Boma-Jonglei Landscape Project

Boma-Jonglei Landscape Project
The Boma-Jonglei Landscape region includes Boma National Park, broad pasturelands and floodplains, Bandingilo National Park, Mongalla Reserve, and the Sudd, a vast area of swamp and seasonally flooded grasslands that includes the Zeraf protected area.  Recent aerial surveys indicate that the region still contains vast grasslands the size of Kenya and Uganda combined that harbor an incredible abundance of wildlife, including the hardly known white-eared kob migration.  The region also contains a rich diversity of classic African wildlife, not to mention hundreds of species of birds. 

White-eared Kob

The Wildlife Conservation Society and Government of Southern Sudan plan to establish a landscape-wide conservation project in the wildlife-rich Boma-Jonglei Landscape.  In March 2007 the Government of Southern Sudan and WCS signed a formal agreement for the development of a long term partnership for wildlife conservation and protected area management.  WCS will work closely with the new leaders in the domain of natural resource management in Southern Sudan to assess the current state of the protected area system, to conceptualize solid land-use and resource use plans, and establish a management program for the Boma-Jonglei Landscape to help bring comprehensive management to a specific landscape which includes large protected areas and important wildlife resources.   

Threats
Resource extraction plans have started in earnest in Southern Sudan since the signing of the peace accord in January, 2005. Oil companies are moving into the upper White Nile, logging interests are negotiating contracts to exploit the rich teak forests and safari hunters are identifying concessions.  Both Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees are on the move looking to regain grazing and agricultural lands.  There are road construction and water diversion projects well underway. Automatic rifles (AK47) are common throughout the local communities and often used for hunting.  Like all protected areas in Sudan, Boma National Park has not had effective management since its existence, due the long period of civil war and there is an urgent need to build natural resource management capacity.  

The Human Aspect
The Park’s limits currently encompass some 22,000 sq. km but do not adequately protect the migration patterns and include several human population centers.  Though generally sparsely populated, there are major human factors at play in the Boma area including pastoralists’ competition for grazing areas and water, growing agriculture, and towns that have developed in the north and east. Oil exploration permits have been recently granted over a large section of the Boma-Jonglei landscape.  The presence of land-use managers could significantly alter the substantial human and natural resource scenario that unfolds in this area in the coming ten years.

Principal WCS Activities

• Applied research of key species and wildlife migrations to inform landscape and protected area management planning
• Develop and implement a comprehensive management plan for Boma National Park including all aspects of protected area management
• Design and undertake a participatory land-use zoning and land-use management planning process to strategically address threats
• Design and implement a strategy for integration of local traditional communities as full partners of the conservation management approach
• Build capacity of local traditional communities in land-use and natural resource management
• Develop alternative livelihood activities and sustainable subsistence hunting management programs for local traditional populations living in the landscape
•  Design and develop a pilot ecotourism program for Boma National Park
• Assess and plan transboundary conservation approaches involving Boma in Sudan, Gambela and Omo protected areas in Ethiopia, and neighboring areas in northern Kenya
• Undertake a full assessment for the conservation and management of the entire landscape
• Integrate landscape level biodiversity, natural resource and land use issues with other development
•  Assess oil industry developments and potential impact on the landscape.