Drive-through, Likouala.

Shopping for a bargain on the Likouala River

Brazzaville bound

 

 

Congo Brazzaville (or confusingly, the Republic of Congo), the Democratic Republic of Congo’s little cousin, very quietly holds some of the continents most pristine primary rainforests. In the north of the country there is a community-based reserve, nestled between the Oubangi, Sangha Rivers, and sitting above the mighty Congo. Formed mostly of flooded forests, swamps and weaving rivers, it spends much of its time under water, whether fed by rains from Cameroon, the CAR or nearby, acting as a sponge that forms part of the second largest wetland on Earth (second only to the Patanal) and the largest flooded forest on the planet.

 This is Lac Tele. Home to around 15,000 lowland western gorillas, healthy populations of forest elephant and countless other mammal, reptile and bird species, its isolation and lack of exploitable resources have protected it from development which has affected much of the rest of the Congo Basin.  This isolation has also helped the area remain socially and politically stable, with little immigration or displacement of people. The Bomitaba live on the small islands of terra firma in and around the reserve, and have maintained much of their traditional governance and territories, where others have had them degraded and dissolved by the change brought by waves of European colonisation.

There are also monsters rumoured here; look up “Lac Tele” in Google images, and you will either see pictures of gorillas, or missionaries fighting what appears to be the Loch Ness monster of the Congo, the Mokele Mbebe.. you heard it here first.

This is where me and Andrew Kirkby will be conducting our thesis research this summer, in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society; currently in Uganda – brushing up on our French and Lingala, packing and organising med kits, dry bags (vital!) and enough silica gel to dry up Lake Chad, we will be flying on Wednesday to Brazzaville, and then flying up the Congo to Impfondo, before making the journey by car and boat into the reserve.

I’m interested in how people living in and around the reserve will respond to various future scenarios of change; new logging roads, changes in regulations governing how people use resources and broader environmental changes brought by climate change. All of these could have huge implications for people’s lives and, as such, will push and mould people’s future livelihood strategies. From the biodiversity side, understanding this response can help to foster conditions that might encourage responses which have a reduced cost for the area’s ecosystems, instead of pushing people into unsustainable ‘traps’. From the human side, understanding this change-response dynamic can help to design conservation actions which have a reduced impact on people’s lives, and potentially help in the adaptation to a changing climate.

 

Either way, it’s going to be a pretty exciting adventure to the heart of one of the planet’s greatest rainforests, and should provide plenty of hot, humid and hopefully not too parasite-laden experiences!

 

Here it begins..

This summer, 36 students from Imperial College London’s Conservation Science MSc course will be conducting their thesis research. Scattered from Silwood Park to the remote Pitcairn Islands, and most biomes inbetween, our group will be examining, questioning and exploring how biodiversity, people and processes operate across a range of cultural and ecological contexts. Our hope is to produce interesting, exciting and, most importantly, useful outcomes for the conservation of biodiversity worldwide.

The Silver Bulletin is a way for us to share our experiences, findings and stories, whether from the steamy Congo Basin or from the esteemed Zoological Society of London. We hope you enjoy our blogs, videos and photos… and if you feel inspired, please tell others and share our message!