Democratic Republic of Congo

WCS in the Democratic Republic of Congo
The first pioneering surveys of gorilla populations in the mountains and plateaus of the western Albertine Rift of Zaire, now DRC, were launched in 1959. In 1985, WCS returned to establish a long-term base on the flanks of the rift, in the Ituri Forest, home of the endemic rain forest giraffe, the okapi. In this vast country, where there has been almost no exploration since colonial times, WCS helped to lobby successfully for the creation of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve in 1992. Within the reserve, we established a conservation research and training center for international and Congolese scientists to bring new methods and expertise to the discovery of the little-known biodiversity of DRC’s wilderness areas. In addition, many Congolese collaborators were trained on WCS research teams, conducting biological and socio-economic surveys in Kahuzi-Biega National Park and its hinterland, in the Okapi Reserve, Maiko NP, Salonga NP, and in the Itombwe Massif and the Lomami-Tshuapa forests (the latter two sites proposed by DRC as future protected areas). All of these forest assessments are critical, as the DR Congo contains more than 50 percent of Africa’s rain forest, and important populations of forest elephants and endemic species, such as okapi, Congo peacock, and bonobo (Pan paniscus). These forests are home to at least two, possibly all four, of the world’s subspecies of gorilla.

Threats and the Human Aspect
When most conservation programs were suspended during the period of intensive civil strife in DR Congo from 1995-2003, WCS actually expanded its activities. Throughout the armed conflict, WCS remained active on the ground and our Congolese staff often took the lead in calling attention to poaching by military, militia involvement in illegal mining, and the rampant exploitation of local populations. Now, during the prolonged post-conflict transition, WCS is working closely with villagers to rebuild respect for protected areas and to initiate a firm basis for their protection through a number of innovative community conservation programs. These include a zoning program that addresses immigration into the Okapi Reserve, and the development of community organizations to build consensus regarding challenges to the Park and Park limits in Salonga and Kahuzi Biega NPs.

WCS Activities
As the civil war came to a close and DRC struggled to reestablish a single national government over the entire country, WCS moved its central operations to the capital, Kinshasa. During the war, the DRC Program expanded operations to include critical protected areas needing support. At Salonga, Kahuzi-Biega, Virunga and Maiko National Parks, operations grew in response to each site’s needs. With a transition government in place, and a new democratically elected government expected to be named by the end of 2006, it is essential to consolidate operations through a country office. The country office allows WCS to respond to the needs of each site by associating competent individuals of key ministries, to address the most urgent problems, particularly military poaching or mining in protected areas. It allows close interaction with key supporting agencies such as the World Bank and USAID, and promotes an overall consolidation of new models of conservation being developed in the field, including the community conservation model applied in the Okapi Reserve and the inventory and data management model developed in the World Heritage Sites.   

Next Steps
WCS goals in this country program include:
• Develop highly mobile teams of Congolese field biologists capable of deploying anywhere in the country for inventory and monitoring activities
• Continue surveys of largely unexplored areas with the objective of helping the government create new protected areas
• Expand social science work in communities in order to integrate human livelihood concerns into the conservation of protected areas
• Increase our conservation vision to include the promotion of sound forest management planning outside protected areas, based on regional zoning plans.

Partners
During the war, WCS-DRC worked with the UNESCO World Heritage Center and in collaboration with other conservation NGOs that remained active in DRC’s five world heritage sites. Currently, WCS is developing the capacity of the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) to monitor its Parks and to keep resulting information available through a central data management system. WCS has developed collaborations with the World Bank and the EU to explore new areas of possible importance for protection, and with USAID/CARPE, CI, and WWF to expand conservation beyond protected areas and into landscapes. With support from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, WCS has worked to protect elephants and gorillas in DRC.