Congo | WCS Congo Blog

Conserving Congo’s only Community Reserve

Posted on February 6, 2017

Created in 2001, Congo’s only community reserve includes extraordinary biodiversity: the highest known local densities of gorillas in the world, large populations of chimpanzees, as well as the full range of other Congo forest creatures. The area is managed by the Ministry of Forestry Economy and Sustainable Development (MEFDD) in partnership with WCS Congo, through funding from USAID’s CARPE program. Commercial hunting and wildlife trafficking...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Burn baby burn

Posted on June 21, 2016

by Tim Rayden

Last week a team from the WCS Batéké Project was in the field with a group of fire experts from US Forest Service to look at fire management in the Lefini and Lesio Louna wildlife reserves. Around one third of Congo’s surface area is covered by savannah. The grassy plateau stretches across the middle of the country from Gabon to the east of...

A growing engagement

Posted on April 1, 2016

by Tim Rayden

Say 'Congo' and most people will think of thick, impenetrable forests. Few people realise that one third of Congo's surface area is covered by savannah. The WCS Batéké project works in the area around the Lefini reserve in central Congo. Trees cover only about 20% of the landscape, meaning that the wooded areas are increasingly under pressure from a growing human population. The reserve was...

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