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...
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...
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. ...
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...
Phael Malonga and Frelcia Bambi spend up to a five-weeks at a time out in the wilderness of the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo. They are working on an exciting new project - at the end of 2016 Cornell University’s Elephant Listening Project and WCS-Congo launched a study using hidden microphones to better monitor forest elephant populations and movements, pinpoint the gunshots...
Twenty-two Congolese men and women stand lined-up in a clearing surrounded by dense rainforest. To their left, Unit Leader Frank Moutengue, marches forward and raises the Congolese flag beneath the blazing sun. The national anthem echoes through the trees that encircle the training facility. These brave individuals are the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park’s on-the-ground defence against a wave of poaching that threatens northern Congo’s wildlife. ...