Investment is needed to expand our community forest management programme and develop international market links for sustainable, deforestation-free Ituri cocoa.
Challenge
The wild and cultural heart of the Congo is under threat from the uncontrolled spread of slash-and-burn agriculture.
The Okapi Faunal Reserve, one of the largest intact forests in the Congo Basin, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger. It is home to a unique array of life, including 90 mammal species, and is also the home of the Mbuti and Efe pygmy groups, many of whom continue to lead a traditionally semi-nomadic lifestyle that is closely dependent on the forest. The landscape contains an estimated 1 billion trees and 2.7 billion tonnes of carbon, yet deforestation is accelerating. The devastation is driven by an increasing human population and the immigration of farmers from the heavily populated areas in North Kivu in search of available agricultural land. Around 10,000 hectares of forest are lost each year to slash-and-burn clearance.
Solution
Cocoa agroforestry provides a better alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture, and community-owned forests create locally-enforced forest conservation rules.
We are dedicated to the conservation of the Okapi Forest Reserve with its core of intact, highly biodiverse forest and vital populations of animals. Although security conditions in the region remain extremely challenging, WCS works with the Congolese national parks authority (ICCN) to maintain regular forest patrols. Our community development specialists work with villages in the surrounding area to promote sustainable, deforestation-free livelihoods. WCS is actively supporting the creation of three community forest permits in the reserve’s wider landscape, which will allow local communities to become stewards of their area and play an active role in upholding conservation laws.
For 10 years, WCS has been supporting the cultivation of cocoa as an alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture. Cocoa is relatively new to the area, but promises a better future for local farmers than the cultivation of annual crops such as maize and cassava, creating a buffer of more sustainable land use at the forest frontier. Cocoa is planted in combination with native forest shade trees, meaning plantations store more carbon and support greater biodiversity than maize fields. Cocoa is also more profitable, meaning that families can make more money without needing to expand the area of land they cultivate.
We are working with around 3,000 farmers from a local cocoa cooperative, UPCCO, which supports 20% of the estimated 14,000 cocoa farmers in the landscape. We want to expand the reach of the programme to all communities in the reserve’s buffer zone.
