September 2014 to promote alternative livelihoods for the populations living in the periphery of the Lefini Wildlife Reserve in central Congo. ...

world elephant day 2016

Posted on August 12, 2016

by Zanne Labuschagne

Over the last decade central Africa has lost 60% of its elephants; a staggering loss owed mainly to the unrelenting ivory trade. World Elephant Day offers a critical opportunity to take stock of their plight whilst also recognizing the hard work teams of men and woman are putting in in the field to protect these giants across their range. ...

Rene and Moise

Posted on August 2, 2016

by Mark Gately

It is with profound sadness that we share with you the tragic loss of two of the most dedicated and longstanding WCS Congo team members, René Rufin Aleba and Moise Zoniaba. Several of the current WCS staff here in Congo have worked together since the beginning of the project in the early nineties. Moise and René were two such employees, and for their fellow longstanding colleagues, who worked together with these two men for over...