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

Country: Republic of Congo

Type and IUCN Category: Natural Park (IUCN category: II)

Size (hectares): 423,870

Date of creation: 31 December 1993. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012.

CARPE landscape: Sangha Tri-National. RAPAC Pilot Site.

Management plan: The last management plan covered the period 2003-2007. As of 2011 no new plan had been produced (PAPACO, 2011). A job offer dated May 2016 suggests this is still the case (Sfe, 2016).

Local communities: Local populations live around Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, including semi-nomadic indigenous groups. About 4,000 nomadic Baka reportedly lived and hunted in the area, however they were evicted following the park’s creation in 1993 (Dowie, 2009). There are still some indigenous Bangombe and Aka-Mbendjele people living around the park (Gately , 2007; Riddell, 2013). Villages are all located outside the park, in a ‘buffer zone’ which is the subject of a project known as PROGEPP (see below)

Administration: The park is managed by the Agence Congolaise de la Faune et des Aires Protégées (ACFAP), under the authority of the Ministère de l’économie forestière et de développement durable (MEFDD). A management partnership was also established with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which signed a five-year memorandum of understanding in 2008 (PAPACO, 2011).

There has been a push for a stronger partnership between WCS, the Congolese Government and logging company CIB (Congolaise Industrielle du Bois, part of the OLAM Group) who are allowed to log in the area (Davidson, 2010). The Project for Ecosystem Management in the Nouabalé-Ndoki Periphery Area (“PROGEPP” or the “Buffer Zone project”) was created in 1999 as a partnership between WCS, the Government of Congo, CIB and local communities. It is aimed at enforcing national hunting laws to protect the park from increased demographic and hunting pressures associated with logging. WCS stresses that “unlike conversation of most protected areas, PROGEPP’s goal is not to reduce hunting to zero; rather, the idea is to establish management systems that assure sustainable harvest of legally hunted species so that indigenous people have access to wild meat now and in the future” (WCS , 2007).

A formal public-private partnership was established in 2013 in the form of the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation, which brings together WCS, the GoC, and others, and delegates management authority to WCS. However, the park remains under the jurisdiction of the Congolese Wildlife and Protected Areas Agency (ACFAP) (WCS-USAID 2013, Counsell, 2018).

On 24 February 2015, WCS and CIB-OLAM signed a new partnership agreement concerning the protection of ecosystems surrounding Nouabale-Ndoki (MEFDD,2015a).

Biodiversity information: The Nouabale-Ndoki National Park is home to many habitats and plant species. Forest clearings (‘bais’) attract large mammals, such as western lowland gorillas, forest elephants, leopards, giant forest hogs and bongos. It also harbours over 300 bird species and 1,000 plant species, including a rich diversity of old growth endangered mahoganies (Gately, 2007; Davidson, 2010).

Neighbouring and overlapping extractive industries (Mapping For Rights):

Three logging concessions border the park:

(1) concession Mokabi-Dzanga, managed by MOKABI since 2005
(2-3) concessions Loundoungou Toukoulaka and Kabo, managed by Congolaise Industrielle du Bois since 2012

Two diamond exploration mining permits also border the park:

(1) Mokabi Lola, managed by Sai Congo since 2012; and
(2) Mokabi Ibénga, managed by La Société Niall Mellon since 2012

Information available on funding:

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

On its website, MEFDD (2015b) mentions funds from WCS, USAID-CARPE and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). According to a 2011 assessment, approximately 90% of the annual budget or approximately $700,000 (FCFA 440,000,000) was provided by external donors such as WCS, USAID-CARPE, the US fish and Wildlife Service, the German development bank KfW, Tropical Ecology Assessment Monitoring (TEAM) and the Sangha Tri-National Foundation (PAPACO, 2011).

CARPE Phase III, “Central Africa Forest Ecosystems – Sangha Tri-National Forest Landscape”, 2013-2018
Funder: USAID
Objective: Conservation of the Sangha Tri-National World Heritage Site, notably through implementation of effective wildlife protection and targeting of trade routes, tourism development, education and revenue sharing with local communities and ensuring that people are supplied with alternative food sources.
Grant manager: WCS
Project area: Sangha Tri-National landscape
Funds: $5,500,000 (Specific amount dedicated to Nouabale-Ndoki unknown).

*Since 2007, Nouabale-Ndoki also falls under the EU-UNESCO’s funding scheme of Central Africa World Heritage Forest Initiative (CAWHFI):

Central African World Heritage Forest Initiative (CAWHFI) (2007-2011)
Funder: French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM); UNESCO; UN Fund; Governments of Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Gabon and Central African republic; Wild Fund for Nature (WWF); WCS; Conservation International (CI); Jane Goodall Institute.
Objective: Ensure the integrity of a network of protected areas and the forest landscapes linking them, in the Gabon-Cameroon-Republic of Congo-Central African Republic trans-border forest zone
Project area: Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic
Funds: around $8,460,000 (€7,930,000) in total (Specific amount dedicated to Nouabale-Ndoki unknown). In December 2015, the European Union announced that it will continue supporting CAWHFI by allocating €5 million over the course of three years (EC, 2014)

Strengthening the Management of Wildlife and Improving Livelihoods in Northern Republic of Congo (2017-unknown)
Funder: World Bank, GEF.
Objective: Increase the capacity of the forest administration, local communities and indigenous peoples to co-manage forests.
Project area: Congo
Funds: around $6,500,500- (€5,580,000) in total (Specific amount dedicated to two-park program unknown).

Sustainable Forest Management Program in the Congo Basin — Investment Measures (Dzanga-Sangha and Nouabale-Ndoki National Parks), indicated as active
Funder: The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Sangha Trinational Foundation (FTNS)
Objective: Contributes to better protection and more sustainable use of forest resources in the Congo Basin. Provides funds to the FTNS to finance necessary investments in the APDS and PNNN national parks as well as technical advisory services for the FTNS and three national parks in the TNS. COMIFAC is the initial beneficiary of the budget and forwards the financial contributions as a grant to the FTNS.
Grant manager: COMIFAC, FTNS
Funds: €5 000 000 (specific amount dedicated to the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park unknown)

Category V and VI protected areas as landscape mechanisms to improve biodiversity on agricultural land, ecological connectivity and the implementation of REDD + measures, 2017-2020
Funder: IUCN (Switzerland)
Objective: Protecting the local development and nature conservation through the improved use of the protected area categories “protected landscapes / marine areas” and “protected areas with sustainable use of natural resources” in four different areas (Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana)
Funds: €4,288,983 across 4 countries (Specific amount dedicated to the Republic of Congo unknown).

Sustainable Forest Management Program in the Congo Basin, indicated as active
Funder: KfW, The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Sangha Trinational Foundation (FTNS)
Objective: Contributes to better protection and more sustainable use of forest resources in the Congo Basin. Provides funds to the FTNS to generate higher investment income, so they can finance the operating costs of the national parks. COMIFAC is the initial beneficiary of the budget and forwards the financial contributions as a grant to the FTNS.
Grant manager: COMIFAC, FTNS
Funds: €25 000 000 of a total of €45,500,000 mobilised by KfW (specific amount dedicated to Nouabale-Ndoki National Park unknown)