Environment: WWF and ICCN to undertake co-management of Salonga National Park (Congo)

Author(s)

Agence d’Information d’Afrique Centrale/Brazzaville

Date Published
Translated from French by an automated online translation service, so please excuse the roughness. See link for original. Thank you to Anne Dillon for finding and doing the online translating.
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A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on August 27 between the international NGOs and the Congolese company for an initial three-year phase. The agreement, notes the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), strengthens close collaboration existing since 2005 between the Congolese Institute for Conservation of Nature (ICCN) and its partners, on the one hand, and WWF, secondly, for the conservation of Salonga National Park.

In this agreement, WWF and ICCN are thus committed to implement joint management of Salonga National Park to ensure its maintenance and reinforcement. This agreement emphasizes the Fund, defines the respective responsibilities of ICCN and WWF and the modalities of cooperation, in particular through the establishment of a joint management team.
WWF and ICCN have recognized that despite the various existing conservation initiatives in and around the Salonga National Park, the values ??of this protected area were severely threatened by multiple violations and that therefore a more ambitious program in an innovative approach was necessary.
Implement Corrective Action
In his introductory address, the Director General of ICCN, Cosma Wilungula Balongelwa, said that “one of the highest priorities arrested this year in collaboration with the World Heritage Centre is to work for the implementation all corrective measures to bring out the Salonga National Park in the list of Heritage in Danger.” The challenge is great, he said, but we are certain that the experience of WWF partner and all his technical expertise, the resources mobilized by our donors and availability of our staff will meet this challenge.
The national interim Director of WWF-DRC, Jean-Claude Muhindo, himself has emphasized that “the responsibility for the success of this agreement goes beyond WWF and ICCN, all other stakeholders with a role important role to play in supporting the process that has just recently started.” For Jean-Claude Muhindo, indeed, different initiatives for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity in and around the Salonga National Park contributes, moreover, to the efforts that are undertaken for the relaunch of the country in part of the revolution of modernity advocated by the Head of State. “The modernization also involves the modernization of green space management systems,” he added.
It is recalled that out of the WWF, various donors, including the European Union, the German cooperation and the International Agency of the United States of America already answered the call to come to the support in Salonga National Park and surrounding communities. With an area of ??just over 36,000 km2, the Salonga National Park is the largest protected area of ??rainforest in Africa and contains important species and communities of species in a forest area still relatively intact.
Also playing a key role in climate regulation and carbon sequestration, this protected area is the habitat of many endangered species such as the bonobo, the forest elephant and the Congo peacock. The Park has been, however, since 1984 on the list of Unesco World Heritage and since 1999 on the list of world heritage in danger.
Lucien Dianzenza
Translated from French by an automated online translation service, so please excuse the roughness. See link for original. Thank you to Anne Dillon for finding and doing the online translating.