Conservation | 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...

investigation leads to 70 kg ivory seizure

Posted on February 6, 2017

by Zanne Labuschagne

On the 27th of January 2017 seventy kilograms of ivory was seized near a residential home in Ouesso, northern Congo. The group responsible for obtaining and selling the ivory is an ivory trafficking network that has been closely followed by WCS’s Wildlife Crime Unit (WCU) since September 2016, when four members of the network were arrested following collaboration between the Rapid Response Unit (RRU) and...

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 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...

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...

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. ...

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. ...

the ndoki experience

Posted on May 31, 2016

by Forrest Hogg

Our latest video, 'The Ndoki Experience' showcases the incredible diversity of the pristine forest of Nouabale-Ndoki National Park. The park, created in 1993, spans 4,238.7 km2 in the northwestern corner of the Republic of Congo and is a rare example of an intact forest wilderness, completely uninhabited by human settlers and with low human population densities in the surrounding area. The forest is part...

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