WWF Transformational climate action on landscape-scale in Congo Central

The first period of the project has been a startup phase where WWF has built up a good organisational setup for implementation of all activities, staff has been recruited and contracts made with the key local partners. 2 field offices are now in place and functional, one in Boma and one in Moanda. Motorbikes have arrived and are used by field staff. All staff has been recruited including a very skilled project manager with extensive experience from the region. During the first year WWF has done baseline assessments such as assessing the capacity of existing local development commities in the region and what women groups exist. Relationships have been built up with many communities and the goal of creating or reactivating in total 150 local development committees has been reached. WWF is now in position to increase the speed of implementation during 2024.

Intervention The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is of global environmental importance. It is crucial importance for the local, regional and global climate. It is also a biodiversity hotspot and furthemore has not only the largest tropical forest in africa but also hosts about 50% of Africas freshwater ressources. The forests also contributes to rainfall locally and regionally, working as a water pump pushing condensed water to nearby regions such as Sahel and East Africa. Hence preservation and regeneration of forests are of big importance to reduce humanitarian needs not only in DRC but also in other countries in Africa. The DRC has a unique biodiversity with many types of ecosystems. Millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are dependent on its forests and rivers for their survival. Local communities that manage the natural resources sustainably are crucial to decrease current trends. Programs that aim to secure ecosystem services need to assure development for the local communities. In this way there can be a sustainable development for both nature and people. Creation of revenue from ecosystem services and other income generating activities that are done with environmental considerations are necessary to lift congolese out of poverty and at the same time promote biodiversity and ecosystems. Congo Central is the province between Kinshasa and the atlantic ocean. It is a province that contains unique forest and water ecosystems but is under hard anthropogenic pressure. There is high potential for agricultural and other incomegenerating activities due to good soils and closeness to nearby markets, especially the provnce of Kinshasa but unsustaiable management of natural resources such as slash and burn agriculture, logging for energy, illegal hunting and overfishing have deterred karge portions of the landscapes. The province has 2 main protected areas: Luki Biosphere reserve(LBR) and Parc Marin de Mangrove(PMM). LBR is a forest reserve that is what is left of the big Mayombe forest that used to cover big parts f the region and span from brazzaville to Angola. PMM is the only marin parc in DRC with several threatened species and local populations living on fishing. The WWF project will have a landscape scale approach with a geographic coverage of activities from LBR to the PMM hence aiming to not only create a natural connectivity between them but also a green alliance that can benefit the entire region. The program is to an extent a scale-up of the WWF previous project in and around LBR that finished march 2022. WWF brings lessons learned from thaht program, activities in PIREDD-activities in Equateur and the comanagement of Salongo National Park in to this program. The 3 overall goals are to: 1.Protect existing habitat for endangered and vulnerable biodiversity. Support to ecoguards in LBR and PMM, biomonitoring, research activities in LBR, ecotourism infrastruture etc. 2. Reforest abandoned and degraded land that can be then used by local communities to manage those areas for productive agroforestry. Natural regeneration of forests through fireprotection, planting of forests, creation of agroforestry activities and entrepreneurial training. 3.Promote sustainable land use by communities while improving their economic viability through diversification. Creation of Local Development Committees(LDCs) that can use money from ecosystem services payments for community development, training of farmers to produce new products and farm more sustaonably, creation of cooparatives and companies. The project is very much focused on creating sustainable income for the local communities thrugh sustainable use of natural resources. An improved management and organisation of communities can both contribute to reduced poverty and improved biodiversity.