B E S T O F T H E W I L D : W I L D L I F E c O n S E r v a T I O n S O c I E T y

and the

n D O k I L a n D S c a p E

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photo credits (counter-clockwise from left): cover: ian nichols; page 3: ian nichols; david wilkie; page 5: crickette sanz, david wilkie (2); page 7: thomas Breuer©wcs & max planck institute, michael nichols, ian nichols; page 9: michael nichols (2); page 11: michael nichols, trish reed, thomas Breuer©wcs & max planck institute, remy ledauphin/wcs; page 13: michael nichols (2)

B E S T O F T H E W I L D : W I L D L I F E c O n S E r v a T I O n S O c I E T y

and the

n D O k I L a n D S c a p E

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Inside cover: Sunlight glints

off Mbeli Bai, a forest clearing

in Nouabalé-Ndoki National

Park, at the heart of the Congo

Basin rainforest. Right: Ndoki

supports more than half of

the world’s gorillas. Gorillas

and other wildlife congregate

to feed and socialize at

spectacular forest clearings,

or “bais.” WCS area of focus

in the Ndoki landscape.

In the north of the Republic of Congo, the Ndoki Landscape encompasses Nouabalé-Ndoki and Odzala National Parks, the Lac Télé Community Reserve, and extensive logging concessions and unclassified lands.

Fewer than 250,000 people (including 5,000 Baka “pygmies”) inhabit this 23,500 square mile landscape, an area half the size of New York State. Most families harvest fish and wildlife and tend small fields; some work with logging companies. Covering two-thirds of the landscape, Ndoki’s timber concessions provide Congo’s second largest source of foreign exchange and largest source of employment. Ndoki’s forests are a globally important carbon store, an extraordinary ecotourism destination, and a vital watershed for the Congo River, feeding Africa’s largest hydroelectric plant.

Threats to Ndoki’s wildlife include illegal and unsustainable hunting for bushmeat and ivory facilitated by logging roads and rapid development, and the serious risk to apes and people posed by Ebola hemorrhagic fever.

WCS has been committed to this landscape for more than twenty years. We have helped the government create Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, secured resource rights for households of Lac Télé, and helped a timber company adopt wildlife-friendly prac-tices leading to Central Africa’s first Forest Stewardship Council certification.

Our vision for the coming decade: Africa’s greatest stronghold for forest wildlife, with pristine national parks buffered by sustainably managed community areas and wildlife-friendly logging concessions, sustaining abundant populations of gorillas, elephants, chimpanzees and other wildlife protected from illegal hunting and diseases such as Ebola.

At the heart of the world’s second largest rainforest lies a

vast, wild expanse of forest, swamp and savannah, Africa’s

most important stronghold for wildlife. Over half of the

world’s gorillas—a full 140,000—live here, alongside

45,000 elephants and 15,000 chimpanzees, including some

that have never seen humans. Eleven monkey species, forest

leopard and golden cat, eight species of antelopes, and three

species of crocodiles call this landscape home.

W C S a N d t h e N d o k I l a N d S C a P e

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Ndoki Landscape

Protected areas

Proposed protected areas

International boundary

New York, USA

0 50 10025Miles

0 150 30075Miles

Site Scale ReferenceDRC

CAMEROON

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Nouabalé-Ndoki

NP

Lac TéléCommunity

Reserve

(Background shade represents topography)

Odzala NP

Ntokou-Pikounda

BatangaSwamps

BaillySwamps

GoualogoTriangle

GABON

Ndoki Landscape

CONGO

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right, clockwise from top:

wcs health experts in protective

gear collect field samples to

track ebola outbreaks which

threaten people and wildlife.

wcs-supported government

guards intercept the illegal and

unsustainable trade in bushmeat

to urban centers and logging

camps. selective logging for

giant african mahogany trees,

destructive in itself, exacerbates

the bushmeat crisis by importing

workers and facilitating transport

and access to the forest.

When WCS first surveyed Ndoki in the 1980s, most of the forest was pristine but unprotected. Since that time, WCS and the people of the Ndoki Landscape have helped establish the Nouablé-Ndoki National Park and the Lac Télé Community Reserve. Economic pressures have increased, however, and almost all of the forest surrounding the park has been leased to international timber companies. Logging roads provide commercial hunters access to the forest and logging company workers provide a ready market for bushmeat. Recently, an international road was completed to Cameroon, and work is underway on a highway and railroad to the capital, Braz-zaville, threatening to further escalate the long-distance bushmeat trade.

The spread of Ebola, a virus lethal to gorillas and chimpanzees as well as humans, has annihilated many ape populations in neighboring Gabon and in the north of Odzala National Park, and is moving across the landscape from west to east. The future impact of Ebola in Ndoki is unknown. Vaccines have been developed, but de-livering them remains a challenge, and Government capacity to monitor the disease effectively to protect people and wildlife is inadequate.

Illegal and unsustainable hunting and wildlife disease

gravely threaten Ndoki’s wildlife and ecosystems.

Elephants are illegally poached for export of ivory to

Asia. All mammals, from porcupines and small antelopes

to great apes and elephants, are hunted for food. While

subsistence hunting by indigenous people can be

sustainable, commercial harvest of wildlife for sale in

logging camps and growing urban centers is not. As forests

are emptied of wildlife to meet market demands from afar,

indigenous peoples’ livelihoods, food security, and culture

are all put in jeopardy.

U n D E r S T a n D I n g T H E c H a L L E n g E S a n D r I S k S

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right, clockwise from top:

ndoki is one of only three

landscapes in africa where

forest elephants still thrive.

mbeli bai, a forest clearing, offers

an extraordinary ecotourism

opportunity. a mustached

monkey (Cercopithecus

cephus), just one of 11 species

of monkeys in ndoki.

v i s i o n f o r t h e f u t u r e

To attain this vision, we shall hold ourselves accountable for the following objectives over the next 10 years:

n Gorilla and chimpanzee populations are stable at 140,000 and 15,000 respectively;

n The elephant population expands by 25% to 55,000;n Legally protected areas are increased by 35% to nearly 1.2 million square miles; n Hunting and fishing harvests, where legal, are sustainable.Elephants and great apes are icons of the landscape. We target them for conserva-

tion effort because we value them in their own right, they are the wildlife species most vulnerable to human impact, and the ecological functioning of the ecosystem depends on them. Their effective conservation will both catalyze and measure conservation of the entire landscape. Achieving this will require reducing illegal hunting of elephants and great apes to near zero levels across the landscape.

We shall attain this vision when: n The Government of Congo:

● creates Ntokou-Pikounda Park and annexes the Goualogo Triangle to Nouabalé-Ndoki and the Batanga and Bailly Swamps to Lac Télé;

● protects and manages all protected areas in the landscape;● plans and regulates development in the landscape to minimize

impacts on wildlife;● monitors and responds effectively to disease threats such as Ebola.

n The people of Lac Télé and other community areas manage their meat and fish harvests sustainably and do not hunt fully-protected species.

n Major industries in the landscape (timber, mining, transport) provision their employees and prevent bushmeat traffic within their concessions and via their facilities.

WCS’s vision for the Ndoki Landscape: Africa’s greatest

stronghold for forest wildlife, with pristine national

parks buffered by sustainably managed community

areas and wildlife-friendly logging concessions,

sustaining abundant populations of gorillas, elephants,

chimpanzees and other wildlife protected from illegal

hunting and diseases such as Ebola.

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right: clockwise from top:

an example of the causal

relationships underlying wcs’s

conservation strategy for acting

(in yellow) to counteract threats

(in red and orange) to explicit

conservation targets (in green).

a slender nosed crocodile, one

of three species of crocodiles

in the ndoki landscape.

Partnering with the Government of Congo, we will:n Help to create new protected areas by surveying, planning, demarcating, and

building headquarters and guard-posts;n Help to end illegal hunting by training, equipping, and supporting govern-

ment anti-poaching patrols and collaborating with neighboring countries;n Map wildlife populations, anti-poaching effort, and illegal activities to facili-

tate effective law enforcement and management;n Monitor wildlife disease, including Ebola, and test interventions,

including vaccines;n Convene participatory land-use planning to help reconcile conservation and

development priorities;n Help secure sustainable finance through the Sangha Tri-National Trust Fund

and emerging carbon markets.We will work with local communities to:n Agree on boundaries for the new protected areas;n Map and safeguard exclusive household and community rights to land and

resource use;n Enable households and communities to fish and hunt sustainably by moni-

toring and stabilizing catch-per-unit-effort;n Protect crops from wildlife damage;n Build support for conservation actions through outreach and

education programs.We will provide technical knowledge and expertise to private sector partners,

including logging companies, to:n Halt bushmeat transport and consumption by employees;n Plan development so as to minimize environmental impact and

protect key habitats;n Obtain international certification (such as Forest Stewardship Council);n Develop environmentally sensitive tourism.

To attain our vision for Ndoki, WCS will implement

conservation activities with partners across the parks,

community lands, and industrial concessions of

the landscape.

a d d r e s s i n g t h e r i s k s

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Abundant populationsof gorillas and chimpsVaccine distribution

Disease detectionand mapping

Hunting forbushmeat

Disease (Ebola)

Anti-poaching patrols

Logging and roadsHalt transport andtrade of bushmeat

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right: clockwise from top:

the livelihoods and cultures

of indigenous hunting peoples

depend on protecting their

prey from overharvesting by

more recent immigrants. wcs

partners across central africa

and the world are working to

understand and control diseases

such as ebola. local people

have few opportunities to learn

about and take pride in the

extraordinary biodiversity they

steward. wcs staff and partners

have habituated the first group

of western lowland gorillas, a

necessary step towards building a

sustainable ecotourism industry.

WCS’s surveys of the 1980s laid the groundwork for creation of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park and highlighted the global value of the entire Ndoki Landscape. Dis-covery of chimps “naïve” to human exposure led to prioritization of Ndoki’s Goualogo Triangle for conservation in 1999. Ongoing monitoring at Mbeli Bai, the largest forest clearing in Nouabalé-Ndoki, yielded the world’s first observations of tool use in wild gorillas, in 2003.

Through the 1990s, WCS helped the CIB logging company bring the bushmeat trade under control in the Kabo Concession, rebuilding wildlife populations and achieving Forest Stewardship Council certification, the first in Central Africa, in 2003.

WCS’s 1200-mile “megatransect” of 2002, starting in Ndoki, focused global atten-tion on the plight of the Congo Basin, resulting in the launch of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership and a commitment by the US Government of $100 million to replicate the successful model of landscape conservation pioneered in Ndoki across Central Africa. WCS has applied this model around the world.

In 2004, WCS helped create the Sangha Tri-National Foundation, Central Africa’s first major conservation trust fund, supporting trans-boundary conservation between Ndoki and neighboring protected areas in Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

In 2008, WCS announced the results of surveys of much of Ndoki (excluding Odzala) estimating gorilla numbers there at 125,000, more than twice the previous global estimate. The announcement crowned 20 years of conservation success and challenged WCS and our partners to safeguard the newly discovered gorillas and their habitat.

Today, WCS is the chief technical conservation partner for the government, com-munities, and the logging industry across the Republic of Congo, and Ndoki is a model for conservation management regionally and globally.

WCS is ready to ensure that Ndoki remains Africa’s

premiere stronghold for forest wildlife. Over 20 years,

we have built trusting and formal partnerships with the

Ministry of Forest Economy, the people of Ndoki, and

the logging companies in the landscape to deliver tangible

conservation successes.

w c s : p o s i t i o n e d t o d e l i v e r

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right: forest clearings such

as mbeli Bai in nouabalé-

ndoki national park offer

rare opportunities to study

elusive forest antelopes such

as this spectacular male bongo.

$7 million in new private

investment will help leverage

an estimated $54 million to

conserve the ndoki landscape

over the next ten years.

w h a t i t w i l l t a k e

n $10 million of private investment will leverage $15 million in public funds and $14 million from partners to develop the capacity of the Government of Congo to manage and protect wildlife and habitat across the landscape; create new pro-tected areas; train, equip, and support anti-poaching patrols; monitor wildlife diseases such as Ebola; pilot vaccine programs; and facilitate land-use planning.

n $2 million of private investment will leverage $9 million in public funds and $8 million from partners to support local communities in mapping traditional land and resource use, fishing and hunting sustainably, protecting their crops from wildlife, and valuing their unique natural heritage.

n $1 million of private investment will leverage $5 million from public funds and $3 million from partners to provide technical support to industry to halt bushmeat transport and consumption, minimize the environmental impact of develop-ment, seek certification, and develop ecotourism programs to support conser-vation in the Ndoki Landscape.

The 23,500 square mile Ndoki Landscape represents an unparalleled opportunity for strategic conservation investment. Join us to safeguard the living heart of the Congo Basin rainforest, over half of all the world’s gorillas, and one of the last great wild places on Earth.

Conserving Ndoki as Africa’s greatest stronghold for forest

wildlife and achieving the ten-year objectives proposed

here will cost approximately $67 million, or $0.45 per

acre per year. Of this, WCS needs to raise $7 million in

new private investment. This $7 million, together with $6

million of private funds already secured, will leverage an

estimated $29 million funding from public institutions

and $25 million conservation investment from WCS

partners in the landscape.

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Partner conservation investment

Public funding

Private funding secured

New private investment required

Private funding secured($6 million)

Public funding($29 million)

New private investmentrequired ($7 million)

Estimated Investments in the Ndoki Landscape2009–2019

Partner conservationinvestment ($25 million)

W c S I S g r a T E F U L T O T H E F O L L O W I n g F O r L E a D E r S H I p S U p p O r T O F O U r W O r k I n T H E n D O k I L a n D S c a p E :

agence française de développement (afd), france

anonymous

david Bonderman

Bradley l. and sunny goldberg

international tropical timber organization (itto)

congolaise industrielle des Bois (ciB)–dlh group

industrie forestière de ouesso (ifo)–danzer group

fondation tri-national de la sangha (ftns)

fonds français pour l’environnement mondial (ffem)

liz claiborne and art ortenberg foundation

central african regional program for the environment (carpe)

central africa world heritage forest initiative (cawfhi)

national geographic society

John and wendy neu

ramsar convention on wetlands

un food and agriculture organization (fao)

united nations foundation

us agency for international development (usaid)

us fish and wildlife service (usfws)

us state department

us forest service

For further information please contact:

wildlife conservation societyafrica program

2300 Southern BoulevardBronx, ny 10460-1099

(718) 220-1387 n wcsafrica@wcs.org

W c S ’ S S U c c E S S I n T H E L a n D S c a p E c a n B E a T T r I B U T E D I n p a r T T O T O O U r S T r O n g L O c a L p a r T n E r S H I p S :

centre national d’inventaire et d’aménagement des ressources forestières et fauniques (cniaf)

congolaise industrielle des Bois (ciB)–dlh group

conservation et utilisation rationnelle des ecosystèmes forestiers d’afrique centrale (ecofac)

ministère de l’Économie forestière (mef)

pact

industrie forestière de ouesso (ifo)–danzer group

international conservation and edu-cation fund (incef)

international union for conservation of nature (iucn)

max planck institute for evolutionary anthropology

réseau des aires protégées d’afrique centrale (rapac)

rougier group

world wide fund for nature

winrock international

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