Chapitre 5 Chapitre 1 - IUCNcmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/lessons_learned_chapter5.pdf · 1....

LAND USE PLANNING SECTION I

CHAPTER 5 168

Chapter 5THE ROLE OF ALTERNATIVE LIVELIHOODS INACHIEVING A PEOPLE-CENTERED APPROACH TOCONSERVATIONThe Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Achieving a People-Centered Approach to Conservation : Lesson Learned from the CARPE ProgramDavid Yanggen

CARPE

Synthesis The Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Achieving a People-Centered Approach to Conservation 169

Case study 1 Lessons Learned from the Creation of the Community-Managed Tayna Center for Conservation Biology 180

Case study 2 Lessons Learned from the Maringa-Lopori-Wamba Landscape 193Case study 3 Lessons Learned from the Lakolama Area of the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape 203

1. Introduction1.1 OverviewThe U.S. Agency for International Development’sCentral African Regional Program for the Envi-ronment (USAID/CARPE) has adopted a “peo-ple-centered approach” to conservation. Thisapproach recognizes that, given the widespreadand acute poverty prevalent in the Congo Basin,conservation efforts will only be successful in thelong term if local populations find viable alterna-tives to current natural resource use patterns thatdegrade the environment. This approach there-fore necessitates a balance between conserva-tion via the exclusion of individuals fromprotected areas of high biodiversity, and conser-vation via the promotion of alternative livelihoodsthat allows individuals to use natural resources ina more sustainable manner (USAID/CARPE,

2006). In the CARPE people-centred approach toconservation, helping people is not consideredan ancillary social objective inserted into theconservation programme, but rather an a prioricondition needed to achieve the programme’sconservation objectives. Put another way, thepromotion of alternative livelihoods for communi-ties is a necessary means to a conservation end.For CARPE, with its mandated strategic objec-tives of biodiversity protection and reducing de-forestation (USAID/CARPE, 2008), the end hasbeen clearly established as biodiversity conser-vation. While CARPE’s help to communities inthe form of support to alternative livelihoods pro-vides a positive outcome in human terms, thereason that CARPE as a conservation pro-gramme supports these activities is that withoutthem the conservation objectives will not beachieved. The overall purpose of this article is to explore

The Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Achieving a People-Cen-tered Approach to Conservation : Lesson Learned from theCARPE ProgramDavid Yanggen

169 Synthesis - CHAPTER 5

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the relationship between livelihoods and conser-vation in order to explain in a detailed and rigo-rous manner why CARPE supports alternativelivelihoods to achieve its conservation objectives.As a part of this analysis, this document reviewsthree CARPE lessons learned case studies ofhow CBFP1 /CARPE landscapes have incorpora-ted alternative livelihoods into their conservationprogramme. 1.2 BackgroundThe USAID Central African Regional Program forthe Environment (CARPE) is a regional initiativethat began in 1995. The Strategic Objective ofCARPE is to reduce the rate of forest degradationand loss of biodiversity through increased local,national and regional natural resource manage-ment capacity in nine central African countries2.During its first phase (1995–2002), CARPE’s pur-pose was to increase knowledge of Central Afri-can forests and biodiversity and build institutionaland human resource capacity. Currently in its se-cond phase (2003–2011), CARPE has threemain goals3: i) the implementation of sustainablenatural resources management practices; ii) theimprovement of environmental governance in theregion; and iii) the strengthening of natural re-sources monitoring capacity in Central Africa(USAID/CARPE, 2008).The first goal, by far the largest component of theoverall programme, corresponds to CARPE’slandscape programme. This component involvesthe implementation of field-based conservationactivities including sustainable livelihoods in 12different large-scale landscapes constituting intotal nearly 80 million hectares spread acrossseven different countries. The programme clas-sifies three types of “macro-zones” within thebroader landscape: protected areas (PAs),CBNRM4 zones (Community Forests) and ex-

tractive resource zones (principally loggingconcessions but including mining, oil extractionand agricultural plantations). A key component ofthe landscape programme involves land-useplanning (LUP) and the development of manage-ment plans for macro-zones and the entire Land-scape.USAID/CARPE moved its management teamfrom Washington DC to Kinshasa, the Democra-tic Republic of Congo (DRC), in 2003 in anticipa-tion of the shift from Phase 1 to Phase 2. Thismove also corresponded with a major scaling upof field activities from a base5 of US$ 3million/year in Phase 1 to a base of US$ 15 mil-lion dollars/year in CARPE Phase 2 starting in fis-cal year 2004. The second phase of CARPE is infact divided into two phases, Phase 2A (2003–2006) and Phase 2B (2007–2011). 1.3 Formalizing a people-centred ap-proach to conservationToward the end of Phase 2A, CARPE/USAIDcommissioned an external assessment of the ex-panded programme to evaluate the results achie-ved in Phase 2A and to make recommendationsfor Phase 2B (Weideman Consortium, 2006). Se-veral of these recommendations are pertinent tothe direction that CARPE/USAID has taken interms of the livelihoods component of its conser-vation strategy.First, the external assessment suggested thatgreater emphasis needed to be put on livelihoodsactivities in support of conservation objectives. Inorder to do so, the report gave three specific sug-gestions. First, it recommended that new partnersshould be brought into the landscapes that havecompetencies in rural development. Second, itnoted that, among the three categories ofCARPE “macro-zones”, a preponderance of fun-

1 Congo Basin Forest Partnership, a multilateral initiative for conservation in Central Africa. CARPE is the U.S. Govern-ment’s principal contribution to the CBFP. 2 The Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Burundi, Cameroon, Rwanda, SaoTome & Principe, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.3 Known as “Intermediate Results” or “IRs” in the language of USAID.4 Community-Based Natural Resource Management.5 This does not include matching funds from other donors or complementary U.S. Government funding such as Eco-nomic Support Funds (ESF) from the State Department or the Great Ape Conservation Fund from the Fish and Wild-life Service.

170CHAPTER 5 - Synthesis


economic monitoring, livelihoods and economicdevelopment, participatory community develop-ment, natural resource governance, sustainableforest management and gender. By specifyingthese minimum competencies, theUSAID/CARPE management team intended tofurther guide the potential recipients in their se-lection of consortia partners and the list clearlyreflects an increased emphasis on the promotionof alternative livelihoods for local communities. 1.4 Conservation vs. development: afalse dichotomyPrior to Phase 2B, the language used to describeCARPE activities generally made a distinctionbetween activities that promoted “conservation”and activities that promoted “development”. Forexample, even the 2006 external CARPE evalua-tion called for a “more precise approach to balan-cing conservation and development activities inthe landscapes”. The report further suggested es-tablishing a “development window” to search fordevelopment funding to complement conserva-tion funding in the landscapes (Weideman,2006). This use of language implies that develop-ment funding is by its nature distinct from conser-vation funding. Indeed, a frequent sentimentexpressed by individuals working in conservationNGOs in the Congo Basin was that money spenton development activities within a conservationprogramme resulted in less funding being availa-ble for conservation activities.Clearly not all development activities promoteconservation objectives. Clearing forest areas forlarge-scale ranching or building a factory that pol-lutes both the water and air may indeed provideemployment, augment individual incomes and in-crease a country’s gross national product andtherefore contribute to “development”, but are an-tithetical to conservation objectives. However,where unsustainable natural resource use bylocal communities exists, development activitiesin the form of sustainable alternative livelihoodscan support conservation. For example, if a pro-gramme of small animal husbandry provides an

ding was being spent by CARPE landscape part-ners on protected areas. In order to achieve thebroader landscape objectives it would be neces-sary to “place growing attention on addressingthreats and opportunities in forest concessionsand with communities”. Forest concessions andcommunity zones imply human multiple use of fo-rest areas and are therefore closely linked to li-velihoods issues. Finally, the report suggestedestablishing some minimal level of required fun-ding for development activities with local commu-nities to better integrate them into conservationobjectives. In response to the external assessment’s recom-mendations, the CARPE/USAID managementteam took the following measures as reflected bythe terms of reference (TOR) for the Phase 2BRFA6 funding proposals (USAID/CARPE, 2006).The new TOR required an explicit “Strategy Do-cument” that outlined the steps necessary to ela-borate a landscape-level management plan. Atemplate was developed by the US Forest Ser-vice which describes in detail the required com-ponents of a strategy document. One keycomponent involves the identification of macro-zones, including all three categories, within eachlandscape. This planning requirement was an effort to moveaway from a PA focus to a landscape-level focusthat included an emphasis on community areasand extractive zones as well as the environmen-tal interrelationships that exist between all themacro-zones at a landscape level. To further rein-force this integrated landscape-level approach,the TOR required that at least 50 percent of bud-getary resources be spent outside PAs.Finally, the TOR mandated that the landscapelead conservation NGO’s7 form consortia inclu-ding “complementary organizations with the com-petencies necessary to carry out complexlandscape planning and the execution of land-scape plans”. In addition, a minimum skill set forthe consortia was required to include competen-cies in PA management, biological and socio-6 “Request for Assistance” – a USAID mechanism for eliciting project funding proposals. 7World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Conservation International (CI) and African WildlifeFoundation (AWF).



Perhaps an even more important question iswhether conservation efforts can succeed withoutsupport for alternative livelihoods? Three of theprincipal causes of environmental degradation inthe Congo Basin are bushmeat hunting, slash-and-burn agriculture and harvesting of fuel woodfrom natural forests (State of the Forest, 2006).All of these activities are characteristic of ruralcommunities in the Congo Basin living in poverty. For example, in the DRC, which contains over 50percent of the basin’s forests, 59 percent of thepopulation lives in extreme poverty subsisting onless that US$ 1.25 a day9 and 76 percent of the

population is undernourished (World Bank,2007). The predominant livelihood activities ofrural communities in the DRC likewise includeslash-and-burn agriculture, hunting, fishing andgathering of forest products. Fuelwood/charcoalis the principal source of energy for cooking.These activities all involve extraction from the na-tural resource base and thus can contribute toenvironmental degradation. Further, with a demo-graphic growth rate of 3.1 percent, the populationof the DRC is expected to increase from 68 mil-lion in 2010 to 108 million in 2025, i.e., an in-crease of 40 million in only 15 years (UnitedNations, 2008). If these livelihood activities are the principalcauses of environmental degradation, canconservation objectives be achieved solely byrestricting poor rural households’ access to theseresources on which their very survival depends?Aside from the moral implications of deprivingvulnerable populations of basic sustenance,consider for a moment the logistics. Given thatthere are millions of rural households in theCongo Basin living in remote and highly disper-sed environmentally sensitive areas with little orno presence of the State, conservation strategiesbased uniquely on denying individuals access tothese natural resources are simply not logisticallyfeasible. In sum, given the extreme poverty, rapidpopulation growth and the high dependence onnatural resources for survival combined with thelogistical difficulties and negative moral implica-tions of denying poor people access to natural re-sources, a conservation strategy which does notpromote sustainable alternative livelihoods willnot achieve its environmental objectives.1.5 A typology of livelihood-conser-vation linkagesThis sub-section proposes a specific typology ofhow livelihood activities can contribute to conser-vation. This typology can help to analyze the typeof linkage that exists between livelihoods andconservation as well as to better design livelihoodactivities to meet conservation objectives. Table1 displays the four-category typology.

8 Permanent agriculture as an alternative to shifting slash-and-burn agriculture.9 The Millennium Development Goals measure of extreme poverty.

Figure 1. Relationships between environ-ment and development

economical source of protein and thereby re-duces bushmeat hunting, does it make sense toclassify this as a non-conservation “developmentactivity”? Similarly, if permaculture8 or wood lotsreduce the felling of forests are they not part of aconservation strategy? The dichotomy betweenconservation and development appears at bestinaccurate, at worst misleading. Figure 1 indicates that certain development acti-vities lead to environment destruction (area 1),others are environmentally neutral (area 2), andothers support environmental conservation (area3). The CARPE approach is to engage in a envi-ronmental threats-based analysis to identifythose livelihood activities that are currently lea-ding to environmental destruction (area 1) andseek to promote sustainable alternative liveli-hoods that contribute to conservation (area 3).



The threat-based linkages have already been re-ferred to in Section 1.4. As mentioned previously,hunting, slash-and-burn agriculture and fuelwoodcollection are three principal causes of environ-mental degradation in the Congo Basin. In thecase of a threat-based linkage, a conservation or-ganization identifies the particular threats in thearea it is working and proposes livelihood alter-natives that are direct alternatives to the identifiedthreat. For example, in the case of hunting, a lo-gical alternative is small animal husbandry suchas chicken, goat and/or pig raising. For slash-and-burn agriculture, improved soil fertility mana-gement (e.g., leguminous fallows, chemicaland/or organic fertilizer amendments, etc.) canallow longer use of a given parcel and decreaseagricultural expansion into the forested areas. Inaddition, improved seed and other productivity-enhancing practices (including for aforementio-ned fertility practices) can allow farmers toproduce more using less land and thereby reducedeforestation. Tree plantations are a furtherexample of a threat-based livelihood alternativeto the felling of trees for fuelwood in natural forestareas. Interdependency linkages imply that a livelihoodactivity depends on the conservation of the natu-ral environment. Perhaps the most famous exam-ple of these is the Brazilian rubber harvesterswho extract rubber from natural forests in theAmazon and who have strongly resisted forestconversion to other uses, notably ranching. Theyhave been strong advocates of forest conserva-tion precisely because their livelihoods depend

upon it. In the Congo Basin, a few of the mostcommon non-timber forest products (NTFPs) thatdepend on the conservation of the forest are fo-rest honey10, medicinal plants and caterpillars11.If these and other forest-based products can bepromoted through greater commercialization tomarkets which, in turn, increases local communi-ties’ incomes, then a constituency for forest pro-tection can emerge. Aside from NTFPs, ecotourism is another impor-tant example of how a livelihood activity dependson conservation of the natural environment. If thenatural environment is destroyed, then touristswill no longer spend money to visit a site. The cri-tical question here is whether or not local com-munities are receiving benefits from touristicactivities. For example, is there revenue sharingof park entrance fees with local communities? Dothe local communities own or work in businessesthat provide goods and services to tourists ( e.g.,hotels, restaurants, artisanal products, culturalshows, etc.)? Are individuals from local commu-nities employed in the park as rangers, guidesand maintenance workers? If local communitiesare integrated into tourism activities such that thebenefits of tourism outweigh the previous benefitsreceived from extracting natural resources withinthe park12, then a local constituency for environ-mental conservation will emerge. Interestingly, safari hunting is an activity that com-bines both forest-dependent products and tou-rism. Forest animals are indeed forest “products”that depend on conservation of the forest as a ha-bitat needed for their survival. Safari hunting is atouristic activity that has the potential to generatesignificant revenues to local communities as ty-pically safari hunters pay hefty fees to hunt. Iflocal populations receive significant benefits fromsafari tourism, then they will have a direct stakein fighting illegal hunting. If there are no longergame animals to hunt, then the safari hunting andits accompanying revenues to communities will

10 In some cases, forest dwellers traditionally referred to as pygmies fell trees in order to harvest honey for subsistenceconsumption which would not be sustainable in a commercial context. 11 Caterpillars are consumed as an important source of protein in the Congo Basin. 12 In fact, certain extractive activities within a park are not unsustainable or environmentally destructive. Subsistence fi-shing, the collection of “dead” firewood, the gathering of traditional fruits, nuts and medicinal plants all may be compatiblewith ecotourism activities and, if so, should be encouraged as they lower the opportunity cost to local communities ofestablishing a protected area.

Threat-based InterdependencyQuid pro quo agreements Unlinked

Table 1. A typology of livelihood-conservationlinkages



13 Participating Agencies Collaborating Together.

cease. The third type of livelihood-conservation linkageis through quid pro quo agreements. A quid proquo agreement means that one party agrees todo something in return for the agreement of ano-ther party to do something else. In this case, aconservation project agrees to fund a livelihoodactivity in return for a local community agreeingto restrict their use of certain natural resourcessuch as hunting and farming in a protected area.For this category, the livelihood activity may notbe directly linked to an environmental threat or in-terdependency. A conservation project, for example, may agreeto build wells for clean drinking water or installelectrification to run small-scale mills to transformgrains and cassava into flour, neither of which ty-pically have a direct link to conservation. In somecases, the agreed-upon support to a local com-munity may not be a direct livelihood activity thatprovides current household sustenance needs,but rather an activity that indirectly supports live-lihoods such as provision of schools and medicalfacilities. A payment for environmental service(PES) is generally another example of this typeof agreement as one party (e.g., a buyer of a car-bon credit) agrees to pay another party (e.g., alocal community) if they agree to provide an en-vironmental service (e.g., the protection of a fo-rest). The critical issue for a quid pro quo agreement isthat it should be formally recognized by both par-ties so each clearly understands and acceptstheir rights and obligations. Given the emphasisput on land-use planning in the CARPE pro-gramme, a logical place to formalize these typesof agreements is in the context of a managementplan. These plans establish restrictions concer-ning natural resource use but they also generallyhave a section on support to communities in theform of development activities.The final category of livelihood-conservation re-lationships is where there are no linkages. Sup-port to agriculture, for example, that doesn’timprove soil fertility or isn’t linked to production in

already cleared areas may result in increasedclearing of forests for cropping. In the case ofcommunity health projects, there is no a priorireason to believe that healthier individuals won’thunt more animals and fell more trees if there areno formal linkages between support for healthprojects and environmental conservation.

2. A review of the livelihood-conservation case studies2.1 IntroductionThe CARPE lessons learned initiative includedthree case studies of the integration of livelihoodsinto conservation programmes. The three casestudies are based in the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape, the Maringa-Lopori-WambaLandscape and the Maiko Tayna Kahuzi-BiegaLandscape. This section reviews these case stu-dies using the typology presented above andsynthesizes the lessons learned as identified bythe authors. 2.2 The Salonga-Lukenie-SankuruLandscape case studyWWF, the leader for this Landscape (abbreviatedas the Salonga Landscape), included PACT13 aspart of its consortium for CARPE Phase 2B.PACT is an NGO with competencies in commu-nity development and has taken on the bulk of al-ternative livelihoods activities in the landscape.PACT started off with a threat-based analysis ofenvironmental degradation and identified slash-and-burn agriculture, commercial hunting and in-discriminate overfishing as the principalconservation threats (Makambo, 2009). To date, PACT has focused on the promotion ofgroundnuts as an alternative to slash-and-burnagriculture. Groundnuts, a nitrogen-fixing legumi-nous crop, were found to have high potential togrow in fallow areas already deforested therebyobviating or at least minimizing the need to clearnew forest areas. Furthermore, while not yet im-plemented, small animal husbandry and fishponds have been identified as two potential so-



lutions to commercial hunting and overfishing re-flecting once again the threat-based approach ofPACT. PACT has also put substantial emphasis on quidpro quo type agreements that link livelihood andconservation objectives. These agreements areformalized in the establishment of “Simplified Ma-nagement Plans” (PAGS)14 for CBNRM zones.In order to work more effectively with communi-ties to develop these plans, PACT has supportedthe creation of local natural resource manage-ment committees as communal platforms tomake decisions about conservation and liveli-hoods. Members sign a “charter of responsibili-ties” that identifies both their rights andresponsibilities. In order to further increase thebuy-in of local populations, PACT uses a varietyof participatory research techniques that helpsthe communities themselves identify problemsand solutions that are incorporated into the ma-nagement plans. In addition, PACT uses value chain analysis toidentify the products that have a reliable marketand positive profitability. However, a majorconstraint to all commercial livelihoods activitiesin the Salonga Landscape is a lack of transpor-tation to markets due to the remoteness of thelandscape, poor infrastructure and corruption.PACT is currently engaged in developing a busi-ness plan that includes transportation costs in itsfinancial calculations and is evaluating options forimproving commercialization routes. In thiscontext it was recognized that an additional pro-duct, copal (a type of tree resin prized for its na-tural beauty), given its small size and high price,could be commercialized much more easily thanmore voluminous products and is being promotedas a livelihood alternative. A summary of the lessons learned identified byPACT in Salonga are as follows. Support to live-lihoods is a necessary precondition to conserva-tion. Communities are very difficult to engage inthe development of a management plan for im-proved natural resource management if materialimprovement in their wellbeing is not included up

front. Simply put, communities are more concer-ned about their daily survival than conservation.There is therefore a need to find alternative acti-vities that harmonize the two. In addition, there isa critical need to improve transportation routes tomarkets. Otherwise alternative livelihood activi-ties will lead to surplus production beyond sub-sistence needs and no increased revenue forlocal communities. Finally, there is a need to rein-force the capacities of local communities to en-able them to engage in natural resourcemanagement planning decisions and attain eco-nomies of scale for the production and commer-cialization of products from alternative livelihoodactivities. 2.3 The Maringa-Lopori-WambaLandscape case studyThe African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is the lea-der for this Landscape (abbreviated as the MLWLandscape). The MLW Consortium has a numberof institutions active in alternative livelihood-rela-ted activities. AWF takes the lead on landscapeplanning, biodiversity conservation and conser-vation enterprises. The World Agroforestry Cen-tre (ICRAF) promotes innovations in land-usepractices to create alternative and additionalsources of livelihoods, including the domestica-tion of high-value and threatened tree species,and NTFP enterprise development. The World-Fish Center (WF) provides expertise in sustaina-ble fisheries management. The Netherlandsdevelopment organization Stichting NederlandseVrijwilligers (SNV) leads on multi-stakeholderconsultation and civil society strengthening. Fi-nally, a regional NGO, the Network of AfricanWomen for Sustainable Development15 (RE-FADD), focuses on gender issues throughout thelandscape planning process.The MLW Consortium uses an explicit threats-based analysis to selecting livelihood activities.Their approach began with socio-economic andbiological surveys in diverse areas of the land-scape. The results of these surveys were thendiscussed with relevant stakeholders in a“Threats and Opportunities Analysis” workshop in

14 In French a “plan d’aménagement et de gestion simplifié”. 15 Réseau des Femmes Africaines pour le Développement Durable.



16 Seed in the case of maize (corn) and vegetative cuttings in the case of cassava, the two crops receiving the mostsupport.17 Institut Congolais de Conservation de la Nature.

2004. A central conclusion of that workshop wasthat, due to the collapse of marketing infrastruc-ture, the costs and risks of the commercializationof crops such as coffee, maize, rice and cassavahad increased substantially. As a result, manyhouseholds had moved deeper into the forest inorder to hunt forest animals which offer a highervalue-to-transport-cost ratio. At the same time,these same households engage in slash-and-burn agriculture for subsistence needs in primaryforest areas leading to particularly damaging en-vironmental degradation. As a solution to this threat-based problem analy-sis, the MLW Consortium decided upon a combi-ned approach of supporting agricultureproduction and commercialization. On the pro-duction side, small grants to local community-based organizations helped finance theacquisition of improved germplasm, and agricul-tural tools. On the commercialization side, theconsortium helped arrange and pre-fund a bargeto transport agricultural products from the Land-scape to the Kinshasa market, a distance ofroughly 1500 km. The MLW Consortium has also engaged in quidpro quo agreements with local communities in thecontext of land-use planning. The consortiumstrongly insists on the participatory nature of thisapproach :

The very basis of our approach is participa-tion of and ownership by the local commu-nities of the landscape LUP process…finaldecisions depend on a participatory assess-ment of needs and opportunities and colla-borative decision taking with thebeneficiaries, who are the local communi-ties and government (Dupain et al., 2009).

In the context of support to agriculture, the projecthas worked with local communities to identifymicro-zones for agricultural production outside ofprimary forest areas. Through quid pro quoagreements embedded in the LUP process, far-mers may only receive project support if they

agree to limit their production to these agreed-upon micro-zones. A final component of the MLW Consortium stra-tegy is based on the interdependency linkagebetween livelihoods and conservation in the formof ecotourism. With support from the Consortium,the Faunal Reserve of Lomako Yokokala (RFLY)in the MLW Landscape was officially gazetted inJune 2006. An agreement was facilitated withICCN, the DRC National Parks Agency, that thelocal population will be involved in both the deve-lopment and execution of the reserve’s manage-ment plan. The core of this interdependency strategy, accor-ding to the MLW Consortium, is to ensure that thereserve will create more benefits for local com-munities as a protected area with tourism reve-nue generated by international visitors than as asource for commercial bushmeat hunting. Inorder to achieve this goal, the Consortium hasbeen constructing tourism infrastructure and hascreated a revenue-sharing mechanism for re-serve entrance fees that will be used to fund locallivelihood activities. The communities themselveswill have a voice in determining the uses of thesefunds.A summary of the lessons learned as identifiedby this MLW Landscape case study is as follows.First, the support to livelihood activities must in-clude a public participation strategy in the contextof the overall LUP strategy design and develop-ment. Secondly, the support for livelihoods musthave an explicit link made to conservation suchas in the case of agricultural micro-zoning toavoid further forest clearing. Finally, local capa-city building is critical as in the case of small grantsupport to local community-based organizationseven if this leads to some failures as a part of thenormal learning process of the local organiza-tions.



2.4 Maiko Tayna Kahuzi-Biega Land-scape case studyConservation International (CI) is the leader forthis landscape (abbreviated as the MTKB Land-scape). Livelihood activities on the ground arecarried out principally by the Dian Fossey GorillaFund International (DFGFI), a local communityorganization known as the Union of Associationsfor Gorilla Conservation and Development inEastern DRC (UGADEC), and the Jane GoodallInstitute (JGI). The strategy of the MTKB Consor-tium has centred around the establishment of aninstitution of higher learning, the Tayna Center forConservation Biology (TCCB). This institutionbegan operations in 2003 and since 2005 hasbeen located at Kasugha, near the Tayna NatureReserve. This strategy described in the MTKB case studyhas focused on the quid pro quo agreement ap-proach to linking livelihoods and conservation.The case study clearly states :

One of the important pillars of this commu-nity conservation programme was that, inexchange for local communities’ commit-ments to conservation, DFGFI would pro-vide local development and health projectsas alternative livelihoods to offset local peo-ple’s opportunity costs as they ceded landuse rights to create nature reserves (Mehl-man, 2009).

This quote, in fact, sums up nicely the concept ofa quid pro quo linkage between livelihoods andconservation. A university by itself is not inhe-rently linked to conservation as in the case ofthreat-based or interdependency linkages andtherefore necessitates this type of agreement. The selection of a university as a priority deve-lopment intervention was made by a large majo-rity of the community leaders who identifiedaccess to a centre of higher learning as their hi-ghest priority for local economic development.Several other livelihood-development activitieswere also prioritized by the communities andhave led to the following interventions. A micro

hydro-electric station was build with support fromJGI and is now providing power to the TCCB andthe nearby village of Kasugha. Health interven-tions were also prioritized and have included im-portant levels of support to the rehabilitation ofclinics, family planning, the provision of medicine,and access to clean water. Other social infra-structure has included the construction of a roadto the university, the refurbishment of schools, theconstruction of an orphanage and the establish-ment of a community radio station. Some moredirect livelihood activities have included fundingto agriculture, fish ponds, small animal husbandryand a brick-making project for widows. This quid pro quo agreement has been firmly an-chored in the participatory LUP process centredaround the Tayna Reserve Management Plan.The participatory zoning plan for the reserve in-cludes a core protected area, a buffer zone anda development zone. The TCCB complex and theadjacent village of Kasugha are located in the de-velopment zone. In addition, the MTKB consor-tium has put substantial effort into micro-zoningaround the university and village, as the “magnet”effect of the university and various developmentactivities has attracted substantial spin-off eco-nomic activities and entailed a certain develop-mental sprawl that has needed to be contained. Some of the key lessons learned identified in thisMTKB case study are as follows. First, a partici-patory approach is critical to achieving commu-nity buy-in. In this case study, the localcommunity contributed substantial labour andeven funding to support certain development ac-tivities because they themselves were able to es-tablish their own development priorities.Important infrastructural investments such as theuniversity, the hydroelectric plan and the roadconnection to markets have created significantopportunities for other livelihood and develop-ment activities. Early land-use planning throughmicro-zoning has been critical to control any po-tential negative impacts of uncontrolled sprawl re-sulting from these developments.



3. Conclusions and recom-mendationsA number of common threads have emergedfrom the lessons learned of these three case stu-dies. First of all, the typology of these linkagesproposed in this article proved capable of charac-terizing the integration of livelihoods into aconservation programme. However, it should benoted that this does not imply the different typesof linkages are mutually exclusive. On thecontrary, in the case studies they often provedmutually reinforcing as in the case of threat-based agricultural production being linked to aquid pro quo land-use micro-zoning. Even whenthey were not explicitly linked, the landscape pro-jects are typically undertaking more than one typeof livelihood-conservation linkage. This typologydoes, however, facilitate the integration of liveli-hoods into conservation programmes by allowinga clear identification of the different types of po-sitive linkages. In this typology, both the threat-based and inter-dependency categories had direct and inherentlinks to environmental conservation. In this spe-cific sense, they are preferable to the quid proquo-based approach. However, a quid pro quoapproach allows greater flexibility to respond tolocal communities’ priorities, such as the case ofthe MTKB case study where education andhealth were identified as higher priorities. In prac-tice, all these categories of alternative livelihoodactivities should be considered and the approachor combination of approaches that makes themost sense, given the local context and includinglocal community priorities, should be adopted.All three case studies made reference to theconcept of opportunity costs of conservation. Per-haps the MLW case study summed this up themost eloquently when it stated that the core oftheir strategy with the Lomako Reserve was tocreate more benefits for local communities as aprotected area with tourism revenue generatedby international visitors than as a source for com-mercial bushmeat hunting. This objective shouldbe true of any alternative livelihood strategy. It isnot enough that an alternative livelihood activitybe beneficial, it must be more beneficial than the

current environmentally degrading activity it is in-tended to replace. For example, while slash-and-burn agriculture may be very environmentallydestructive and offer low yields per hectare, it isnot necessarily an irrational strategy by rural hou-seholds. In land-abundant environments such asthe Congo Basin, this type of agriculture giveshigh returns to relatively scarce labour and capi-tal. In order for agricultural alternatives such asgroundnuts in the Salonga Landscape planted inpreviously cleared fallow areas to give a higherreturn, they need market access so farmers in-crease their incomes. The interpretation of farmerresistance to adopting alternative livelihoodsoften reflects either an underestimation of the realopportunity costs of their current environmentallydestructive livelihood practices or an overestima-tion of the benefits of the sustainable alternative. On this last point, all three case studies foundthat integration into markets was critical for pro-moting improved livelihoods. Most improved live-lihoods aim to increase production beyond basicsubsistence needs, whether in the case of agri-cultural crops, livestock or NTFPs. If the produ-cers of these goods do not have access tomarkets then indeed these alternative livelihoodswill likely be less attractive than their current des-tructive activities. Conservation areas tend to bein relatively remote areas with poor access tomarkets. Attention to market integration is there-fore all the more necessary. Nevertheless, manyalternative livelihood activities associated withconservation projects have focused on the pro-duction side to the neglect of commercializationissues. This oversight typically leads to failureand, all too often, a misguided blaming of ruralhousehold resistance to change. The linkage to markets, however, is not withoutrisks. Indeed improved market access can easilylead to increased commercial hunting of fauna orforest clearing for agriculture. This is a key rea-son why in all of the case studies the livelihoodactivities were firmly embedded in an overall LUPprocess. Admittedly this does reflect the ap-proach required by the USAID/CARPE manage-ment team. Nevertheless, all the case studiesfound that land-use planning such as the esta-blishment of core protected areas or agriculturalmicro-zones was a necessary component of en-




Synthesis - CHAPTER 5179

suring coherence between livelihood and conser-vation objectives. A final common thread of all the case studies wasthe need for participatory approaches and localcapacity building. Choosing alternative liveli-hoods solely on the basis of their potentialconservation benefits is highly likely to fail if theydon’t take into account local communities’ priori-ties. Furthermore, capacity building is almost al-ways necessary in order for local communities toagree upon complex decisions about the use oftheir natural resource base. Natural resource de-gradation caused by population pressures isoften a relatively new phenomena necessitatingnot only the adoption of new livelihood alterna-tives but also new governance mechanisms forestablishing rules and regulations about naturalresource use. Traditional approaches to thesechanging circumstances are frequently not ade-quate and therefore capacity building is essential. As a final conclusion, it is hoped that with the de-tailed analysis of livelihood-conservation linkagesbacked up by the concrete examples from thecase studies, this article makes the case forthose still in doubt of the need for a people-cen-tred approach to conservation that includes live-lihoods as an integral part of a conservationprogramme.

BibliographyCongo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP). 2006.The Forests of the Congo Basin: State of the Fo-rest 2006.Dupain, J., Bwebwe, F., Elliott, J., Sebunya, K.,Williams, D. and Nackoney, J. 2009. “The Role of“Alternative Livelihoods” in Achieving a People-Centred Approach to Conservation”. CARPE Les-sons Learned. Yaoundé: IUCN and USAID. Makambo, E. 2009. “The Role of Alternative Li-velihoods in Achieving a People-Centred Ap-proach to Conservation in theSalonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape, LokolamaArea, Democratic Republic of Congo”. CARPELessons Learned. Yaoundé : IUCN and USAID.

Mehlman, P. 2009. “Role of Alternative Liveli-hoods in a People-Centred Approach to Conser-vation: A Case Study in Creating aCommunity-Managed Conservation University”.CARPE Lessons Learned. Yaoundé: IUCN andUSAID. United Nations. 2008. Gender Info 2007. UnitedNations Statistics Division (UNSD).http://data.un.org.USAID/CARPE. 2006. Request for Applications(RFA) No.623-A-06-026; Democratic Republic ofCongo Central African Regional Program for theEnvironment Landscape Program Implementa-tion 2006–2011.USAID/CARPE. 2008. “CARPE II Revised Per-formance Management Plan”. http://carpe.umd.edu/resources/Documents/carpe_perfor-mance_management.pdf.Weideman Consortium. 2006. “Mid Term Assess-ment Report for the Central African Regional Pro-gram for the Environment”.http://carpe.umd.edu/resources/ Documents/Wei-demann_CARPE_Eval_17Feb06.pdf/view?set_language=en.World Bank. (2007) “Data and Statistics. Millen-nium Development Goals”. http://web.world-bank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/DATASTATISTICS / 0 , , c o n t e n t M D K : 2 0 5 4 6 9 0 4 ~ m e -nuPK:1297806~pagePK:64133150~piPK:64133175~theSitePK:239419,00.html.


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Introduction : Overview of theintervention zoneThis chapter describes how alternative liveli-hoods interventions can include a role for highereducation in conservation and biological sciencesfor local stakeholders. As a case study, it des-cribes the development, successes and chal-lenges involved in creating acommunity-managed university located near acommunity nature reserve in rural, eastern DRC:The Tayna Center for Conservation Biology.Location : The Tayna Center for Conservation

Biology (TCCB) is located in the Maiko Tayna Ka-huzi-Biega Landscape in eastern Democratic Re-public of Congo, Province of North Kivu. It islocated just outside the buffer zone of the TaynaNature Reserve near the village of Kasugha (Fi-gure 1). Biodiversity value : This region lies between thelowlands of the Congo Basin and the highlandsof the Albertine Rift (altitude: 495–3,279 m), ma-king it a phytogeographical convergence zonebetween two centres of regional endemism: theCongo lowland forests, a “High Biodiversity Wil-derness Area”, and the Kivu-Ruwenzori region ofthe Albertine Rift, part of the eastern Afromontane

1 Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., Brooks, T., Pilgrim, J., Konstant, W., da Fonseca, G.A.B. and Kormos, C. 2003.“Wilderness and biodiversity conservation”. PNAS 100: 10309–10313; Mittermeier, R.A., Robles Gil, P., Hoffman, M.,Pilgrim, J, Brooks, T., Mittermeier, C.G., Lamoreux, J. and da Fonseca, G.A.B. 2004. Hotspots Revisited. CemexBooks on Nature; Myers, N., Mittermeier, R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B. and Kent, J. 2000. “Biodiversityhotspots for conservation priorities” Nature 403: 853–858. Palaeo-ecological studies also show this region to havebeen a faunal refuge of montane forest during the cold and dry periods of the Pleistocene era.

Case study 1 - The Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Conser-vation : Lessons Learned from the Creation of the Community-Managed Tayna Center for Conservation BiologyPatrick Mehlman, Conservation International

Figure 1. Location of Tayna Nature Reserve and the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology

The Tayna Center for Conservation Biology (red aste-risk), a state-accredited university, is located just out-side the buffer zone (yellow) of the Tayna NatureReserve (red boundaries) in Lubero Territory, Provinceof North Kivu

Case study 1 - CHAPTER 5 181


“Hotspot”1. The area is noted for its globally si-gnificant biodiversity, containing more than 45IUCN Red List-threatened species of fauna andflora, and high numbers of endemic and restric-ted-range species. There are important popula-tions of large tropical forest vertebrates includingEastern chimpanzee, Forest elephant, Okapi, Fo-rest buffalo, the Congo peacock, and Grauer’s(eastern lowland) gorilla (endemic to easternDRC)2. The region is also globally significant forcontaining some of the largest remaining blocksof intact forest in the Congo Basin. These forestsat the headwaters of the Congo River not only re-gulate local climate and soil protection, but arecritical to maintaining global ecological services– storing carbon that counteracts global climatechange and playing a role in regulating one of theworld’s largest river basins. Livelihoods and subsistence in the region :The Maiko Tayna Kahuzi-Biega (MTKB) Land-scape is an area of significant poverty, where al-most all of its inhabitants rely on subsistenceagriculture, hunting and the gathering of forestproducts. The principal economic activities in theLandscape are subsistence farming, hunting, cat-tle raising, goat and/or sheep raising, mining andsome fishing. Most farming is carried out usingslash-and-burn methods, with principal cropsbeing manioc, cassava, rice and beans. Thereare a few plantations near villages that grow oilpalm, banana and coffee, but most commercialplantations are now degraded and are no longerfunctional. Oil palm is extracted by simple handmethods throughout the landscape. It is an im-portant product traded in local villages and isoften moved by bicycle to larger village marketsin the east. In North Kivu near Tayna, there arecinchona (Rubiaceae family) plantations, a medi-cinal plant used for malaria treatment, tended bylocal farmers, who sell their product to a commer-cial company. Subsistence hunting takes placethroughout the Landscape. The trade in bush-meat is not as developed as in western CentralAfrica, but consumption of bushmeat is high nearillegal mining camps and in some smaller townsand villages. Most local bushmeat trade is mon-

key, duiker, antelope and rodents. River fishing iscommon throughout the Landscape and somefish farms (now in disrepair) are present in theWalikale area in the centre of the Landscape. Emerging from civil war : The civil war ended,in theory, with the signing of the Sun City Accordson April 2, 2003, finalizing the Lusaka Agreement,restoring peace and national sovereignty to DRCand establishing a transitional government. This“officially” ended the period of civil war datingback nearly eight years, in which 2–4 million peo-ple died, mostly from disease and famine, themost costly conflict in human lives since WorldWar II. The vast majority of the violence andconcomitant deaths were confined to easternDRC, with North and South Kivu provinces occu-pying the centre of the maelstrom. Unfortunately,armed conflicts did not cease in 2003, but havecontinued sporadically throughout the Landscapeuntil 2009, as various Mai-Mai units refuse tounify with the national DRC army, and RwandanInterehamwe groups control some areas of theLandscape by armed force. These militias createinsecurity through sheer terrorist violence, oftenagainst women (see below), and many use childsoldiers. They have decimated domestic animalstocks of farmers throughout the area, stealing,killing and eating most local stocks. They enforce“taxes” on simple people attempting to move theirgoods to market, or in some cases, they take en-tire villages hostage or oversee quasi-slaveryconditions in the mines they control. They controlmost of the illegal mining sites, and they partici-pate heavily in the bushmeat trade and illegaltrafficking of animals. Women, widows and vulnerable children :Women have significantly less access than mento education, assets and services, restrictingthem from actively participating in civil society.Deeply engrained cultural traditions and beliefsfurther perpetuate gender inequity and often ex-clude women from village decision-making pro-cesses. Many women enter arranged marriagesin their teenage years and are expected to havelarge families. They have little knowledge about

2 These megafauna assemblages, characteristic of Central African rainforests, represent one of the best opportunitiesworldwide to protect examples of intact tropical forest megafauna communities; they have mostly disappeared fromSouth-east Asia and West Africa.

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reproductive health or alternative methods for fa-mily planning. As wives and mothers, women areresponsible for almost all of the household acti-vities necessary for family life: child care, prepa-ration of meals, tilling agricultural fields, watercarrying, wood gathering, etc., yet they have verylittle financial security or land to call their own. Ina region emerging from years of civil war andstrife, life is especially hard for widows. Althoughorphans may sometimes be looked after by rela-tives, the widow is forced to fend for herself andis often left homeless. Conflict in the region hasalso resulted in widespread use of rape as a wea-pon of war. Over the past decade, tens of thou-sands of women and girls have sufferedsystematic rape and sexual assault at the handsof various armed groups (including the DRC mi-litary). These crimes against humanity continue,with large numbers of women suffering from vio-lent multiple rapes, mutilations and the subse-quent development of fistulas, a debilitatingmedical condition often leading to ostracism fromsociety. The widespread fear of HIV/AIDS contri-butes to the stigmatization of rape survivors andtheir children. Because of the civil wars, there arevast numbers of orphans and vulnerable children.These children are taken in by relatives and otherfamilies while others are placed in makeshift or-phanages, thus placing an enormous burden oncommunities barely able to survive with the limi-ted resources available to them.

Alternative livelihoods metho-dology and results achievedIntroduction : Conservation International(CI) partner, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Inter-national (DFGFI), began working with local com-munities in North Kivu in early 20013. At thattime, they developed a community conservationprogramme initially focused on the developing

Tayna Nature Reserve (see chapter 2), and thenlater on a zone of communities that would forman ecological corridor between the Maiko and Ka-huzi-Biega National Parks, represented by theUnion of Associations for Gorilla Conservationand Development in Eastern DRC (UGADEC)4.One of the important pillars of this communityconservation programme was that, in exchangefor local communities’ commitments to conserva-tion, DFGFI would provide local development andhealth projects as alternative livelihoods to offsetlocal people's opportunity costs as they cededland-use rights to create nature reserves. Duringseveral stakeholder meetings in 2002–2003 withthe wider community representation afforded bythe UGADEC association, DFGFI solicited feed-back from local groups as to what kind of majordevelopment intervention they would favour mostfor their communities. An overwhelming majorityof the community leaders stated that their sonsand daughters did not have access to higher edu-cation, and that this was their highest priority forlocal economic development. The idea of a com-munity university emerged, a university thatwould be located near the flagship project, theTayna Reserve, but would serve the needs ofcommunities throughout the UGADEC zone byproviding job training in natural resource mana-gement, conservation, biology and other sub-jects. With the community university concept in mind,UGADEC created the Tayna Center for Conser-vation Biology (TCCB) in mid-2003, and beganits first academic year (October 2003–September2004) in rented buildings in Goma, whileconstruction was underway at the site. By Fe-bruary 2005, the TCCB had moved to its new siteat Kasugha, near the Tayna Nature Reserve. Current configuration of the university : TheTCCB is a private degree-granting higher-educa-

3 Conservation International began their partnership with DFGFI in October, 2003 with the inception of the USAIDCARPE IIa programme.4 The Union of Associations for Gorilla Conservation and Development in Eastern DRC (UGADEC) was founded in2002, and is a federation of eight local NGOs based on customary powers (traditional governance). Each individualNGO member represents the interests of its chefferie (tribal territory) that includes both a development zone (CBNRMzone) and a fully protected zone. The federation was created in an effort to standardize their conservation and deve-lopment efforts and contains a scientific component as well as customary governance component. It also serves as anadministrative unit, coordinating the technical and financial activities of all its eight members, and additionally adminis-tering a community-managed conservation biology university that is part of the programme.



tion institution based in Kasugha, North Kivu Pro-vince in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC). It was established as a non-profit organi-zation under DRC law, and received accreditationunder a Presidential Decree issued in March2006. It is also known as the Kasugha Universityfor Conservation and Rural Development(UCNDK). TCCB operates in a remote region of the DRCunder extremely difficult conditions. Besides pro-viding students with higher education, TCCBmust house, feed and provide basic services toa small community of over 350 people, includingstudents, faculty and staff. A purpose-built cam-pus, built by the local community, an integrated

agricultural production plan, a conservation andenvironmental education ethic, and a work-studyprogramme provide the setting for a communityexperience that extends well beyond the acade-mic programmes. The TCCB offers 19 academic programmes infive faculties: Economics, Information and Com-munications, Sciences, Medicine and a Polytech-nic Institute. It has a staff of 45, including 20academic faculty and 25 administrative and ope-rations staff and is managed administrativelythrough a Board of Directors (Figure 2). The cam-pus occupies a 122-hectare concession of rollingterrain and is composed of an academic wing,two dorms for students, administrative offices,

Figure 2. Administrative Structure for the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology



Figure 3. Aerial view of the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology

A , Classrooms; B, computer center; C, offices; D; Commissary; E, Dormitories and library ; F, class-rooms (interior); G; computer center (interior)



staff housing, and visitors' quarters (Figure 3). For the academic year 2008, the TCCB had anenrolment of 375 students (including 29 women),with 91 students from UGADEC projects on fullscholarships (food, accommodation, tuition fees,medical care, and supplies); 229 students forwhom tuition fees were waived, and 55 studentswho were self-supporting. The University offers three-year Bachelor’s De-grees and five-year Professional Preparatory De-grees. By January 2009, the TCCB had produced211 graduates since its inception (130 from theacademic year 2008). Of the 81 graduates from2006–2007, 43 are now employed in professionalcareers in conservation management, media andteaching (seven women). Plans are underway toemploy at least 50 more 2008 graduates. Other development and alternative liveli-hoods interventions : Under a DFGFI “Ecosys-tem Health and Community DevelopmentProject”, in 2002, DFGFI began support for theflagship project, the Tayna Reserve, by providingbasic support for an orphanage (food, clothes,health care, education, and building repair), smallmicro-projects for a Widow’s Group (initially foodcare, but leading onto improved seed stock forsmall plots provided by the community, a pig andguinea pig livestock project, and a soap/oil pro-duction project) and support to a Widow’s Group(brick-making project). Aid was also provided torehabilitate and operate several primary schoolsand health clinics, as well as install several clean-water access projects. In 2003, Congolese members of the Tayna Pro-ject also contributed donations from staff tocreate a hospital, an orphanage, and a commu-nity radio station located nearby the TCCB (Fi-gure 4), a testimony to the commitment of certainstaff who donated significant portions of their sa-laries. The entire complex was hand-built by thevillagers of Kasugha – the widow’s associationpressed and fired the bricks; local craftsmen builtall the furniture, doors and windows. The CI/DFGFI development initiatives were alsosupplemented and amplified by a partnershipcreated with the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) in

early 2005 in which leveraged funds from USAID(via EngenderHealth Inc.) were utilized by JGI toprovide health and family planning interventionsfor the community conservation projects of Taynaand UGADEC. As JGI found further funding, itwas also able to pilot several development pro-jects near the TCCB: a demonstration fish-far-ming project, improved seed stock for agriculture,and most importantly, a 37 kilowatt hydro-electricstation that is now providing power to the TCCBand the nearby village of Kasugha (Figure 5). In this isolated region battered by civil war formore than seven years, local people had absolu-tely no access to health care. To address theseissues, DFGFI developed the Ecosystem Healthand Community Development Program, and by2008, the programme had rehabilitated six clinicsaround two of the UGADEC community reserves,trained nurses, and provided medicines and sup-plies (with assistance from JGI). For the years2005–2008, the DFGFI Ecosystem Health Pro-gram was also awarded a US$1,000,000 grant ofmedicines from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Inc. fortreatment of intestinal parasites and providingbasic medical care (antibiotics, etc). The pro-gramme provides rural clinic support contributingbasic medicines, equipment and supplies (stetho-scopes, rehydration units, locally made beds,etc.), and supporting the training and salaries ofeight nurses and two doctors. It is estimated thatmore than 20,000 people in this landscape arenow receiving some form of clinic care comparedto the complete absence of health care before theprogramme began. These clinics also serve as focal points for a JGI-led Family Planning project, implemented since2005 in the health zones of Lubero, Pinga andWalikale. In this project, JGI provides a numberof interventions, including training to health-careworkers, a sensitization programme, technicalsupport, aid in health data collection, provision ofcontraceptives to maintain stocks at health cen-tres, and rehabilitation of health centres. Whenthe programme began, there were no family plan-ning activities in these three health zones. Todate, family planning and reproductive health ac-tivities are completely implemented in 70 healthfacilities. The average rate of contraceptive pre-valence is 6 percent, which is a substantial in-



Figure 4. Community Radio Station near the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology (station above, andrecording studio below).



Figure 5. Hydro-electric station (37 kw) serving TCCB, radio station, and village of Kasugha

A dam with sluicefeeds a gravitydrop pipe into theturbine station, ge-nerating the electri-cal current. Fromthere, through se-veral transformers,the current reachesthe TCCB morethan 4 km distance,and also is sent tothe village of Kasu-gha, where it drivespublic lighting andseveral micro- pro-jects.




189 Case study 1 - CHAPTER 5

crease in comparison with the baseline, which isestimated to have been 0.8 percent. For the pe-riod 2006–2007, 402 Congolese health profes-sionals were trained, and more than 20,000 localpeople participated directed in the programme;more than 60,000 people were exposed to repro-ductive health/family planning messages in thesensitization programme for the region. The DFGFI Ecosystem Health Program andCommunity Development Program also seeks toreduce the threat of disease cross-transmissionbetween humans and at-risk fauna (great apes)by analyzing the levels of intestinal parasitism infauna and humans near protected areas, andproviding free treatment to infected people. Itcontains an educational component targeting hy-giene, avoiding parasitism, and enabling the localpopulace to understand cross-transmissionthreats, while emphasizing conservation goals.To date, the project has collected and completedfaecal analyses for more than 10,000 peoplefrom the UGADEC zone; more than 25,000 peo-ple were treated and trained in the hygiene edu-cation programme. Malnutrition is rampant in DRC, much of it arisingfrom lack of protein due to the pillaging of domes-tic animal stock during the civil war. Local stake-holders face a further challenge as they haveagreed not to hunt in large tracts of forest as apart of their local conservation projects. A seriesof projects were thus developed to help reducemalnutrition, providing pig and guinea pig lives-tock, and improved seed stock for crops such assoy, sorghum, beans and peanuts. The pro-gramme is now operational in five villages nearTayna Nature Reserve where the highest percen-tage of inhabitants is women (many men were kil-led during the war). Each project is run by anassociation of local women who choose the pro-jects and manage them. In all of the small animalhusbandry projects, a percentage of the offspringare given to community members who have ap-plied to be recipients and the rest are sold. Allproject participants receive husbandry and ani-mal wellbeing training, and veterinary visits. Theproduce from the agricultural projects is sold (withthe exception of a percentage of the harvestwhich they donate to a local orphanage), and theprofits are split between the women after conser-

ving an amount to cover new grain purchasesand heavy manual labour.

Lessons learnedThe impact of the university is remarkable andfar-reaching. In addition to construction jobs, thelocal population now has access to doctors,nurses and the health centre’s services. Agricul-tural extension programmes support local far-mers, and children have access to primary andhigh school education. The radio station broad-casts messages to the local communities concer-ning conservation, politics, music, culture, andwomen’s and family issues. There is now electri-city for the university as well as public lighting forthe nearby village. However, the University’s truevalue for conservation rests with the students:they are the new generation of hereditary ste-wards of the land that lies within the Maiko TaynaKahuzi-Biega corridor. About 70 of the 300 stu-dents pursuing degrees at the University are thesons and daughters of the stewards whose landeasements form the UGADEC reserves, and theywill inherit their parents’ responsibility to assureland-use rights in their communities. Without theleadership and vision of their elders, these stu-dents – some of the region’s best and brightest –would have had limited futures.While there are other models for higher educationcapacity building, for example sending studentsabroad for training, the TCCB is a far more cost-effective approach per student trained: with cur-rent operating costs, we estimate the cost oftraining one student for a three-year degree inconservation biology to be approximatelyUS$3,000. And of course, it is impossible to puta price on the invaluable contribution the univer-sity is making to local pride, and its importantlinks to demonstrating that development can gohand in hand with biodiversity conservation. University lessonsLesson 1 – Local communities will participateand contribute to projects they perceive aswholly theirs : During the development of theTCCB, as early as 2003, Congolese members ofthe Tayna Project NGO contributed donations



from staff to build the local hospital, an orpha-nage, and the infrastructure for a communityradio station at the TCCB, a testimony to thecommitment of certain staff who donated signifi-cant portions of their salaries (more thanUS$15,000). Local community members volun-teered their time and labour during the brick-ma-king phase of construction of the TCCB.Members of the nearby village volunteered theirtime and labour during the construction of thedam for the hydro-electric station, and signifi-cantly, they formed a civil corps to repair andmaintain the 9 km of road from the main road tothe TCCB. Lesson 2 – Higher education projects canserve as a catalyst to involve women andmarginalized peoples in conservation : Therehas been a strong level of interest from womenwho wish to obtain university degrees at theTCCB. Although enrolment of men and womenhas never reached parity, young women are sho-wing strong interest in higher education andconservation training (on average, women ac-count for about 20 percent of the students overthe last five years). During this time, there havealso been six students who are from Pygmygroups (three are still enrolled and studying). Lesson 3 – Develop a business plan early andseek multiple funding sources :A large projectsuch as a community-managed university forconservation biology is costly in terms of infra-structural start-up, recurrent operating costs,maintenance, and associated micro-projectssuch as a hydro-electric station, hospital, andagricultural programmes. On the other hand, itcan draw the attention of philanthropists andmulti- and bilateral agencies, especially as it de-monstrates links to biodiversity conservation andnatural resource management. We learned to re-main extremely flexible and diversified with fun-ding sources, as some donors cut back funding,while others became interested and involved.The most important tool for this project was a bu-siness plan, in which its objectives and activitieswere described, along with yearly budgets, an ac-ting board of directors, and a plan for financialsustainability. Without this plan, our ability to at-tract new donors and remain flexible with multiplesources of funding would have been far less ef-

fective.Lesson 4 – Even in areas with high rates ofpoverty and security challenges, academicfees can be generated early along the road tosustainability : Although the TCCB has by nomeans reached a level of sustainable self-finan-cing (plans for a Trust Fund are being develo-ped), in 2007–2008, the university generatedmore than US$50,000 in income from studentspaying academic fees (currently US$500 peracademic year for fees, room and board). Forprojects such as this, the ability to show commu-nity donations, local involvement, and a potentialrevenue stream is essential in demonstrating todonors that the project can reach sustainability. Lesson 5 – Seek cost effectiveness :With fun-ding always a challenge, we needed to remainflexible in order to meet national curriculum stan-dards and to ensure sufficient academic teachingstaff. For example, as an accredited university inDRC, the TCCB must maintain certain curriculaabove and beyond their specialty in conservationand biology: economics, information and commu-nications, sciences, medicine and polytechnics.To achieve this, the TCCB has a full-time staff of18 professors, but invites as many as 40 visitingprofessors each year to meet standards. Thisprovides a professor:student ratio of between 1:7and 1:15 during the academic year, and main-tains the academic expertise necessary to remainaccredited. This is less costly than maintaining allprofessorial staff as full-time employees, and newprofessors arriving every few months provideacademic stimulation. There are other cost-cut-ting techniques: a student work-study programmeis being developed, in which some students paytheir fees by donating time as kitchen and clea-ning staff. The technical construction and main-tenance staff were all local experts, notexpatriates. Although the TCCB has its own li-brary, an agreement is underway with the nearbyUniversity of Graben (Butembo) so that TCCBstudents will also have access to Graben library.An agricultural programme for the students pro-vides garden vegetables for the commissary(scholarship students, employees and professorsare provided with meals in a cafeteria along withtheir accommodation).

Lesson 6 – Build a campus around modulesand plan for expansion : The TCCB is a workin progress and there are many continuing infra-structural improvements to be made. Despitethis, the main classroom buildings and dormitorywere ready for students just eight months afterconstruction began. Once classes had begun,more modules were added as funding becameavailable: a hospital with an operating theatre(also serving the community), offices, kitchen,guest house, computer centre, etc. As recently as2009, another large classroom was added, sup-ported by a donor who wished to contribute spe-cifically to that initiative. Development lessonsLesson 7 – Development activities catalyzemore local economic development : Road re-pair to the TCCB opened local market accessand stimulated the local economy. As construc-tion and then implementation took place, localpeople repaired and continue to maintain a 9 kmlocal road. Trucks bringing in construction mate-rials began to take local produce out to market,and bring in products and sundries that were thensold in local kiosks to the students and staff mem-bers of the TCCB. In 2008, the ICCN (TheCongolese Institute of Nature Conservation)asked DFGFI and UGADEC to support a rehabi-litation centre for gorillas orphaned because ofanimal trafficking and the bushmeat trade. Afterexternal evaluations, the best site was determi-ned to be Tayna Nature Reserve and TCCB.TCCB in partnership with DFGFI, ICCN and thePan African Sanctuary Alliance (PASA) receiveda U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant to build agorilla rehabilitation centre. TCCB donated theland for the building of this centre. Local peoplehave contributed to the construction and planningof the site, and TCCB students will be able tolearn applied primatology, conservation educa-tion, and communication approaches to helpcombat the trade in young gorillas. Lesson 8 – With increased developmentaround a small village and university centre,consider advising micro-zoning or buildingregulations :With a boost to the local economy,increases in paid staff, and even students withpocket money, a flurry of activity began to occur:

small shops and kiosks sprang up overnight atroad junctions, small produce stands appearedat every conceivable place along the centre’ssmall road, and a few houses began to appear atsites not really intended for this use. Although itcould be tempting to consider this aa natural or-ganic growth of a small village around a univer-sity centre, it may have led to a kind of minor,uncontrolled sprawl, clogging roads and paths,creating markets at hospital entrances, etc. For-tunately, the local customary powers and theTCCB administration realized this challengeearly, and created some basic zoning rules for amore orderly development of their site. Some ofthe early kiosks and shops were asked to relo-cate. This will remain a challenge into the futureas more development is attracted into the area. The question of “magnets”The TCCB university and nearby village have ra-pidly evolved into what our DFGFI partner is cal-ling a “Conservation Action Village”, underscoringhow a cluster of development incentives are off-setting the opportunity costs of local people crea-ting a community-managed reserve in which 900km2 of forest have been turned into a protectedarea with full biodiversity protection (i.e., onlyecotourism and scientific research are permitted).Here, development is fully integrated with conser-vation. Local radio broadcasts, primary schooland orphanage songs, hospital signs, vehiclelogos, even dances at the local discotheque, allcelebrate the flagship species, Grauer’s gorilla,which is a symbol of biodiversity appreciation andprotection, and the local people's magnet for li-velihoods, health, and educational development.With this level of success, a typical question iswhether this site will draw in more people than itcan absorb and, in so doing, will the new arrivalsbreak local law and head into the Tayna NatureReserve, 7 km west, and undo the progress sofar achieved? To address this important question it is necessaryto understand how the Tayna Reserve is mana-ged by a local NGO representing the community(and customary powers) and the investment ofthat community for more than ten years. First, theTCCB site has been a sacred site for the Batangipeople for more than 150 years according to oral





tradition, and the customary powers (Mwami)have a traditional mandate to control immigrationinto the area. They therefore limit any influx ofnew families from farther east, but significantly,they have encouraged a few small pioneer fami-lies, once located inside the Tayna Reserve, torelocate outside the reserve core zone to nearbyKasugha. Second, the site is steeped in conser-vation awareness programmes from the childrento the adults of the community, and with the ruleswell understood, and the boundaries for the Re-serve well marked, most local people respect andunderstand the value of the gorilla reserve to theirlocal economy. Third, one of the guide (ranger)stations for the reserve is located just adjacent tothe TCCB, and provides patrols and a protectionfunction. Fourth, the original participatory zoningfor the reserve provided for a core zone, a bufferzone, and finally a development zone. The entireTCCB complex and the adjacent village of Kasu-gha were zoned for development from the onsetof the programme, and the development zonefrom the site extends many kilometres east, northand south. To the west, the only direction in whichthey cannot expand, there is a mountain chain,providing a useful geographical barrier. Lesson 9 – Careful land-use planning can pre-vent the phenomenon of magnetization : Forthe TCCB, and the “Conservation Action Village”developing in its vicinity, the potential problem ofan influx of new immigrants was avoided throughadvance zoning and land-use planning, the par-ticipation of the customary powers, and carefulsite selection. The latter was enhanced by usinga site that was already considered sacred bylocal people.

Summary A community university initiative can be extre-mely valuable for capacity building. It is cost-ef-fective and can be a source of local pride,bringing together local aspirations for educationaldevelopment with conservation objectives. As wehave discovered, in providing local people withan initiative they conceived and requested, it canalso become a significant catalyst for local eco-nomic development. In this case, the TCCB hasbecome a flagship programme, motivating local

people to participate by donating labour and fun-ding, magnetizing other projects such as thehydro-electric station, a hospital, and a gorilla re-habilitation centre. Local people, supported bytheir customary governance structure, view thisproject as completely theirs, and an entire newgeneration is now developing a comprehensiveunderstanding of the value of biodiversity conser-vation.

IntroductionThe African Wildlife Foundation has been workingfor more than five years with government, NGOand community partners to implement a pro-gramme of conservation and development activi-ties in the Maringa Lopori Wamba (MLW)Landscape located in northern Democratic Repu-blic of Congo (DRC) (see Figure 1).The goal is to leverage the collective resourcesand expertise of partners from international andnational institutions to support the DRC Govern-ment in its efforts to complete and implement alandscape-wide sustainable resource manage-ment programme, including a participatory land-use planning and zoning process. It aims todecrease the destruction of habitat and loss ofbiodiversity as well as to reduce levels of povertyand increase the wellbeing of local communitiesthrough improved governance of natural re-

sources, strengthening local institutional and civilsocieties, and support for alternative livelihoods.A primary on-going challenge is the need to en-courage and enable appropriate and sustainabledevelopment opportunities for communities livingin the landscape; to make certain that they havethe opportunities to lift themselves out of povertywithout jeopardizing conservation goals. Wehave developed a programme to do this whilemaintaining close monitoring of the resulting be-nefits and costs to biodiversity. This is evident inthe characteristics and roles of MLW Consortiumpartners.The MLW core Consortium comprises the follo-wing institutions: the African Wildlife Foundation(AWF) leading on landscape planning, biodiver-sity conservation and conservation enterprises;the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) promotinginnovations in land-use practices to create alter-

Case Study 2 - The Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Conser-vation : Lessons Learned from the Maringa-Lopori-WambaLandscapeJef Dupain, Florence Bwebwe, Joanna Elliott, Kaddu Sebunya, David Williams, Janet Nackoney



native and additional sources of livelihoods, in-cluding the domestication of high-value andthreatened tree species and non-timber forestproducts (NTFP) enterprise development; theWorldFish Center (WF) providing expertise insustainable fisheries management; the Nether-lands development organization Stichting Neder-landse Vrijwilligers (SNV) taking the lead onmulti-stakeholder consultation and civil societystrengthening; and the Regional NGO Réseaudes Femmes Africaines pour le DéveloppementDurable (REFADD) focusing on gender issuesthroughout the landscape planning process. TheUniversity of Maryland (UMD) and Université Ca-tholique de Louvain (UCL) contribute to spatialanalysis and modelling for land-use planning. Inaddition, the Consortium has a pool of externaltechnical support, for example the United StatesForest Service (USFS) contributes to land-useplanning.The MLW Landscape programme has been des-

igned using the AWF Heartland ConservationProcess (HCP). HCP starts with stakeholder sco-ping and baseline data collection that will allowparticipatory identification and analysis of criticalthreats to both conservation and the sustainabilityof local livelihoods, and opportunities to mitigatethese threats. HCP enables the translation of theneeds of the local human population and localbiodiversity into an agreed-upon Land-Use Plan(LUP), the implementation of which will renderthe landscape ecologically, socially and econo-mically viable. These last two aspects, “sociallyand economically viable”, led AWF and the MLWConsortium to modify USAID-CARPE’s strategicobjective “reduce habitat destruction and loss ofbiodiversity through a better local, national andregional governance of natural resources” by ad-ding “aiming to reduce poverty”. “Livelihood”strengthening is considered as important a goalas conservation in the MLW programme. Consi-derable attention is paid to methodologies foridentifying viable alternative livelihood activities.For example, through the HCP process, we iden-

Figure 1. The Maringa Lopori Wamba Landscape



tified inadequate agricultural policy and lack ofmarket access as direct causes of increasedslash-and-burn agriculture and increased depen-dence on commercial hunting. Industrial forestry,traditional logging and subsistence hunting werealso identified as additional threats to bothconservation and local livelihoods (AWF, 2005).It was during this step in HCP that the need tofocus on agricultural livelihoods for conservationbecame evident.In the following sections we explore how supportfor alternative livelihoods work in MLW has beenagreed upon and implemented and discuss someconcrete examples.

Overview of the interventionzoneThe Landscape Land-Use Planning (LLUP) Stra-tegy focuses on the entire MLW Landscape. Assuch, the MLW livelihoods programme considersthe entire Landscape as its intervention zone.The MLW Landscape spans about 74,000 km2.It has an elevation gradient of less than 300 m.The Landscape covers the four administrativeterritories of Basankusu, Bongandanga, Djoluand Befale which fall within DRC’s Equateur Pro-vince. It is a relatively intact landscape definedby the Maringa and Lopori river systems. Forestscover over 90 percent of the Landscape. Aboutone quarter of these forests are swamp andfloodplain forests (or forested wetlands), reflec-ting the landscape’s low relief and high rainfall(>1900 mm annually). Rural complexes, i.e.,human-dominated areas – mostly farms andplantations – comprise less than 7 percent of thelandscape (Dupain et al., 2008).Recent spatial modelling on human distributionsuggests that human density is 8 persons/km²(Kibambe, 2007) with densities of 7, 7, 10 and 9persons/km² in the territories of Befale, Djolu, Ba-sankusu and Bongandanga respectively. Thetotal human population in the MLW Landscape isnow estimated at 587,000 (Dupain et al., 2008).Ethnic groups living in the landscape are mainlyMongo people and their relatives of the Mon-

gando ethnic group. The Ngombe ethnic group ismainly present in the north, on the axis of Bon-gandanga-Basankusu. Small groups of pygmiesare scattered in the northern part of the land-scape and a concentration of Kitiwalists (Jeho-vah’s Witnesses) reside mainly between theheadwater areas of the Lomako and Yokokala ri-vers. The Kitiwalists retreated into the forestyears ago and essentially do not accept any ju-risdiction from the DRC government (Nduire,2008).Most of these people depend on wild resourcesto meet their basic needs, including food, fuel,medicines and building materials. This area ofDRC was severely impacted during the six yearsof civil war and instability from 1997–2002 andremains one of the poorest and least developedregions in the country. Dependent on wild re-sources, these populations have indicated astrong desire to be included as partners in the de-velopment of improved natural resource mana-gement and alternative livelihoods in theirlandscape.The principal towns in the landscape are Basan-kusu, Djolu, Bongandanga and Befale (see Fi-gure 1). Their total population is estimated at41,000–135,000. Many cities surrounding thelandscape such as Lisala, Bumba and Boendeinfluence economic activities within the MLWLandscape. Road infrastructure between thesetowns and cities is very poor and the only feasiblemeans of motorized land transport is motorbike.Throughout the landscape, villages are locatedalong roads, with agriculture concentrated in theperipheries of these centres of human habitation.We refer to these human dominated areas as“rural complexes”. An estimated 56,000 ha of fo-rest (about 0.9 percent of the landscape’s totalforest area) was converted between 1990–2000,due primarily to the expansion of slash–and-burnagricultural activities. Over half of the observedconversion occurred within 2 km of a road. Today,the agricultural activities practised in the Land-scape are primarily for subsistence, with less op-portunity for cash crops given lack of access tomarkets. Cassava, maize and peanuts are themain agricultural products. Because of the warand poor access to markets, the formerly activeindustrial plantations of palm oil, rubber and cof-



fee have mostly been abandoned.Bushmeat market data indicate that local peopledepend highly on bushmeat hunting, consump-tion and trade. A one-year study of bushmeatavailability at the market in Basankusu showedthat more than 30 percent of the 12,000 car-casses recorded for sale originated from the Lo-mako area (Dupain and Van Elsacker, 1998).This confirms that the Lomako Yokokala FaunalReserve was an important source of bushmeatfor both commercial and nutritional purposes. In economic terms, bushmeat has a significantlybetter value/weight ratio compared to agriculturalcrops and it is easily preserved at low cost. Bush-meat is therefore advantageous for transport andcommercialization given the poor state of infra-structure and difficult access to markets. It offersthe best return for labour input.

Methods and resultsAWF ensures that consideration of livelihood al-ternatives are integrated into the HCP. The esta-blishment of an initial baseline socio-economicprofile of the landscape ensures that livelihoodconcerns are understood and acknowledged. Atthe site-intervention level, livelihood concerns arebuild into project planning, design, implementa-tion and monitoring. The HCP ensures appropriate participation ofand consultation with communities and their ins-titutions, including local NGOs, throughout boththe design and implementation stages of projectsthat offer alternative livelihoods. A clear unders-tanding of the social and economic status of localhuman populations and the dynamics of humanuse of natural resources are essential at eachstage. This understanding enables AWF and itslocal partners to address directly key livelihoodsconcerns through project activities. For example: • sustainable agricultural practices and in-creased producer value added, includingimproved access to markets;

• community management or co-manage-ment of key local resources including forestresources and fisheries;

• development and/or restoration of former(pre-civil war) labour-intensive small farmercash crop activities (rubber, oil palm) in part-nership with the private sector;

• appropriate alternative enterprise develop-ment such as ecotourism.

The very basis of our approach is participation ofand ownership by the local communities of theLLUP process. Prior to any real activity on theground, the MLW Consortium went through a se-ries of meetings with local communities to dis-cuss LLUP. These meetings confirmed that themain challenge facing the MLW LLUP pro-gramme is serving both the needs of local peopleand conserving biodiversity. These goals areoften conflicting in areas such as the MLW Land-scape where people rely heavily on local ecosys-tems for their livelihoods and wellbeing andwhere little weight is given to questions of “sus-tainable” use. During most of these initial mee-tings, the representatives of local communitiesasked us about the projects and livelihood activi-ties we were going to support. Our response wasthat this was not up to us to decide and that noprior decision had been taken. We informed thecommunities that we were in a consultativephase of a participatory interactive approach. Weseek interactive participation, which means thatpeople are invited to participate in joint analysis,which, in turn, leads to action plans and the for-mation of new local institutions or the strengthe-ning of existing ones. We explained that, whilesome a priori ideas might exist, final decisions de-pend on a participatory assessment of needs andopportunities and collaborative decision makingwith the beneficiaries, who are the local commu-nities and government. We explained that ourmandate was to make our expertise available tohelp better manage the natural resources in orderto meet ecological, social and economic needs. We considered various methodologies for collec-ting the required information that would help usto evaluate livelihood concerns linked to conser-vation objectives.We used socio-economic and biological surveysas the main method for data collection. The re-sults of the surveys were discussed during the“Threats and Opportunities Analysis” workshop



(AWF, 2005) In this way, local communities wereactively and fully involved in decision making onpriority activities.Examples of the initiatives undertaken so far insupport of alternative livelihoods are described inthe following sections.

The boat projectAnalysis of socio-economic data collected by theMLW Consortium revealed that the observedtrend of households migrating out of their natalvillages into more remote forest blocks was dri-ven by a lack of access to markets for agriculturalcrops. Two decades ago, local communities typi-cally made a living from selling both cash andsubsistence crops to urban markets. Due to thecollapse of infrastructure and the disappearanceof boats linking remote agricultural areas with im-portant urban markets such as Basankusu,Mbandaka and Kinshasa, crops such as coffee,maize, rice and cassava could only reach thesemarkets on small pirogues with high transportrisks. As a consequence, people turned increa-singly to bushmeat hunting and trade which offersa much better return for labour input. The forestareas surrounding most villages are, as a result,being progressively depleted of bushmeat. Formore than two decades now, families have beenleaving their villages to settle in remote forestswith much higher densities of bushmeat, butwhere they can still cultivate subsistence crops.As a result of the “Threats and Opportunities Ana-lysis” workshop, AWF agreed to invest in a spe-cific market-opening initiative. While AWF hadinitially planned for potential investments in coffeeand cocoa plantations, the participatory analysisindicated that support for the shipment of agricul-tural crops to urban markets could be a first stepin trying to reverse the trend where people of lea-ving their natal villages and settling in remote fo-rests for bushmeat hunting and subsistenceslash-and-burn agriculture (Belani and Dupain,2005).AWF provided pre-financing, therefore absorbingthe financial risks of the owner of a large boatwhich transported agricultural crops along the

Maringa River (September 2005–January 2006).More than 130 tonnes of merchandise was ship-ped upstream with about 180 clients involved. Onthe return trip, 530 tonnes of agricultural crops –430 tonnes of maize, 39 tonnes of coffee, 34tonnes of cassava, but also caterpillars, oil,cocoa, mushrooms and other NTFPs – wereshipped to the capital from as far as Befori, whichis the furthest upstream port of the Maringa River,in the MLW Landscape, 1,500 km from Kinshasa.This trip effectively facilitated market access foragricultural crops grown in the poor remote vil-lages of the MLW Landscape (Belani, 2006). Asa consequence of this intervention, MLW Consor-tium partners observed that numerous familiesreturned to their villages to reactivate agriculturalactivities given the renewed hope of commercialopportunities. The arrival of the first boat sincethe war, re-opening access to the markets, wasstrongly applauded locally, provincially and natio-nally.Nevertheless, the project was only partially suc-cessful. Logistical constraints and incongruentgovernmental priorities (e.g., seizure of a bargefor transport of soldiers during the integration ofdifferent army factions) were major handicaps, aswas the lack of capacity to ship all the availablecrops that communities had made ready. With thepromise of a boat coming to transport crops, pea-sants converted areas producing crops for localmarkets into maize production for transport to thecapital. This caused surplus production and as aresult, a large quantity of crops that was not sold.However, given that the boat project is the resultof responding to local demand, it is possible toidentify some major achievements. First, localcommunities began to see that LLUP might be asolid strategy to harmonize conservation and po-verty reduction. Second, thanks to appropriationof the project by the local communities, thesecommunities did not blame the MLW Consortiumfor the difficulties but instead engaged inconstructive discussions on how to strengthenthe design of the next phase. Third, due to theoverproduction of maize, the farmers themselvesidentified the need to spread risk. For example,in Djolu, the communities transformed a numberof maize fields into non-maize crops that have alocal market. Diversification of crop production



leads to a spreading of risk by providing greaterflexibility in responding to fluctuations in accessto urban markets and by increasing local food se-curity. A final achievement is the increased localunderstanding of the landscape concept as inclu-sive for all stakeholders. This project was not atall limited to people living, for example, in the pe-riphery of a protected area or to people living ina hotspot of biodiversity. The boat project wasopen to all those who were able to cultivate cropsalong the Maringa rivers.

Supporting agricultural liveli-hoods through small grantsFrom widespread consultation it became clearthat lack of equipment and lack of access to high-quality germplasm were major causes of decrea-sed productivity of subsistence and cash crops inthe MLW Landscape. We invited local communityNGOs to develop proposals that would supportthe strengthening of agricultural activities. Fivelocal NGOs submitted a joint proposal, developedwith support from AWF, to the CARPE SmallGrants Program for a total of US$30,000. EachNGO functioned as a platform to reach a set oflocal associations. AWF employed MLW Consor-tium Focal Points to accompany the NGOs andassociations on the ground during the executionof the programme including support for accoun-tability and reporting. Through these five localNGOs, the Small Grants Program reached 31 as-sociations, with a total of 1,765 people (1,241men and 524 women) working on 740 ha of agri-cultural land and producing almost 3,000 tonnesper annum of produce, mostly maize and cas-sava.In a second phase, the local NGOs insisted onworking independently of supervision by the MLWConsortium. A number of local NGOs requesteda complete change in the policy of approving andattributing budgets. A recent evaluation of theprogramme indicated differences in accountabi-lity and performance between the phases andbetween the beneficiaries. Again, while this openand flexible approach is vulnerable to failures, itis built upon participation and thus obliges localcommunities to be actively involved in decisionmaking. At the time of writing this case study,

local communities and NGOs have invited AWFand the MLW Consortium partners to increasesupervision and guidance again. The fact thatthese NGOs now recognize their organizational,management and operational weaknesses, andare requesting further capacity building to ensurebetter performance, can be considered a majoraccomplishment..

Land-use planning and deve-lopment of spatially explicitland-use planning modelsOne major component of our work in MLW entailsdevelopment of spatially explicit models using aGeographic Information System (GIS) to helpidentify and delineate macro-zones for landscapeland-use planning. Support for livelihood activitiesin the MLW Landscape is directly linked toconservation objectives. In the case of supportfor agriculture and access to the market, the aimof LLUP activities is to reduce uncontrolled slash-and-burn agriculture, and increase respect forconservation legislation, particularly in terms ofstopping the hunting of protected species. To ad-dress slash–and-burn agriculture, we are workingwith communities to generate micro-zoning plansthat determine where to develop agricultural ac-tivities. Community-scale micro-zone plans areguided by landscape-scale macro-zoning plansundertaken in the MLW LLUP spatial modellingeffort.CARPE refers to three types of macro-zones:Community-Based Natural Resource Manage-ment (CBNRM) areas, Protected Areas (PA) andExtractive Resource Zones (ERZ). In Chapter 1,we advocate differentiating between permanentforest CBNRM areas and non-permanent forestCBNRM areas. The latter refers to land that canbe converted to rural complexes (human-domi-nated areas – mostly farms and plantations). Forour modelling efforts, we suggested that about 12percent of the landscape be set aside as ruralcomplex.We need to consider that farmers’ rights to agri-cultural land are equal to the needs and rights as-sociated with communal management of forest



resources. This approach avoids the so-called“arborealization” or “not seeing the farmers forthe trees” (Walken, 2008).In our effort to avoid “utopian scenarios”, we useda decision-support software package calledMarxan to focus on livelihoods as a major com-ponent of our conservation programme. Marxanis typically used to explore reserve design sce-narios considering a suite of spatially explicit in-formation on species’ habitats and relatedthreats. In collaboration with UMD, UCL, SouthDakota State University and the US Forest Ser-vice we used Marxan to identify priority “humanhabitat” or non-permanent forest CBNRM areas,taking into account conservation constraints (e.g.,Bonobo habitat, large primary forest blocks). Fi-gure 2 shows existing rural complexes in theMLW Landscape and identifies potential priorityexpansion areas for future population needs. Our goal is to encourage movement from incom-patible rural complexes – small, remote or loca-ted inside conservation priority areas – into moreconservation-friendly and socio-economicallysound prioritized areas. A principal challenge willbe the elimination of rural complex development

in remote forests. Each dot of rural complex in re-mote forests reflects not only the conversion ofland best suited for wildlife habitat into agricultu-ral fields, but also an increase in hunting pressurefor a radius of 10–15 km, a trend we considerhighly threatening for biodiversity. To further consolidate rural complex distributioninto more suitable configurations, we eliminatedareas of existing rural complex smaller than acertain size and those distant from roads or loca-ted inside proposed conservation areas for inputinto our model. We then built a spatially explicitmodel using the Marxan software, using theseand other developed parameters based on pro-jected population growth and expected hectaresneeded for agriculture per person. We also incor-porated conservation-specific parameters into themodel, such as the locations of protected areas,locations of intact forest blocks and areas impor-tant for wildlife connectivity. Figure 3 shows oneoutput of the Marxan-driven modelling effortwhich delineates the areas for proposed distribu-tion of rural complexes in grey. The area of pro-posed rural complexes is 10,372 km2, and fitsour assumptions about expected agricultural

Figure 2. Existing rural complexes and potential expansion areas in the MLW Landscape



needs according to future population growth. Thismapping process helps focus the support for li-velihood activities spatially, in full considerationof conservation objectives.Simultaneously through this process, we are ga-thering input for revision and modifications whichmight be required for the proposed macro-zones.Adaptive management is key. Good landscapemanagement requires acceptance that the eco-logical, economic and social dynamics are fluc-tuating in both space and time (Gordon andMaginnis, 2008).

Participative design and ma-nagement of new faunal re-serveThe creation of the Faunal Reserve of LomakoYokokala (RFLY) and the design of its manage-ment approach should become a good model fora protected area with a people-centred approachto conservation in DRC. The potential creation of

the reserve was identified during the “Threats andOpportunities Analysis” workshop (AWF, 2005).AWF facilitated the creation of the RFLY byICCN. RFLY was gazetted as a Faunal Reservein June 2006 after almost two years of participa-tory data collection and negotiations. During the gazetting process, the proposed re-serve was always considered for planning pur-poses as part of a larger area including theperiphery inhabited and used by the communitieswho are the traditional “owners” of this forest.ICCN agreed that the local population would notonly be involved in the execution of the manage-ment plan, but also in its development. This re-quired extensive and interactive participation. Forexample, during the last CoCoSi meeting (Mee-ting of the Committee for Coordination of the Site,held in September 2008), ICCN, AWF and otherMLW partners and more than 40 representativesof local communities and local and provincial au-thorities discussed first elements of this manage-ment plan. This approach is new to ICCN and isstrengthening ICCN’s perception of the impor-tance of the participation of local communities in

Figure 3. One output of the Marxan modelling which delineates proposed rural complexes areas ingrey



PA decision making.In RFLY, the core strategy is to ensure that thereserve will create more benefits for local com-munities as a protected area with tourism reve-nue generated by international visitors than as asource for commercial bushmeat hunting. Today,our conservation and development programme inRFLY and its surrounding areas combinesconservation and tourism revenue-generating ac-tivities in the reserve and livelihood developmentactivities providing alternatives to the bushmeattrade in the periphery. A local management com-mittee will decide how to use revenue from thereserve entry fees to support alternative liveli-hood activities in the periphery. During the recentCoCoSi, the first symbolic amount of US$780was given to representatives of this committee.The MLW Consortium, and in particular REFADD,ICRAF and WF, continues to work with the localcommunities to identify alternatives to bushmeathunting and the best mechanisms for implemen-ting these activities. As a result of this approach, we have received re-quests from other communities asking us for a si-milar approach in their region. The basicinvitation is typically: “we have rich biodiversity inour forest, and we would like you to come and ex-plain how we can get support for livelihood anddevelopment activities in return for the protectionof our forest”. Today, the HCP process is on-going with the people living south-east of the LuoScientific Reserve, in support to the Centre forResearch and Ecology and Forestry and in col-laboration with the Wamba Committee for Bo-nobo Research (Kyoto University). Work withother communities is now being planned.

Lessons learnedImportance of the Public ParticipationStrategy right from the beginningWe believe that it is not the support for alternativelivelihood activities per se that has been of pri-mary importance, but rather the Public Participa-tion Strategy (PPS) in the design anddevelopment of land-use planning. It is importantto have the best PPS from the start of the pro-

gramme. The MLW Consortium aims for interac-tive participation in order to ensure: • honest public participation, seriously consi-dering the issues raised by the representa-tives of the local communities;

• correct identification of livelihoods and di-versification needs, as for example the iden-tification of market access as a priority overthe reinvigoration of cash crops;

• ownership of the livelihood interventions bythe communities, with a commitment tolearn and strengthen these interventions;

• the overall sustainability of the project, byconnecting needs to livelihood interventionsto the sustainable management of naturalresources.

Most important is the integration of livelihood in-terventions into the conservation programme, re-solving how to give responsibility to localcommunities and how to strengthen their capacityto deal with the complex settings in which ecolo-gical and economic needs might be in conflict.Importance of making the links bet-ween livelihoods and conservation ex-plicitLocal communities naturally tend to focus on li-velihood concerns without an explicit link toconservation objectives. In the MLW Landscape,we continuously stress the fact that every activitysupported by the Heartland programme to in-crease livelihoods must be tied to conservationobjectives. In the initial phase of the MLW pro-gramme, as a result of the outcome of the“Threats and Opportunities Analysis” workshop,we agreed to put a strong focus on supporting li-velihoods. However, our support was givencontingent upon the ability to link development toconservation. Today, those same communitiesare well advanced in discussions on how to linkboth objectives more closely. In particular, com-munities that received support for agriculture arewelcoming the idea of micro-zoning and identi-fying the areas for agricultural development aswell as areas of forest that should not undergoconversion.



Allow for failureAiming for a “people-centred approach” meansopenness to human failure. We have created op-portunities for local NGOs and local communitiesto try out their own ideas with increasing indepen-dence, for example through accessing theCARPE Small Grants Program. AWF has playeda flexible role in this process to allow local NGOsto assess their own capacity and spread theirwings, but also to come back to MLW Consortiummembers for support when it is needed. Learningby doing involves risking failure, but is a far betterprocess than outsiders substituting for local ins-titutions. Encouraging local NGOs to grow theirown capacity goes hand in hand with an adaptivemanagement approach, which allows for error,evaluations and corrective measures.

ReferencesAWF, 2005. Rapport d’atelier de planification desite de conservation pour le landscapeMaringa/Lopori/Wamba: analyse des opportuni-tés et des menaces avec les parties prenantes,2–4 décembre 2004, AWF.Belani, 2006. Report on the boat project, Reportfor USAID/CARPE. AWF.Belani and Dupain, J. 2005. Les potentialitésagricoles et les aspirations des populations pourla relance de l’agriculture. Rapport de l’enquêtemesomacrosocioeconomique. AWF.Dupain, J., Nackoney, J., Williams, D., Bokelo, D.and Bwebwe, F. 2008. The Integrated Land UseManagement Plan, MOV 1.1.B. Report forUSAID/CARPE.Dupain, J. and Van Elsacker, L. 1998. “The Im-portance of Bushmeat in the Bonobo DistributionArea, Democratic Republic of Congo”. Confe-rence Proceedings, Primate Society of Great Bri-tain. Primate Eye 65: 15–16.Gordon, J. and Maginnis, S. 2008. “Acceptingchange: conserving biodiversity in productivelandscapes”. Arborvitae 37 : 15.

Kibambe, 2007. Modélisation spatiale multisec-torielle des dynamiques territoriales: étude decas à l’échelle régionale dans la RDC. DEA, Univ.Cath. Louv.Nduire, 2008. Les populations de Maringa LoporiWamba, accès aux resources naturelles et lesconflits fonciers: cas de la zone K7/K2. RapportAWF.Walker, A. 2008. “The ‘hidden’ farmers in Thai-land’s forests”. Arborvitae 37: 7.



IntroductionThe World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the WildlifeConservation Society (WCS), Private AgenciesCollaborating Together (PACT) and the Zoologi-cal Society of Milwaukee (ZSM) created aconsortium in 2006 to collaborate within the Sa-longa-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape, on the basisof an agreement signed between USAID-CARPEand WWF, the lead organization. Other partnersjoined later to reinforce the team, including the In-ternational Conservation and Education Founda-tion (INCEF) and a local organization, the InstitutAfricain pour le Développement Economique etSocial (INADES).PACT is focusing on capacity building in civil so-ciety organizations (CSOs), and on setting upgrassroots governance structures and other net-works in order to forge links between the govern-ment, the private sector and CSOs in a bid topromote social, economic and environmental jus-tice through the creation of Community-Based

Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) zones. The first pilot zone in the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape to be selected by PACT wasthe Lokolama sector. The choice of this sectorwas influenced by the findings of the socio-eco-nomic surveys and biological inventories carriedout in this area by various partners. The Loko-lama sector is part of the vast Oshwe Territory inthe Bandundu Province. This sector can be ac-cessed over land from Oshwe (about 176 kmaway), by water from the port on the Lokoro Riverthat runs through to Inongo (in Lokolama) and byair, landing at Mimia (see Figure 1). The LokoroRivers I and II are the biggest in the region. Othersmaller rivers that irrigate the region include theBasangi, Bosimani, Ibeke, Itume, Lolama,Luenge, Lulo and Yetele. The Nkundus make up 79 percent of the popula-tion in the Lokolama sector. The other tribes areBatwa (17 percent), Yasa (2 percent) and others(Nganda, Bolongo, Mbambo and Nkulu – 2 per-

Case Study 3 - The Role of Alternative Livelihoods in Conser-vation : Lessons Learned from the Lakolama Area of the Sa-longa-Lukenie-Sankuru LandscapeEmola Makambo



cent in total)1. Migration is negligible, but fromtime to time groups identified rightly or wronglyas hunters may settle in villages for a long periodof time.The rare permanent structures that exist are buil-dings abandoned by colonialists, or those belon-ging to the Protestant Mission or the CatholicChurch. Most other houses are built with mudbricks and have thatched roofs. In order to satisfy their essential needs, the localpeople have developed survival mechanisms ona day-to-day basis and, under these conditions,the conservation of natural resources becomesdifficult. They have no other choice but to syste-matically, and often destructively, exploit biodiver-sity, leading to the inevitable disappearance of

some species and the further impoverishment ofthe indigenous peoples, who are already living insub-human conditions.Farming is the major subsistence activityamongst the local population but farming tech-niques are outdated. They practise slash-and-burn agriculture which gives poor yields per unitof land and leads to a rapid loss of soil fertility,because fire destroys the flora and fauna essen-tial for the fertilization, aeration and conservationof soil over a long period. They practise this typeof farming because it is easy – everything isconsumed in the twinkling of an eye and in notime at all, there are large bare arable areas,ready to be used. The loss of fertility forces themto abandon the land every 18 months, leaving fal-low land that is not fit to be used again for 10

1 Colom, A. 2006. The Socioeconomic Aspects of Natural Resource Use and Management by Local Communities inthe Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape: Guidelines for Conservation and Livelihood Improvement. Unpublished re-port prepared for WWF-Democratic Republic of Congo.

Figure 1. Map of the Lokolama sector, in the Salonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape



years or more. Thus deforestation advances andthe amount of fallow land continues to increaseevery year.Hunting has always been practised mostly forsubsistence. As a result of the economic slumpand the war, public infrastructure, especiallyroads, have deteriorated. The lack of roads hasisolated the sector and made transportation verydifficult, if not impossible. The occasional whalersthat dock at Lokolama Port once or twice a yearcharge local producers exorbitant prices to trans-port their produce to the big markets (Inongo,Kinshasa,...). For example, a farmer has to payabout US$ 30 to get a bag of beans from Loko-lama to Kinshasa before facing innumerable obs-tacles and harassments on the way. Thissituation has caused traders to give up and hasdiscouraged local producers. Farmers no longerproduce anything because there are no buyers,and traders no longer call because productionhas stopped: it is a vicious circle.This explains why hunting has become so impor-tant and is now the primary income-generatingactivity even though it has a negative impact onbiological diversity. Prospective trading networksfor bushmeat have been established in Oshwe,Kikwit, Tshikapa and even Kinshasa. The meat istransported on bicycles, known as matinda lo-cally. This small trade yields enough income forthose practising it, but because of the long dis-tances being covered, many cases of illness andsometimes even death are reported. One finalpoint with regard to hunting – around Bisenge-batwa village there are a significant number ofpoachers armed with automatic rifles, adding tothe level and impact of hunting in the sector.Fishing occurs on a small scale. Farmers practiseline, net and bow-net fishing. Women fish usinga technique locally called écopage or “emptying”that consists of diverting the river from its normalcourse. Once the fish have been deprived ofwater, all the women have to do is scoop themup. This technique is detrimental to the restockingof fish in the rivers because it does not spareyoung fish. It could also be one of the causes ofa decline in water resources.

Alternative livelihoods methodo-logy and results achievedMethodologyTaking the living conditions of the grassrootscommunities (communautés de base or COBAs)into consideration is one of the determining fac-tors in the success or failure of the entire processof natural resource management in the Lokolamasector. It is necessary to reconcile conservationand development objectives because the localpopulation is entirely dependent on the resourcessurrounding them.The development of alternative projects is a res-ponse to the needs of rural households and away of preventing bad management of natural re-sources. It also encourages the COBAs to be-come more involved in, and motivated by, theoverall process, thereby ensuring the viability oftheir taking on the sustainable and rational ma-nagement of natural resources. The methodology used in identifying alternativelivelihoods is the accelerated method of partici-patory research, the AMPR. The use of AMPRtools makes it possible for rural communities todefine their problems themselves, to classifythem according to strategic areas (social, econo-mic, ecological, etc.), to seek solutions together,and to prioritize them in order to arrive at a CAPor Community Action Plan.At this point, alternative projects are identifiedand may be implemented after preparing a pro-ject document and/or a sectoral analysis detailingdata needs.In 2007, 30 villages in the sector began the pro-cess of drawing up a land-use plan or simple ma-nagement plan (SMP).If the CAP is a plan that is intended to satisfy theneeds of grassroots communities in terms of de-velopment, the SMP is the final document thatcomplements this plan with aspects of conserva-tion, which will include a map of the area showingthe zones designated for the various economicand conservation activities identified by the com-



munity. It is a kind of spatialization of problemsand solutions, which enables communities tomake the link between conservation and their li-ving conditions, and highlights the need for ratio-nal and sustainable management of the naturalresources that they rely upon for their livelihoods.In practice, this is done using a methodology thatdoes not necessarily follow a sequential andchronological order, but that takes into conside-ration the realities on the ground. The followingsections provide a summary of the essentialstages :Livelihood analysis and gender analysisThis entails identifying the economic activitiescarried out by local communities and then deter-mining the proportion of people who practiseeach activity according to gender and to group,in order to define principal and secondary activi-ties in the village. Data are collected duringworkshops or during working sessions with focalgroups. Analysis of this data provides an over-view of the local economy and shows up the levelof reliance of this economy on the outside worldwhile highlighting the possibilities of vertical andhorizontal integration with nearby economies, i.e.,the economies of the areas in their immediate vi-cinity, in order to determine actions to be under-taken to improve their living conditions. Analysisof all the data gathered will allow the general stra-tegy to be refined to deal with specific needs,such as those of women and vulnerable groups. Surveys of prospective trading networksA survey of prospective trading networks in theregion can help identify potential sustainable eco-nomic activities. The first step is a brief descrip-tion of the consumers, producers/processers,traders, transporters and markets in the area.This approach provides an opportunity to inter-vene at various links in the chain of a sector toallow more people to benefit from added value.The aim is to try and solve the problems of go-vernance or power relations within the sector, andachieve complementarity between the various le-vels and categories of participants. In general,buyers and transporters have a comparative ad-vantage over local producers. Structuring the lat-

ter into associations or networks ensures soundmanagement of community affairs and, by usingcollaborative strategies, fundamental imbalancescan be avoided. For example, one strategy is set-ting up contract-based markets. This allows thevarious parties to be protected from seasonal va-riations in prices and acts as a safeguard for localproducers against arbitrary and unfair trading, aseach party stands to gain from the transaction. Drawing up community action plans (CAPs)The most suitable tool for drawing up a CAP isthe problem tree. Drawing a problem tree makesit possible to detect problems, as well as cause-and-effect relations between problems. In thecourse of this exercise, COBAs draw a virtualtree to visualize the groups of problems and theirvarious levels of interaction.Using cards to help them in their brainstormingsessions, the communities identify all the possi-ble problems, and then sort those that are similarinto the same column. At the end of the exercise,there are several columns called strategic areas:health, economy, agriculture, etc. These areasare represented on the tree by the roots at thebottom and branches at the top, depending onwhether they are causes or effects. There has tobe consensus amongst the participants in veri-fying the tree from bottom to top, and in ensuringthat each cause actually corresponds to each ef-fect.The same process is repeated for the solutiontree, by turning problems into positives at all le-vels. The main problem is transformed into anoverall objective, the causes into specific objec-tives and activities, and the effects into expectedresults.As to determining the priority actions to be under-taken, this is done using classification into pairs.Finally, the solution tree is transformed into a planmade up of a cross-section of all the develop-ment priorities for the village. This is the commu-nity action plan (CAP). All potential actors at thevillage level can use it for programming projectsand funding.



After drawing up the plan, it is essential to hold aseries of wrap-up meetings for the exchange andsharing of information between the village com-munities, officials and decision-making bodies.The plan is then amended and adopted.Structuring COBAsDeveloping alternative activities cannot be doneby individual members of the communities. Ap-propriate community structures need to be set upthat are likely to gather support upstream andchannel it to a larger audience downstream. Thesetting up of local natural resource managementcommunities or platforms will facilitate the crea-tion of grassroots associations. Associationshave the benefit of bringing communities togetherinto interest groups, reducing the unit cost of pro-duction, and forming strong unions capable of de-fending their rights or negotiating fair prices. Ofcourse, defending rights is made easier if the as-sociation has legal status, acquired by being offi-cially recognized. A public association with legalstatus has to have adequate human, technicaland financial resource management policies; aninternal and external communication strategy;and procedures for conflict resolution and advo-cacy; in a nutshell, a governance structure thatallows for the sound and transparent manage-ment of the association for the sole benefit of itsmembers. Organizational development in the Lo-kolama sector has been entrusted to a localNGO, INADES. Creating platformsIn order to avoid duplication and to ensure coor-dination of efforts, platforms are created not onlyto distribute duties but also for probable fundingof CBNRM activities. The platform created in Lo-kolama is a discussion forum that brings togetherthe various stakeholders who have agreed tolook into the various issues surrounding the ma-nagement of natural resources in an effort tocome up with adequate solutions. Such platformsalso make it possible to support one or more use-ful costs of providing resources necessary fortheir functioning and as the case may be; to raisefunds; and to carry out advocacy with other ac-tors.

The creation of the platform was sealed by an of-ficial document signed by all stakeholders, inwhich the roles, responsibilities, duties and obli-gations of each actor are outlined. This documentis called the responsibility charter.Those most involved in the CBNRM process, na-mely the COBAs, play an important part in theplatform, both in the CBNRM and the planningprocesses. Their participation was made possiblethrough the establishment of the Natural Re-source Management Committees. These are au-tonomous self-managed legitimate democraticstructures for the sustainable management of na-tural resources at the village level. They are nor-mally made up of five members, democraticallyelected by the entire village which comes toge-ther in plenary session before the traditional rulerof the locality. They also function as spokesper-sons on behalf of the planning team to theCOBAs and vice versa. Such a committee hasbeen set up in each of the 30 villages. Implementation of the alternative projectsThe next step is to design, formulate, implementand monitor alternative projects outlined in theCommunity Action Plan. Participants in the plat-form commit themselves independently or in agroup to carrying out the various activities.

Results achievedLivelihood analysis and gender analy-sisThese analyses highlighted the major economicactivities carried out by the COBAs in the Loko-lama sector: predominantly agriculture, bushmeattrade, fishing while water levels are low and, to alesser extent, trade in rare manufactured pro-ducts. Almost no agricultural produce is sold out-side the sector; the indigenous people are moreinterested in looking for bushmeat that may besold to traders from the Kasai. There are travel-ling salesmen who come and go between Oshweand Lokolama and supply the people with clo-thing, kerosene and some minor manufacturedproducts.



Surveys of prospective trading networks ofnon-timber forest productsA survey of prospective trading networks wascarried out within the sector. This enabled an ex-change of information between stakeholders andthe development of an integrated vision of the pa-rameters determining current conditions. Aboveall, it enabled the identification of possible reme-dies to problems with a view to undertaking pal-liative measures. All the links in the coffee, maize,groundnut, copal, caterpillar, mushroom andpalm oil networks were examined in detail. Fur-ther studies are currently being carried out ongroundnuts and copal, with a view to their futureeconomic potential.Copal is one of the products considered to havepotential by the survey of trading networks car-ried out in 2006 by PACT and WWF, within theframework of CARPE. Trade in copal flourishedin the past, just like coffee, and it was handled bythe private company COLEMAN. During this pe-riod, the region was even christened “CopalCongo”. The findings of the survey showed thatcopal could have outlets in Madagascar or in En-gland. The existence of an external market forMonkoto and Lokolama copal is a huge bonusand an opportunity to be seized for the part it mayplay in the development of the communities in theSalonga-Lukenie-Sankuru Landscape. In effect,the abundance of this product and its rise invalue2 during this period of non-exploitation au-gurs well for reasonable revenues.Conscious of this potential, COBAs are ready tobegin harvesting copal. Madagascan companieshave expressed their willingness to buy, but haveinsisted on getting the quantity and quality theywant. In order to please everyone, studies arecurrently underway on the reliability of the marketfor grassroots communities and/or local NGOsand the sustainability and quality of the supply forimporters. It certainly ought to be possible to es-tablish this trade – it mainly depends on certainkey factors: the organization of the COBAs, thequantity and quality of the product, the price, sup-ply, transportation and contracting.

This activity that can be carried out by women willhopefully spur grassroots communities to protectthe forest and to abandon hunting, given thathunting is only valued because it is relativelyeasy and because it generates income. Hunting,as mentioned earlier, has increased alarminglysince the fall in agricultural production. The killingof game will continue as long as the populationdoes not have alternatives that can compete withor are more viable than hunting. However, tradein copal is far more beneficial in many respects.Another way of increasing household incomes,but also, and above all, reducing pressure on na-tural resources, is capacity building amongst far-mers – training them in modern farmingtechniques and better marketing methods.Groundnuts are one of the cash crops in the sec-tor and their cultivation is better adapted to fallowlands than most food crops, as demonstrated inpilot experiments carried out by PACT agrono-mists in an abandoned field at Mimia. Therefore,farmers will try to replicate the successes of thepilot experiment by cultivating groundnuts onexisting fallow lands, and thus avoid clearing andfelling more trees. It should be stressed that thisapproach will also mean less work for them ove-rall. Drawing up Community Action PlansDrawing up problem trees and solution trees en-abled communities to come up with their owncommunity action plan (CAP). Thirty Lokolamavillages have already developed CAPs. Poverty,and its alleviation, are a central element of theseplans.The CAP is the basis of the COBAs’ programmeto improve living conditions in the Lokolama sec-tor. It highlighted eight areas which, in order ofpriority, are: agriculture, health, the economy, ani-mal husbandry, social amenities, the environ-ment, education and fishing. Let us review someof the proposed ways of reconciling conservationand livelihoods, the key idea behind developingCAPs.

2Copal is a product that increases in value over time. Copal that contains insects is worth five or ten times more thanordinary copal.



Agriculture. The chief concern of grassroots com-munities is to increase agricultural production, inthe hope of returning to the good old days whenthis sector was the main source of income. Cur-rently, increasing production means a continualquest for fertile land, leading to further expansionof agricultural zones through the felling of trees.In order to avoid the endless clearance of land bydestroying the forest, farming techniques need tobe improved; for example, by improving and en-hancing fallow lands, but also by introducing im-proved seedlings. The introduction ofsoil-improving plants such as Leucaena leucoce-phala and the intensification of plant and animalproduction may considerably reduce the fallowperiod of existing agricultural land from ten yearsto two and thus reduce the destruction of the fo-rest.Health. This entails developing activities aimedat enhancing the value of medicinal plants by sel-ling them (marketing) and cultivating them.The economy. This covers all the activities rela-ted to supporting income-generating activities,such as clearing the dead wood from the LokoroRiver, dredging the river, or repairing the road. Afarm-to-market road in the sector is undoubtedlythe answer to at least some of the transportationdifficulties. The COBAs are convinced of this andthey are right. Furthermore, all they are asking foris agricultural tools, and sugar cane to help re-gain the energy lost during the hard repair work.Animal husbandry. This will involve the develop-ment of intensive breeding projects for the pro-duction of animal protein that can serve as asubstitute for the products gained from hunting.Social amenities. The COBAs expressed thewish to be organized into associations. “Unitedwe stand”, as the saying goes. The benefits offorming such organizations have already beenstressed in earlier sections. The environment. The COBAs are most concer-ned with legal aspects. They would like to obtaindocuments granting them the right to manage fo-rests. They also expressed the wish to carry outsmall-scale logging. To this end, they have al-ready begun to designate logging zones on their

land. They will need to be supported in this small-scale logging activity in order to ensure that thesituation remains under control.Education. This is the key to knowledge andknowledge is a source of power. Helping commu-nities to educate themselves will make them be-come more knowledgeable, more responsibleand less inclined to believe false statements fromself-interested groups that would like to keepthem ignorant in order to better exploit them. The“WORTH” programme that PACT intends to ini-tiate combines three integrated approaches: lite-racy, community banking and small businessdevelopment. As people are mastering readingand writing, they begin saving together in smallgroups. Once literate, they use their new-foundskills to learn how to make loans, start micro-bu-sinesses and transform their savings groups intocommunity banks. It will also have an environ-mental component, raising awareness of severalrelevant issues and encouraging the develop-ment of problem-solving skills.Fishing. The construction of fishponds will contri-bute to reducing the destructive fishing methodsdescribed earlier and avoid the displacement ofthe population for 2–3 months (July–September)to fishing camps six days’ trek away from the vil-lage.All in all, drawing up the CAPs was a means ofbringing together the communities, without anytribal, regional or even social distinctions, forthem to identify their needs. Meanwhile, it alsoturned out to be a tool, a means, a catalyst fortheir commitment to conservation and to theCBNRM process in general. This exercise hasenabled them to reflect on their problems and togo ahead and forge a vision for the future. It hashelped them, for the first time, to think globallyand to determine how they can change their life-style. With time on their side, they will reap thebenefits of their efforts. Structuring the grassroots communities Implementing the CAP, whilst ensuring better in-volvement of COBAs, can thus only be donethrough “nearby” organizations, namely local as-sociations or NGOs. In order to gather informa-tion on the existence of associations and



institutions that operate within a given radius ofactivity, there are practical sketch representationsidentifying the existence and interactions bet-ween various organizations. This is the Ven andChapati diagram.Unfortunately, the conclusions of the preliminaryevaluation showed a conspicuous lack of localassociations. In the Lokolama sector, the almostcomplete absence of associations is a serioussetback to the implementation of alternative pro-jects. However, in the future, the sector will createassociations that will form a network so that ac-tions carried out will benefit a large number ofpeople if not all the villages. In fact, a contract hasjust been signed with a local NGO, INADES, forthe promotion of associations in the sector. Creating a responsibility charterConstituent workshops were held recently and adraft of the responsibility charter adopted. Theadministrator of the Oshwe Territory will sign it inthe near future. This will make it possible to bringtogether, integrate and catalyze the synergy ofeveryone’s efforts, across the sectors and at alllevels.Implementing alternative projectsThree projects have been developed, one ofwhich is already being implemented. This is aproject to grow groundnuts which is a recent in-novation in the sector.The goal of this project is to improve farmingtechniques and popularize them through innova-tive farmers’ committees set up for the purpose,and it brings together all the villages. In each vil-lage community, farms of a hectare each havebeen created. Groups of farmers have been trai-ned and inputs distributed. The harvest will be di-vided into two parts. One part will be sold torecompense the committee members for their ef-forts and the remainder will be given to others tolaunch a broad-based awareness-raising cam-paign.A business plan for shipping out the farm produceis being revised and finalized. Studies carried outprior to project implementation show an overall

rise in transport costs and that the COBAs haveoverestimated what they can actually offer, not tomention the marketing costs and the lack of anappropriate management structure. The cost ofchartering a ship is approximately US$ 16,000 ata time when actual production is well below 100tons. It is in fact only 46 tons, of which 25.5 tonsis maize, 3.9 tons groundnuts, 7.6 tons beans,8.3 tons rice and 0.86 tons marrow, the totalvalue of which is estimated at US$ 17,000–19,000, depending on seasonal fluctuations. Forexample, the “Galaxie”, a 100-ton private whalerdocked at Lokolama port, was there for morethan two months without ever becoming fully loa-ded. This is another reason for COBAs to formthemselves into associations or cooperatives, en-abling them to reduce production cost, increaseyields, create warehouses, better negotiatecontracts, etc …The other ongoing project is the exploitation ofcopal. The populations and local associations ofMonkoto are more than motivated to engage inthe collection and sale of copal. The local peoplehave collected samples in the corridor betweenSalonga and Monkoto through WWF which hasalso initiated a CBNRM programme here. PACTCongo has transported these samples to Mada-gascar, a country known for its export of qualitycopal. Production and the market seem to beguaranteed. The technical and especially finan-cial feasibility of the project will be assessed, cul-minating in getting the necessary procurementcontracts duly signed (a draft contract is in hand).

Lessons learned 1. Without cushioning measures, grassrootscommunities that are motivated and in favourof integrated community management of na-tural resources risk becoming disaffected : Ifgrassroots communities are not convinced that itis in their best interests to manage “their” naturalresources, there will be no community or partici-patory management of natural resources. Goodwords need to be followed by concrete actions. Involving and motivating COBAs requires beingaware of their socio-economic and cultural reali-ties. Taking account of people’s livelihoods ap-





pears to be an important factor in motivating localpeople, even the most resistant, and in graduallyraising their awareness of conservation. Did awise old man from Salonga not say after a works-hop that if one wants to take a nut away from achild, s/he should be given something similar inexchange? In other words, the way to motivateCOBAs to take part in the CBNRM process, is tofocus on the socio-economic security that may beobtained from supporting their livelihoods. A lackof concrete support for micro-projects focusing onlivelihoods would hinder their commitment to theprocess. The enthusiasm of COBAs at work ob-served during the village workshops is tangibleproof of the chances and prospects for successif the conservation of natural resources is mains-treamed into the socio-economic development ofthese communities. Without the accompanying fi-nancial resources, the motivation observed in theelaboration of the management plans, with com-munities sometimes giving up ten days or moreof their time to take part in workshops, may turninto frustration or even revolt in extreme cases.Thus there is a need to find a financing frame-work, an annual donor’s roundtable where va-rious development plans can obtain financial ormaterial support. 2. Grassroots communities are more interes-ted in their daily survival than in conservation: The Community Action Plan is a multi-sectoralplan. During the drawing up of the CAP, it wasrealized that conservation was not the primaryconcern of the villagers. This can obviously beexplained by their dependence on natural re-sources and their difficult living conditions. Howe-ver, rather than taking this as a negative, the factthat it was identified as an issue at all is encou-raging. Although conservation does not rankhighly in their list of priorities, it was raised by thelocal people themselves without any externalpressure. Nonetheless, this means that more effort has tobe made with regards to raising awareness sothat COBAs better understand the benefits of lin-king their development to conservation. The re-construction of the Lokolama to Bisengebatwaroad should not for example become an oppor-tunity to increase the bushmeat trade. Controlmechanisms have to be developed and monito-

red by COBAs.It was with this concern in mind that the pro-gramme devoted a significant amount of time toeducation and raising environmental awarenessbefore launching activities to improve livingconditions, in order to avoid any confusion and tohave some assurance that the local populationhave understood the basis for rational manage-ment of natural resources without losing sight oftheir priorities. In practical terms, it will entail iden-tifying livelihood activities that are compatible withconservation and setting up structures to monitorenvironmental impact, so as not to fail in the ob-jective of contributing to poverty alleviation whileconserving biological diversity. 3. Improved means of transportation, a re-medy to the development of trade for grass-roots communities : Transport remains themajor bottleneck in the Lokolama sector. The gra-dual deterioration of transport infrastructure hasisolated the area, and caused the local commu-nities to lose heart. Farming has been abando-ned for hunting. Projects are blocked because ofthe exorbitant cost of transportation, etc.There needs to be a meticulous analysis of thisaspect. The analysis has to be done on three le-vels: the short, the medium and the long term.This will enable the situation to evolve towardsCOBAs gradually taking control of the means oftransportation. Transportation has a considerablemultiplier effect on their daily life, in that the par-tial or total resolution of transportation problemswill make it possible to improve the living condi-tions of communities that are suffering from,amongst other things, shortages of basic commo-dities such as salt and sugar, the prices of whichare scarcely affordable even when they are avai-lable.In Lokolama, the communities have shown theirwillingness to carry out road repairs – at least theone leading to the Lokolama port. Such initiativescan, for a time, alleviate the difficulties they faceespecially with the hope of increasing agriculturalproduction thanks to the intervention of interna-tional NGOs. However, it must be borne in mindthat the opening up of roads and trails has to beaccompanied by control measures, through the



natural resource management committees, inorder to prevent the development of the bush-meat trade, and thus obtain the opposite effectfrom that desired.Meanwhile, the prospect of increasing agricultu-ral production in this landlocked zone has to beguaranteed by securing the ways and means ofshipping out agricultural produce. If conditionsare not met or if access to transportation is inter-rupted, communities will run the risk of seriousover-production because of the lack of a nearbymarket and other possibilities of supply. That iswhy any plan for marketing agricultural producehas to go beyond the current restricted vision ofsporadic or opportunistic shipments, and includethe drawing up of a transport strategy that willguarantee viable trade in the land.4. Structuring and institutionalizing grass-roots communities, imperative for the suc-cess of any alternative project : Capacitybuilding, achieved through the structuring of com-munities, is the foundation and the prerequisitefor the development of any activity with grass-roots communities. Acting with individuals alonewould be a dissipation of effort, and restrict thenumber of beneficiaries of any particular projector activity. Constituting COBAs into associationswould give them a legal status different from thatof individual members. This legal status wouldgive them the power to sign contracts with indivi-duals or companies within the framework of theprospective trading networks they have identified,and to be able to act in legal matters.While such capacity building is still on-going, in-termediary solutions had to be found during theexecution of a groundnut agricultural project andduring a feasibility study of the copal sector. Forthe groundnut project, this meant identifying andbringing together innovative farmers. For thecopal project, an association in Monkoto(CPFNLEA : Commercialisation des Produits Fo-restiers Non-Ligneux, Elevage et Agriculture) is-sued a signed authorization to PACT Congo toset up a trading contract between an import com-pany in Madagascar and this association. Thislocal association acts as an intermediary bet-ween the grassroots communities and the copalbuyers.

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