A Faunal Reserve for Bonobos and People

One of the greatest threats to wildlife in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is loss of habitat due to land conversion, human encroachment, and logging. Establishing protected areas like national parks and reserves is one important step in helping to reverse this trend.

In 2004, AWF initiated the Maringa Lopori Wamba landscape project, financed by USAID through the Central African Regional Program for Environment (CARPE). The strategic objective of this project is to reduce the destruction of habitat and loss of biodiversity through better governance of natural resources on a local, regional and national level across the entire landscape. AWF operates in close partnership with the Ministry for Rural Development and the Ministry of Agriculture (MECNEF), and supports the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) to implement a program for nature conservation.

In 2006, after a 15 year effort, AWF helped establish the Faunal Reserve of Lomako-Yokokala – a reserve of more than 3,600 square kilometers - with ICCN. This was a landmark achievement as it is the DRC’s first reserve that formally recognizes the local community in the development of its management plan. The established 3,625 square kilometer Faunal Reserve not only offers protection for the bonobos, but it also harbors critical populations of the endemic Congo peacock, golden cat, giant pangolin, ten species of primates and other key species.

The forest, which can only be accessed by boat, is an asset for conservation because its isolation improves the fight against poaching, which threatens the forest and the bonobos. To ensure the most effective outcome possible, AWF involved the local communities when proposing boundaries for the new wildlife reserve. AWF also financed workshops and key meetings that helped make Lomako-Yokokala a reality.

AWF is working to make the reserve at Lomako-Yokokala a viable conservation enterprise that allows for the continued study of bonobos - to identify current threats to bonobos and other key species in the Maringa Lopori Wamba landscape - and simultaneously builds the professional and educational capacity of Congolese conservationists that will lead to improved conservation measures for the critically endangered great ape and the forests in which they live. To do this AWF trained local research assistants and team leaders to help with biological surveys, detailed mapping, and recording human activity and bushmeat hunting.

AWF believes strongly that this conservation model which emphasizes the engagement of local communities in bonobo conservation alongside on-the-ground research will be key to the bonobos' continued and long-term survival in the landscape.

Because of the success of Lomako-Yokokala, AWF has recently been working to adapt and replicate a project similar to Lomako-Yokokala in Iyondji. Instead of creating another Faunal Reserve, AWF and its community and technical partners are working to designate Iyondji as a Community-managed reserve. AWF has already made substantial progress in capacity building and bonobo habituation on the emerging 1,100 km² Iyondji Community Bonobo Reserve (Iyondji).

In 2011 AWF and its partners facilitated the development of a Protected Area Management Plan and a process for forest classification in Iyondji; organized and trained a team of ten trackers in bonobo habituation and a team of 12 eco-guards in monitoring and surveillance; prepared and launched the habituation program, and established a Local Advisory Group to create a formal vehicle for community participation. AWF and its main partners, including the local group Forêt des Bonobos and the University of Kyoto's Wamba Committee on Bonobo Research (WCBR), have prepared a formal proposal for submission to the Ministry seeking formal designation of the Iyondji Community Bonobo Reserve; which will be submitted after the national election.

AWF and its partners have been working on capacity building and bonobo habituation at both reserves, and have made significant progress in the last year. Teams of trained assistants have identified specific communities of bonobo, and are gradually habituating the groups for continued study and eventual tourism development. The assistants also perform daily, increasingly meticulous monitoring of the study populations, their habitats, and threats which effect them.

The progressively shrinking distance between observer and bonobo during these habituating efforts has been very heartening. Until recently, scouts and researchers could not come to within 100 meters of bonobo before they fled; now teams can come to within six meters to observe.