basse_lobaye-description : Protected Areas in the Congo Basin: Failing both people and biodiversity?

Country: Central African Republic

Type and IUCN Category: UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve (IUCN Category: not applicable)

Size (hectares): 18,200

Date of creation: 1977

CARPE landscape: Not part of a CARPE landscape.

Management plan: Not available. The reserve is only superficially managed (Blom et al. 2004: 482)

Local communities: Local communities (Bantus) and indigenous people (Bakas) live in and around the Basse-Lobaye Biosphere Reserve. There are an estimated 16,000 indigenous people in the Lobaye prefecture alone (estimates made in 2004 by the COOPI; RFUK 2009: 5).

Administration: The park is administered by the Ministry of Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing (UNESCO 2000). Conservation activities are managed by technical advisors from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The conservation objectives are not specified.

Biodiversity information: The Reserve is a mostly tropical humid forest (UNESCO 2011). There is no available information on biodiversity in the Reserve.

Neighbouring and overlapping extractive industries (Mapping for Rights ):

Two logging concessions border Basse-Lobaye:

(1) PEA 171 (managed by SCAD [CAR] since 1996) in the north of the park; and
(2) concession Missa (No. 1107000) on the southern border with the Republic of Congo.

Information available on funding:

(Please note that some of these grants may be covering several protected areas or landscapes.)

Little information is available about funding.

Participatory management and restoration of degraded forestry landscapes in the Basse-Lobaye Biosphere Reserve (2011 – 2013)
Funder: Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF) (through climate change funds from Great Britain and Norway)
Objective: Sustainable forest resources management, environmental and socio-economic monitoring, environmental awareness-raising.
Grant Manager: Organisation Centrafricaine pour la Défense de la Nature (OCDN)
Funds: 150,000€

Support to local communities for the recovery of marginal and degraded lands through the establishment of forest plantations in the Basse Lobaye Reserve (Appui aux communautés de base pour la récupération des terres marginales et dégradées par la mise en place de plantations forestières dans la réserve de biosphère de la Basse-Lobaye) (2011-2012)
Funder: Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme
Objective: Participatory reforestation
Grant Manager: Organisation Centrafricaine pour la Défense de la Nature (OCDN)
Funds: $14,518.97