Posted on
September 24, 2019
In 2018, scientists from ten different organizations assembled the largest survey dataset ever on western lowland gorillas and central chimpanzees. We collated the information on great apes nests from 59 sites in five countries surveyed over 11 years between 2003 and 2013. The study indicated that although there were more gorillas than previously published, they were in deep trouble- declining by a shocking 2.7% every year....
Posted on
August 12, 2019
For more than 25 years, scientists have been monitoring, studying and observing Mbeli bai’s wildlife in the Nouabalé-Ndoki national park. The Mbeli study is named after the bai , or clearing, where the research is conducted. Forest elephants, a still little known and often overlooked sub-species, are frequently observed in this unique landscape. The Mbeli study has contributed essential knowledge to the development of improved...
Donatien Mengonga, Bayaka indigenous tracker, has a dream: to become a research assistant at the Mondika site in the northern Republic of Congo. WCS's scientific skills development programme has enabled him to resume his studies....
BRAZZAVILLE, REPUBLIC OF CONGO (June 18th, 2019) – Her Excellency Rosalie Matondo, the Republic of Congo’s Minister of Forestry Economy, the U.S. Ambassador, Todd Haskell, and the Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS’s) Africa program, Tim Tear celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park – a stunning protected area, and World Heritage Site, that spans 1,621 square miles (4,200 square kilometers) of...
Posted on
December 7, 2018
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....
Posted on
December 3, 2018
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...
Posted on
September 24, 2018
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...
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.
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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...
