Why WCS?

WCS has a significant presence in Central Africa with a strong conservation, protected area management, livelihoods, policy and scientific program. Central Africa includes some of the largest country programs in WCS's Global Conservation portfolio, in terms of staffing, budget, and diversity of projects, and a strong WCS legacy that dates back to the 1950s. The program includes one of WCS's flagship site-based programs in Africa (the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo) and has spearheaded and assisted with a number of pioneering conservation management models over the last 30 years, including private-public partnerships for integrating conservation in sustainable, multiple-use forest management and the creation of Gabon's world famous national park network (terrestrial and marine).

On Our Strategies

Develop Effective Partnerships for Terrestrial and Marine PA Creation and Management

This is done through private-public management partnerships, co-management, and technical support to protected area agencies. It includes all aspects of protected area creation, planning, and adaptive management including law enforcement, infrastructure, research and monitoring, innovative tourism development, and more. The establishment of a well-managed network of terrestrial and marine parks can form the cornerstone for long-term conservation, security, and development.

Assist Development of Full-Chain Law Enforcement Programs

Intelligence-led anti-poaching efforts (including terrestrial, marine, and aerial surveillance), anti-trafficking (at landscape, national, transboundary levels), and legal follow up on prosecutions, will work to halt illegal wildlife trafficking and poaching, and improve governance at local, national, and international scales.

Encourage Sustainable Landscape-Scale Planning and Management

This includes community-based resource management (fisheries, wildlife management, non-timber forest products, agroforestry and sustainable production of agricultural products such as cocoa), alternative sustainable livelihoods partnerships; extractive industry best practice partnerships and certifications (timber, mining, oil); and partnerships with tourism operators. Within this is land-use planning with ecologically sound zoning, set-asides, and corridor establishment outside of protected areas, and road planning. It further encompasses climate change adaptation and mitigation programs and integrating human-wildlife health interface concerns in management interventions.

Improve the Well Being of Local People

People depend on the forests, rivers and oceans of Central Africa for their water, culture, food, shelter, and their livelihoods. WCS is working to improve the well-being of those in and around cities as well as near our field sites. We're doing this in three main ways:

• We are working at new scales and with new partners to improve food security. The single biggest threat to wildlife in Central Africa is the commercial bushmeat trade; neither protein alternatives nor law enforcement alone can solve this complex issue.
• In DR Congo, we are attempting to pilot new models of community-based management of wild places.
• We are aiming to provide appropriate market- and non-market based incentives for families to engage in conservation practices and to steward the wildlife they live with and the natural resources they depend upon.