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

Country: Democratic Republic of Congo

Type and IUCN Category: National Park, IUCN category: II. RAPAC Pilot site; UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979; World Heritage Site in Danger since 1994.

Size (hectares): 780,000

Date of creation: 21 April 1925 by King Albert I of Belgium. It is Africa’s oldest national park.

CARPE landscape: Virunga

Management plan: Not publicly available. A plan for 2011-2015 was reportedly drafted (PAPACO 2010) but there are no reports of approval by the government.

Local communities: “Virunga is located in one of the most highly populated areas in the DRC, with about 300 people per square km. […] Apart from the human density around the park, there are more than 40,000 people living within the park boundaries making a living from fishing” (Kujirakwinja et al. 2010, p. 9). The Bambuti indigenous group are the original inhabitants of Virunga. Presence of Twa indigenous peoples is also reported (RADD 2012).

Administration: The park is co-managed by the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) and the UK registered charity Virunga Foundation, under a management contract valid until 2021 (Virunga official website).

Biodiversity information: The Virunga National Park includes forests, savannas, lava plains, swamps, erosion valleys, active volcanoes, and the glaciated peaks of the Rwenzori Mountains. It is home to about a quarter of the remaining mountain gorillas in the world. The two other Great Ape species, eastern lowland Grauer’s gorillas and chimpanzees, make Virunga the only park in the world to host three taxa of Great Apes. The park is also home to the Okapi, an endangered species, as well as large colonies of hippopotami, forest and savanna elephants, lions, and numerous rare bird species (Kujirakwinja et al. 2010; Bodson et al 2008).

Neighbouring and overlapping extractive industries (Mapping for Rights):

The exploration and exploitation of oil is incompatible with the world heritage site status. Despite this, three oil permits have existed in the park since 2012:

(1) Block III (managed by Divine Inspiration Group, Encha Group);
(2) Block IV (managed by Polar Petroleum DRC, Albatross Congo, PetroAfrican Resources); and
(3) Block V (managed by UK oil company SOCO). As a result of huge international pressure (see notably Save Virunga; Global Witness 2014), in late 2015, SOCO announced that it had given up block V (SOCO website). It is unclear whether SOCO has sold its rights to another company or whether the Congolese government plans to re-allocate the licence (Global Witness).

14 mining concessions border and overlap with the park:

(1) concession 5994 (managed by JHB RESSOUCES S between 2007 and 2012);
2) concession 5734 (managed by GLOBAL BEVERAGES between 2006 and 2010);
(3) concession 6858 (managed by COGETA SPRL since 2006);
(4) concession 2623 (managed by MASTERS SPRL between 2006 and 2011);
(5-6) mining concessions 3375 and 3360 (managed by GOLDBELTS EXPLOR since 2005);
(7-10) mining concessions 1397, 1402, 1405 and 1406 (managed by LONCOR RESOURCES between 2003 and 2008);
(11-13) mining concessions 5199, 5181 and 5178 (managed by KRALL METAL CONG since 2006); and
(14) mining concession 7972 (managed by GEMINACO SPRL since 2007).

Information available on funding:

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

The European Union has been the main international partner of Virunga National Park. A grant of €11,000,000 was agreed in 2002 (Virunga official website). Virunga is one of the “pilot sites” of the Central African Protected Areas Network (RAPAC).

Virunga National Park receives funding from a variety of partners: Abraham Foundation, Amis Protecteurs de la Nature, Arcus Foundation, Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilf, ICCN, The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the European Union, 11th Hour Project, Elefante Trunk, Fauna & Flora International, Frankfurt Zoological Society, Gearing Up for Gorillas, The Gorilla Doctors, Happy Hollow Zoo, Howard G. Buffet Foundation, Innovation for Development and Environmental Protection (IDEP), International Gorilla Conservation Program, The Murry Foundation, Prince Bernhard Nature Fund, UNESCO, The Thin Green Line Foundation, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Virunga Foundation and Virunga Fund, Virunga Youth Alliance, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Wilhelma, WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) (Virunga official website). Specific amounts per donor are not available.

CARPE Phase III, “Central Africa Forest Ecosystems Conservation (CAFEC)”, Virunga Landscape (2013-2018)
Funder: USAID/CARPE, Norway’s International Climate and Forest Initiative (NICFI)
Objective: “To maintain the ecological integrity of the humid forest ecosystems of the Congo Basin through sustainable management of forests and reduction of threats to biodiversity” (USAID 2013a).
Grant manager: WWF
Project area: Virunga landscape
Funds: $8,187,498.69 (estimate), of which $7,515,000.00 from CARPE and $1,945,356.42 cost sharing by WWF. Specific amount channelled to Virunga National Park unknown.

Working with Communities to Reduce Deforestation and Alleviate Poverty (2009-2012)
Funder: Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF), with funds from the UK and Norwegian governments
Objective: “to work with local communities to (i) develop multiple strategies to reduce rates of deforestation; (ii) provide alternative sources of income; (iii) lay the foundations for a multiple environmental accounting system that could enable them to access supplementary carbon finance, whether under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regulated or voluntary market mechanisms” (AfDB and CBFF 2014: iii)
Grant manager: WCS
Project area: Virunga-Hoyo region
Funds: €2,866,169

Assessment and development of a modernised, extended network of protected areas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2009-2014
Funder: WWF Germany
Objective: Development of bases for the planning, designation and improvement of a protected area network in the Congo Basin (target: 15% of the land area) with a focus on the biological diversity of forests, freshwater ecosystems and their functioning as carbon sinks.
Grant manager: The DRC Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism (MECNT),
Congolese Wildlife Authority (Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature – ICCN), DRC Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
Funds: €1,990,000 across a network of protected areas in the DRC (Virunga, la Salonga, Maiko, Kundelungu, Mulumbu, Upemba, Garamba, Kahuzi-Biega), specific amount dedicated to Virunga unknown).