Case Study 3 - Protected Areas Land Use Planning : Lessons ... · SECTION I LAND USE PLANNING 88...

SECTION I LAND USE PLANNING

Case study 3 - CHAPTER 2 86

IntroductionIn 2000, more than 150 international scientific ex-perts convened a workshop in Libreville, Gabonto determine priority areas for the conservation ofterrestrial ecosystems within the Congo Basin1.This workshop led to the identification of 11 Prio-rity Landscapes2 that formed the basis of multi-ple conservation interventions for the CongoBasin Forest Partnership (CBFP) launched in2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Deve-lopment in Johannesburg, South Africa. Unknown to these experts, another workshopwas taking place in 2000 in eastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo (DRC). As the civil war stillraged, traditional chiefs of the Bamate and Ba-

tangi Nations were in the mountains of North Kivumeeting with their constituencies and discussinghow they could develop a community conserva-tion programme, an initiative they launched in1998. This programme was spearheaded byPierre Kakule Vwirasihikya, who had been anICCN3 warden for 15 years, but was on a leaveof absence. Pierre was born in the region andhad learned first-hand both the need for conser-vation and the difficulties faced by traditional, go-vernment-run national parks. Realizing thepotential for a protected area for gorillas in themountains near where he spent his childhood, heenlisted the support of the traditional paramountchiefs (Mwamis) of the Batangi and the Bamatepeoples, Mwami Stuka Mikundi II and MwamiMukosasenge II (Figure 1), to catalyze a commu-

Case Study 3 - Protected Areas Land Use Planning : LessonsLearned from the Tayna Community-Managed Nature ReservePatrick Mehlman

1 This workshop is described in Kamdem-Toham, A. et al. 2006. A Vision for Biodiversity Conservation in CentralAfrica: Biological priorities for conservation in the Guinean-Congolian forest and freshwater region. Washington, DC:WWF. 2 A 12th landscape was later added to the CBFP Priority Landscapes: The Virunga National Park (and its surroundingbuffer zones) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.3 ICCN is the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Na-ture), the DRC wildlife and parks authority.

LAND USE PLANNING SECTION I

CHAPTER 2 - Case study 3 87

Figure 1. Founders of the Tayna community conservation program. Center - Pierre Kakule; with foun-ders of the program, Mwami Mokasasenge (left) and Mwami Stuka (right). These days, leopard skinhats are synthetic.

nity-managed project to create the “Tayna GorillaReserve”. The Tayna model proved successful. By late2002, seven other community associations hadjoined Tayna, creating a political federation calledUGADEC (the Union of Associations for GorillaConservation and Development in Eastern DRC),with the goal of establishing a series of similar re-serves for an area of more than 12,000 km2 (theproposed integral zones4), creating a biologicalcorridor between Maiko National Park (10,000km2) and Kahuzi-Biega National Park (6,600km2), and working hand-in hand with the ICCN topreserve biodiversity (Figure 2). This integratedapproach between communities and nationalpark management authorities was first supportedby Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International(DFGFI) in 2000 and was significantly strengthe-ned when CI formed a strategic partnership withDFGFI in 2003. By 2006, the Tayna Nature Reserve, as well asanother UGADEC project member, the adjacentKisimba-Ikoba Reserve, were both declared Na-ture Reserves (for their integral zones, 900 and970 km2, respectively) by the Minister of Environ-

ment, becoming part of the official network of pro-tected areas in the DRC. Significantly, these de-clarations were accompanied by uniqueco-management plans, in which the ICCN ente-red into a legal agreement with the local commu-nities (represented by NGOs based ontraditional/customary governance) such thatthese NGOs were sub-contracted to managetheir reserves in perpetuity.In the sections that follow, the history of thisunique grass-roots approach to conservation ischronicled to provide an understanding of howthis programme developed locally and was thensuccessfully supported by the internationalconservation community. From the history of thisprogramme, we can also extract a number of les-sons learned, with the hope that the approachcan be replicated in other areas of DRC, othercommunities in the tropical forests of the CongoBasin and perhaps in other areas across theglobe.



4 The integral zone (from the French term) is a core protected area; it is completely protected and does not permit ex-traction of any kind. 5 A “Wilderness Area” is defined by having 70 percent of its original habitat still intact; a “High-Biodiversity WildernessArea” is defined similarly, but contains more than 1,500 endemic plant species, and along with Hotspots is howConservation International sets its priorities throughout the world. A Hotspot is defined as having lost more than 70percent of its original habitat, and contains more than 1,500 endemic plant species. The “hotspots” concept was firstarticulated by British ecologist Norman Myers in 1988 and adopted by CI as a priority-setting framework in 1989. SeeMittermeier, 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. Cemex Books on Nature; 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 100:10309–10313.6 Tayna is home to a suite of globally threatened large animals typical of the region, such as the Eastern chimpanzee(Pan troglodytes schweinfurthi), the African forest elephant (Loxodonta africana cyclotis) and Grauer’s gorilla (Gorillaberengei graueri), as well as a number of species found only in the Albertine Rift (for example, there are reports of acompletely black morph of the forest leopard, Panthera pardus, the Endangered Ruwenzori morph). These restricted-range species include several poorly known, threatened birds, such as the Albertine owlet (Glaucidium albertinum), aswell as locally endemic mammals, such as the Ruwenzori sun squirrel (Heliosciurus ruwenzorii) and the Ruwenzoriotter shrew (Mesopotamogale ruwenzorii). Also see, The Forests of the Congo Basin: State of the Forest 2006,pp.198–205, http://www.cbfp.org/.

Figure 2. Tayna Nature Reserve (A) and the similarly managed Kisimba-Ikobo Nature Reserve (B) with6 other projects (C1-C6) form the UGADEC Federation. The UGADEC community conservation zoneforms a biological corridor between (and with) the Maiko National Park (D) and the Kahuzi-Biega Na-tional Park (E), which are located in the CBFP Maiko Tayna Kahuzi-Biega Landscape (yellow). Redareas indicate deforestation between 1990 and 2000 (satellite image courtesy of University of Maryland,CARPE program). A further Nature Reserve area, Itombwe, is located in area F.



Ecology and history of theTayna regionThe Tayna Nature Reserve is situated in a tran-sition zone between the lowland forests of theHigh Biodiversity Wilderness Area of the CongoBasin and the highlands of the Albertine Rift, partof the Eastern Afromontane Hotspot5. It rangesin altitude from 850–2150 m, and holds exceptio-nally high levels of biodiversity and globally threa-tened species, such as Grauer’s gorillas,Chimpanzees, Okapi, Forest elephants, and 14species of primates6. The Tayna Reserve lies within two chefferies(chiefdoms)7, the Batangi and Bamate chief-doms, who have become so intertwined sociallyand politically that it is virtually impossible to mapthem separately (see Figure 4 for the location ofthe Batangi Bamate Chefferie within the Territoryof Lubero). They are part of the Banande People(Bantu), living in North Kivu, and share close af-finities with other Banande such as the Bapare,Bashwa, etc. The oral traditions of the Bamati and Batangi8 re-count that their ancestors arrived in the AlbertineRift in the highlands west and north-west of LakeEdward more than 500 years ago, as part of awave of Banande immigrants fleeing land dis-putes and tribal warfare in Uganda. Despite thecenturies they spent expanding into the AlbertineRift, their oral traditions indicate a much more re-cent arrival in the mountains of the present-dayTayna Reserve: they suggest the first pioneersmoved into these mountains seeking new huntinggrounds and agricultural fields only about 200–250 years ago. By the period of colonial rule, at the beginning ofthe 20th century, Belgian-led expeditions beganentering the area to hunt elephant, trade for ivoryand to explore for mineral wealth (primarily gold).

In the 1920s they began construction of a dirtroad from Beni to Mbohe, west across Tayna, andthen west north-west to Oninga, a small miningcentre (Figure 2, visible now as agricultural fieldsand small villages following the long-degradedroad system; also see Figure 3). They nevercompletely finished a road between Oninga andthe Anguma gold mine, which would have cros-sed the present-day Maiko National Park (Figure2). In the 1930s, the Belgian colonial authorities de-clared the majority of the present-day Tayna Re-serve to be the “South-west Lubero HuntingReserve” identical to the “hunting reserve” crea-ted at that time for what is present-day Maiko Na-tional Park. In reality, these reserves were notgazetted for hunting; they were created to limitmigration into the area by local people seekingtheir fortunes looking for gold and diamonds.While doing this, the Belgians simultaneously de-veloped one of the largest alluvial gold mines inthe region at the Lutunguru gold mine (locationindicated in Figure 3), which at its peak in activityin the 1930s had more than 15,000 miners wor-king and living in camps in the area. Of historicalnote, an even larger mining camp developednear the deep-shaft gold mine in Maiko NP at theAnguma mining site (Figure 2). In 1959, Schaller and Emlen surveyed this area9and reported several pockets of forest withGrauer’s gorillas, but what was once surely acontiguous block of forest from Tayna to Tchiabe-rimu (near Lake Edward, Figure 3) had by thetime they conducted their surveys already be-come fragmented by increasing human popula-tion pressure.

7 Administrative organization in rural DRC is by Province, then Territory, then Chefferie (Chiefdom, formerly called aCollectivité chefferie) or Sector.8 The Bamati and Batangi are two tribes of the Tayna area, who through intermarriage and land-use sharing havesubstantially intermingled over the last century; they share a very similar oral history. 9 Emlen, J.T. and Schaller, G.B. 1960. “Distribution and status of the mountain gorilla (Gorilla gorilla beringei), 1959”.Zoologica 45: 41–52; Schaller, G.B. 1963. The Mountain Gorilla: Ecology and Behavior. Chicago, IL: University of Chi-cago Press. Also reviewed in reference xvi.



Figure 3. A comparison of the original boundaries proposed for the Tayna Nature Reserve (upper) withthe final configuration (lower, see text). One of the principal access routes into the reserve is shown inthe upper figure. An asterisk marks the location of the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology University.



1998–2000: Local origins ofthe Tayna community conser-vation programmeEager to update some of Schaller and Emlen’s1959 surveys, in June–July 1997, Thomas Bu-tynski and Esteban Sarmiento revisited the areanear the present-day Tayna Reserve, arriving al-most at its current eastern limits in the village ofMbuhe (Figure 3). In discussing the reported pre-sence of rich wildlife west of their position, theysuggested to local community representatives(Mwami Stuka and others) that the area might beprotected through some kind of community ac-tion. Following this suggestion, Pierre Kakule andMwamis Stuka and Mukosasenge realized thearea’s potential for future ecotourism and ecosys-tem services, and having watched their forestsdisappear to commercial cattle ranchers and agri-cultural settlements creeping west, they begandiscussions with their local village chiefs surroun-ding present-day Tayna as to how this might beaccomplished. By 1998, the Mwamis had bannedthe use of shotguns in the area and were consi-dering the creation of a communal reserve in amountainous forest with only the presence of adozen small villages west of Mbuhe (Figure 3).Equally important to them, they noted the pre-sence of Chimpanzees to the north-east of theirfirst target area near the important cultural villageof Kasugho, which contained a sacred forest, awaterfall, and a series of caves, and thought thatthis could also be gazetted as a separate reserve(Figure 3). From the beginning of 1998 through mid-2000,despite the civil war raging in their area with va-rious battles between armed militias and foreignarmies (Congolese Mai Mai, Rwandan Inter-ehamwe and Congolese rebel forces, the MLCand RCD10, as well as the Ugandan army),Pierre and the Mwamis kept the idea of a com-

munity reserve alive and continued discussionswith local people as often as possible. In 2000,Pierre Kakule created a local association, theRGT (La Réserve des Gorilles de Tayna – GorillaReserve of Tayna11) composed of about 10 staffmembers (with no salaries) who came from thearea. In 2000, the RGT began to seek help fromseveral international conservation organizations,but the civil war (and risk aversion on the part ofthe NGOs) prevented any significant action atthat time.

2001: International support forthe Tayna projectFrom April 2001 to the present day, the RGTbegan to receive significant amounts of interna-tional financial and technical support. In April2001, Tayna signed its first contract with DFGFI,in which Tayna accepted DFGFI as its “primarypartner” (UGADEC signed an identical agree-ment in 2002). In doing so, they agreed to theprinciple that all financial and technical support toTayna would be channeled through a single inter-national partner, DFGFI. It was felt by both partiesthat this would eliminate multiple donors with mul-tiple (and sometimes contradictory) technical in-puts. The primary partner agreement first signedin 2001 is still in effect today eight years later, andis the fundamental basis with which Tayna (andUGADEC) receive international support.

2001–2003: Support from theDian Fossey Gorilla Fund andthe US Congressional “GorillaDirective”.In mid-2000, Tayna staff requested a donationfrom Dr Liz Williamson, then-Director of the Kari-

10 MLC was one of the rebel factions during the civil war backed by Uganda, the Movement for the Liberation of Congo(Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo); RCD was another rebel faction backed by Rwanda, the Rally for Congo-lese Democracy (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie); Interehamwe are illegally armed Rwandan militia inDRC who, being responsible for the Rwanda genocide, fled into DRC; Mai-Mai were (and in some cases, still are) lo-cally based Congolese militia formed during the civil war to resist external rebel forces such as the MLC or the RCD.11 The Tayna Gorilla Reserve (La Réserve des Gorilles de Tayna – RGT) received local NGO status in 2001, and waslegally registered in DRC in 2005 (when it received its “personalité juridique”).



soke Research Center, DFGFI, and she secureda small fund to support community meetings forTayna that took place in late 2000. By February2001, Pierre Kakule met again with DFGFI seniorstaff (the author and Dr Dieter Steklis), and pre-sented a plan and local maps that had been crea-ted by community members. DFGFI wasinterested in the visionary approach of the Taynagroup, and the author made arrangements for adue-diligence trip into Tayna a month later. InMarch 2001, the author traveled from Butemboto just beyond Bingi by road, and made his wayto Iseya, a small village located within the targe-ted area for the reserve (Figure 3). During thistrip, he met the Mwamis, village chiefs and com-munity members who made clear their desire tocreate a gorilla reserve. The author did as muchbiological prospecting as was possiblegiven the conditions, and confirmed the presenceof gorillas and healthy forest blocks within the tar-

geted reserve area. The author became convin-ced that creating a community reserve was notonly feasible, but desirable, in that local commu-nities were leading the process, rather than amore traditional approach of creating a protectedarea from the top-down, usually led by govern-ment authorities and international conservationNGOs. From March–October 2001, DFGFI pro-vided approximately US$65,000 to support theTayna Reserve. In October 2001, DFGFI suc-cessfully obtained an award from the USCongressional “Gorilla Directive” (administeredby USAID), and with DFGFI internal funding, fromthen until September 2003, was able to provideTayna (and other project members from UGA-DEC) direct operations funding at approximatelyUS$215,000 US for each of the two years.

2003–2008: Support fromDFFGI, Conservation Interna-tional (CI) and the USAIDCARPE12 and Gorilla Directiveprogrammes. By 2003, the ongoing CBFP process and theTayna community conservation programme suc-cessfully intersected. One of the landscapesidentified in the CBFP process was the MaikoTayna Kahuzi-Biega (MTKB) Landscape and thezone between Maiko and Kahuzi-Biega NPs wasprecisely where Tayna had begun its programmeand scaled it up with other UGADEC communi-ties (Figure 2). By chance, this guaranteed an es-sential role for DFGFI in the incipient Landscapeprogramme, since it was the primary partner forTayna and UGADEC, and was working with com-munities outside of (and between) National Parkswithin the MTKB Landscape. As proposals werebeing called for by the USAID CARPE pro-gramme, DFGFI and CI created a strategic part-nership to support the UGADEC community zoneand Maiko NP in order to submit simultaneous

Support local initiatives as opportunitiesarise, but only after feasibility and due-dili-gence studies are conducted to calibratepotential conservation outcomes with anappropriate level of investment. Local peoplesometimes present autonomously developedprojects to international NGOs. It is highly des-irable to support these projects, but only afterinitial due-diligence and feasibility studies. It isbest to begin a first phase with small grants toassess their capacity to manage funding andachieve conservation outcomes. In somecases, a Primary Partnership between a localand an international NGO is advantageous,since it channels funding and technical inputsfrom a single partner to the local NGO, and canavoid multiple (possibly contradictory) condi-tions and objectives associated with severalfunding sources.

LESSON LEARNED 1

12CARPE is the Central African Regional Program for the Environment (Phase I began in 1995). Phase II, begun in2003, was specifically designed to support the 11 Priority Landscapes of the Congo Basin Forest Partnership. CARPEII is divided into CARPE IIa (October 2003–September 2006) and CARPE IIb (October 2006–September 2011).13 Direct funding figures quoted here are estimations of those funds that were directly provided to Tayna, UGADECand the Tayna Center for Conservation Biology; they exclude Maiko National Park, and operational funding and admi-nistrative fees for DFGFI and CI.



proposals to CARPE and to CI’s Global Conser-vation Fund (the latter providing match funding tothe CARPE programme). These awards weresuccessfully obtained, and with DFGFI’s third andfinal year of the Gorilla Directive Funding, DFGFIinternal funding, CI’s Global Conservation Fund,and CI’s award from USAID CARPE Phase IIa,the Tayna and UGADEC community conservationprogramme received US$1,750,000 in direct ope-rations funding from October 2003–September,200613. This partnership and funding arrange-ment has continued from late 2006 until today,with support from USAID CARPE Phase IIb, CI’sGlobal Conservation Fund, DFGFI internal fun-ding, and special CI donors.

2001–2006: Development andimplementation of the Taynaprogramme As noted above, the vision for a community-based gorilla reserve for the Tayna area of NorthKivu did not originate in Washington, Paris orKinshasa, but rather with the inspired leadershipof the customary powers from the region. By thetime international funding first arrived, they had aclear vision that they wanted to protect gorillas.They understood that this could improve localeconomic development through ecotourism,through development incentives linked to conser-vation outcomes, and through simply hiring andpaying local staff, whose salaries would circulatelocally in a very impoverished area. They hadidentified a mountainous region within their chef-ferie where intact forests and gorilla populationsstill remained. They had discussed creating a re-serve with local stakeholders (village and clanchiefs, local landholders, village inhabitants) des-pite having to deal with the tragedy of civil warsweeping through their villages on many occa-sions14. Below, the various phases of the developmentand implementation of the Tayna project are des-cribed from early 2001 until today, as it now func-

tions as one of DRC’s official protected areas. Start-up phase for the Tayna project. By early2001, DFGFI and Tayna staff had conducted anumber of planning meetings and concurred thatthe first actions to accomplish would be to: • Complete the receipt of formal NGO sta-tus for the Tayna working group; • Establish an agreement between theTayna group and the ICCN; • Hire, equip and train field staff who couldimmediately begin work in and around the areatargeted for the community reserve, to bothconduct rigorous biological censuses and to pro-vide more extensive awareness raising with thelocal population.

Interactions with “government” during thestart-up phase. In mid-2001, the RGT receivedformal status as an NGO in eastern DRC. Be-cause Goma was controlled by a rebel govern-ment at that time, NGO status was obtained fromRCD Goma officials (by 2005, the RGT had ap-plied for and received NGO status through thenew unified DRC government in Kinshasa, obtai-ning a Personnalité Juridique). In mid-2001, theRGT also entered into a Memorandum of Un-derstanding with the ICCN through their officials

Conservation work in contexts of civil strife(or civil war) must attempt to remain apoli-tical at all times. The success of this project,as it developed in a context of civil war, can lar-gely be attributed to it maintaining an apoliticalstance, and its representation by local peoplewho were well-known in the area and who werewilling to talk to every side to advance theirconservation cause. The international sponsor,DFGFI, left all local political matters completelyin the hands of the local NGO, the Tayna GorillaReserve Project.

LESSON LEARNED 2

14 It is important to note that when this project first received funding during the civil war, their region was partiallycontrolled by various armed factions, such as the Mai-Mai, the Ugandan army, the MLC, and on some occasions,RCD Goma. This created a political context in which there was simply no central government. For the region of the in-cipient Tayna reserve, the only truly functioning government entity during this time was the traditional, customary po-wers.



stationed with RCD Goma, and with the MLC,which controlled much of North Kivu. Since Mai-Mai militia groups also controlled the reservearea, the RGT also met with them and explainedtheir apolitical status, obtaining permission toconduct field work. During the time the Mai-Maicontrolled the area, they insisted on supportingthe RGT by providing protection against other il-legally armed groups by accompanying RGT andDFGFI staff on field missions. Deploying field staff for Tayna. Field staff forthe project were recruited from the Tayna region.Amongst the first 25 field staff, there were 15“rangers/guards” and 10 trackers, the formerbeing young men who had left the area to obtainuniversity degrees and in a few cases, ICCN trai-ning, and the latter being local men living in thearea as hunters and agriculturalists (in severalcases, the sons of village and groupementchiefs). The first funding support went to equip-ping and paying the RGT field staff as well as tocreating an office in Goma. Field staff created asmall camp at Iseya (Figure 3) with tents and tra-ditional huts. Field staff received blue uniforms to distinguish them from all other groups in the re-gion, and they were provided typical field equip-ment, such as tents, backpacks, binoculars,compasses, etc., as well as GPS units and satel-lite-image-based maps. A small supervisory staffof four to six RGT employees remained in Goma(as well as Butembo) to deal with administration,finance and NGO relations. In the first year, foot

messengers were responsible for all communica-tions between Goma and Iseya (later, radio com-munications were established between Iseya andGoma). The RGT, in developing its identity, madean immediate decision to use the title of “Guide”,rather than “guard” or “ranger”, emphasizing thatfield staff were there to “guide” the local popula-tion in conducting community conservation, ra-ther than assuming a police function usuallyassociated with traditional national park staff. TheTayna guides and trackers were unarmed (asthey are today). Early training – biological data. In discussionswith DFGFI scientific staff, the Tayna group de-termined the first objective for this initial phase ofwork: to transform traditional knowledge aboutthe location of intact forests and presence of go-rilla, chimpanzee, and elephant populations intoa quantified and geo-referenced database thatwould enable them to target limits for their re-serve. It was presumed that protecting these fo-rest blocks would, by default, protect the fullrange of biodiversity and ecosystem processes,a position the Tayna group rapidly reached asthey become more fully aware of the IUCN RedList and international protected area efforts. As aresult, they transformed their original conceptfrom only protecting gorillas to creating a fullyfunctioning, internationally-recognized protectedarea.

When hiring and training field staff, hire lo-cally and be willing to hire former hunters.All staff hired for this project were from theTayna area, and since one of their primary du-ties was to sensitize local people, they couldnot have succeeded if they had not been localpeople. Former hunters were hired as trackers,and with a regular salary, made much more forthemselves and their families than they wouldhave gained from subsistence hunting andlocal trade of bushmeat. Most remain with theproject today.

LESSON LEARNED 3

Train field staff immediately on the use ofsatellite imagery and how to geo-referencetheir field work. Traditional hand maps wereessential for working with local people, but veryearly in the project, field staff were trained totranslate these into geo-referenced maps. Thiswas essential to the project in order to unders-tand boundaries and customary claims, to un-derstand the collection of biological andsocio-economic information related to previouspublished work, and for the staff to navigate ef-ficiently in a mountainous and difficult fieldcontext.

LESSON LEARNED 4



To enable the Tayna group to create this data-base, in June 2001, the author, Stuart Nixon andPierre Kakule (DFGFI employees at the time) tra-veled to Iseya and provided the first biologicaltraining for the staff in a “learn by doing” ap-proach. Until that time, staff had been using tra-ditional maps (both hand-made and governmentmaps which often dated back to the colonial area)to understand better the location of small villages,geographical markers (rivers and mountains), thelocation of gorilla populations, and the location ofimportant forest blocks relative to degraded or ac-tive agricultural areas. This was an opportunity toupgrade and fully modernize their tool kit. In this first training, the RGT field staff were intro-duced to satellite mapping, the use of GPS unitsfor field orientation and to record the location ofall geographical data. They learned to identify thepresence of all fauna (not just gorillas) and weretrained in identifying IUCN Red-listed species.Importantly, they were also trained in how tocreate and cut line transects, and conduct cen-suses along these, collecting data on the pre-sence of all fauna and anthropogenicdisturbance. Since RGT and DFGFI both wishedto emphasize gorilla protection as the iconic spe-cies that represented the reserve, the staff weretrained in how to collect quantitative data for go-rilla nest sites, using methods the author haddeveloped in the Central African Republic15,combined with DFGFI’s long experience collec-ting data on mountain gorillas at the Karisoke Re-search Center. (One year later, four of the RGTstaff traveled to the Karisoke research center inRuhengeri, Rwanda and received further training.This programme, which had great promise, wascut short by the Rwandan government when itblocked these exchanges, fearful that RGT staffmay have had undesirable political affiliations)16.

Early training: Sensitization/awareness-rai-sing approach while deploying the first deve-lopment incentives. Training staff to conductbiodiversity surveys was rapid and relatively sim-ple compared to the much more challenging taskthat the Tayna staff set out to accomplish (and re-quested DFGFI to assist with): how to work withlocal people so that they see the advantage of“ceding” their customary rights to hunt or expandtheir agricultural fields in areas of the reserve. Inthe start-up phase, field staff, when conductingbiological and geographical surveys, were alsoexpected to contact local villages, estimate theirsizes, determine their locations, collect initial dataon livelihoods and needs, and through communi-cating the advantages of preserving biodiversityto local people, sensitize inhabitants about thedesire of the chefferie to establish a community-based gorilla reserve. By the time of the first field training session inJune 2001, the staff had already contacted manyvillages and had encountered some challenges.In general, those villages to the east of the re-serve had village chiefs who had been sensitizedby the Mwamis, and thus had come to unders-tand a long-term vision; they were eager to hearhow creating a reserve could benefit their future.In contrast, villages farther west and south wereasking tough and pointed questions: “were theMwamis selling “their” land to foreigners for a pro-fit; was a National Park going to be establishedthat would be run by outsiders; what immediatetrade-offs would be offered as compensation,etc?” These initial interactions with locals werethe first serious challenge for the RGT. Couldthey communicate effectively to isolated, localpeople that a reserve could maintain essentialecosystem services, create opportunities for eco-tourism, and in general improve livelihoods andstimulate the local economy?

15 For more on gorilla nest counts, see Mehlman, P.T. and Doran, D.M. 2002. “Factors influencing western gorilla nestconstruction at Mondika Research Center”. International Journal of Primatology 23(6): 1257–1285.16 To emphasize the context of our work at that time, it is important to note that the first training was cut short and hadto be completed in Butembo (Figure 3). After a week at Iseya, our group received word that armed forces of unknownorigin (suspected Interehamwe) were camped only a few kilometres west of our position and were occupying a neigh-bouring village, and possibly intent on doing us harm. We immediately left, but two of the RDT supervisory staff coura-geously decided to go unaccompanied to the village to try to discuss the issue. They were promptly beaten, and takenhostage for three months before we secured their release. They remain with the programme today, one being the Di-rector of UGADEC, and the other being a field supervisor for the RGT. The Interehamwe eventually left the village andtoday the village actively supports the Tayna Project. Since that initial incident, Tayna staff have never experienced asimilar situation.



The leadership of the Tayna group came up withwhat they believed would be a solution to brea-king the “suspicion barrier” in some of their com-munities. They reached an agreement withDFGFI to provide some pilot development pro-jects in selected villages. These included refurbi-shing four primary schools and staffing them withteachers, supporting two medical clinics andnurses, and creating a mobile health team thatwould provide some emergency health care inthe area, given the limited resources. They ar-gued that these responses to some of the “criticalneeds” of local communities would both demons-trate goodwill and a moral commitment on thepart of their international partner and provide in-centives to local people to become active partici-pants in the reserve project. They also argued

that the pilot projects should go initially to thosevillages that supported Tayna, not, in fact, to vil-lages that had been the most resistant. They ar-gued that any other approach would create perverse incentives, and that resistant vil-lages after seeing the progress achieved inneighbouring villages would eventually come tosupport the project. As time passed, this provedto be correct. Due to lack of development funding relative to theenormous needs of the impoverished local popu-lation, development incentives for the Tayna pro-ject could not be calibrated as quid pro quoagreements that could offset the short-term op-portunity costs of conservation incurred by localresource users17. The initial challenge, therefore,for the Tayna project was to develop a sensitiza-tion and awareness-raising programme for localpeople that could demonstrate in plain terms thelong-term advantages of protecting their biodiver-sity, juxtaposed against the perception of short-term losses related to giving up rights to huntingand future agricultural expansion. With the support of DFGFI, the Tayna group thendeveloped a standardized sensitization methodo-logy to be used by the field staff in visits to localvillages where they fostered “dialogue commit-tees”: 1. It used local people’s interest in gorillas ascharismatic animals in their culture to stimu-late interest in protecting biodiversity;

2. It used a Noah’s Ark story to inspire themabout their responsibility to be stewards oftheir biodiversity;

3. It informed people about the IUCN Red listand DRC’s list of protected species;

4. It used local examples of disappearing fo-rest and fauna (loss of forest from cattleranching; loss of gorillas in the east whenthey once were common, and loss of bongothroughout the area) to sensitize communi-ties to the existence of environmentalthreats and the concomitant need for beha-vioural change as formalized in the deve-

Assist local NGOS conducting sensitizationto develop a standardized approach to edu-cation, awareness raising, and working withlocal people on issues of land use andconservation.We discovered that field staff intheir enthusiasm to begin working with localpeople were actually interacting with villages inmany different ways, depending on staff perso-nalities, their understanding of the project, andmore importantly, the reaction of locals to theirmessage. We discovered a risk of creating per-verse incentives, in that villages showing themost resistance to the project were sometimesgiven more attention and believed (orconstrued that) commitments for developmentincentives were being provided them as they‘negotiated’ their participation in the project. Toaddress this gap, we immediately developed astandardized awareness-raising approach thatemphasized the long-term benefits and advan-tages of the project, rather than a short-termview of opportunity costs incurred through theperceived loss of hunting rights and potentialfuture agricultural expansion.

LESSON LEARNED 5

17 CI’s Conservation Steward’s programme works through an approach called Conservation Agreements; these pro-vide exact quid pro quo contracts that specify conservation activities to be accomplished and match these to lost op-portunity costs via specific economic and development initiatives.



lopment of a plan for sustainable use of fo-rest and fauna before these resources di-sappeared altogether;

5. It made local people aware of the potentialfor ecotourism by describing nearby exam-ples where foreigners were paying to visitgorillas (Rwanda, and previously in DRC,when gorilla tourism was being conductedin the Virungas and at Kahuzi-Biega) andwould pay for places to stay, places to eat,and would be interested in buying handi-crafts and seeing local culture;

6. It made local people aware of the value offorests for their local watersheds and howdesignating “no-go” zones would allow po-pulations of fauna to recover from over-hun-ting;

7. It described how community conservationdiffered from a national parks approach,and how financial and economic benefitswould remain local;

8. It described how community conservationcould draw attention to their communitiesand attract development incentives, andused the pilot development projects asexamples;

9. It made clear that no promises were beingmade for quid pro quo development incen-tives;

10. It solicited from local people their ideas ofthe critical needs for their villages;

11. It introduced a concept of participatorymapping, in which local people were encou-raged to explain how they used adjacent fo-rests and were introduced to the idea thatthey could easily cede the use of some ofthese areas by shifting their usage patterns;

12. It introduced the concept of vacance deterre, an official declaration by local peoplewho wished to support the reserve indica-ting that the designated area for the reservewas not in active use, and there were no fu-ture plans to use the area;

13. It established a network of communica-

tions (foot messengers at the time) to facili-tate further dialogue and to inform local “no-tables” (chiefs, landholders, etc.) aboutfurther developments such as the presenceof field staff conducting studies or sensitiza-tion or important meetings of the customarypowers.

Armed with knowledge of how to collect biodiver-sity and basic socio-economic data, as well as anawareness-raising methodology (“armed withknowledge, not guns” became the slogan), theTayna field staff working with local villages throu-ghout 2001 and 2002, and through a process ofconvening with local people, began to definewhat might be a first perimeter for the Tayna re-serve (Figure 3). During the same time, some ofthe field staff assigned to census large mammalsand anthropogenic disturbance, completed a gridof about 70 km of line transects, which provideda first estimate that more than 400 Grauer’s go-rillas lived within the area they had targeted forthe reserve.

The Tayna group develops afirst land-use plan and seeksnational government recogni-tionBy early 2002, the RGT convened its first Gene-ral Assembly of village and groupement19 chiefsfrom the Tayna region. The Assembly, led byPierre Kakule, was composed of 13 village chiefsand other notables. They discussed the proposedlimits of a reserve by evaluating data collected atthat time by their staff concerning the distributionof remaining villages in and near the proposedreserve, the distribution of forests and gorillas,and the use of the forests by local people. Afternegotiations, the Assembly ratified the first land-use plan and agreed that the two chefferiesshould petition the government to become reco-gnized as a protected area under the new Forest

18 See Mehlman, P.T. 2008. “Status of wild gorilla populations”. In: Stoinski, T., Steklis, D. and Mehlman, P.T. (Eds)Conservation in the 21st Century: Gorillas as a Case Study, pp.3–56. New York, NY: Springer Press. Note that the fi-gure of more than 600 gorillas referenced in that work includes areas south and outside of the present-day limits ofTayna Nature Reserve (i.e., includes the northern area of Kisimba-Ikobo Nature Reserve). 19 A grouping of several villages, roughly equivalent to a clan, led by a chief who can convene village chiefs.



Code. In November, 2002, the first governmental De-cree recognizing the Tayna Gorilla Reserve wassigned by the Minister of Environment. It establi-shed an integral zone with complete protection,and made provisions for a working committee toestablish a management plan for the reserve. Itis noteworthy that the limits of the integral zone(effectively, the reserve) at that time, were quitedifferent from their configuration today (Figure 3).The evolution of this participatory mapping anddelimitation is explained below.

Evolution of the Tayna Re-serve integral zone borders2002–2005Between 2002 and 2005, the stakeholders ofTayna substantially modified the limits of their in-tegral zone with a shift northward of boundariesin the south and a shift eastward in the north (Fi-gure 3). In the south, this change reflected politi-cal realities; in the north-east, the changereflected new knowledge gained from field sur-veys, as well as new engagement with local vil-lagers through participatory mapping.

With technical advice, a local community NGO developed its own zoning regulations fortheir nature reserve and community zones consistent with an international approach to bio-diversity conservation (Figure 4). The Tayna group developed the following zoning regula-tions that are in place today : Integral zone : Level of protection is identical to that of a National Park, i.e., complete protectionfor all flora and fauna, and no exploitation of any natural resources at present or in the future. Thefew remaining small villages within the integral zone will be encouraged to relocate by offering“magnet centres” outside the integral zone that provide clinics, schools and alternative livelihoods.Appropriate tourism and scientific study will be encouraged and proceeds will go to the collectivitéfor reserve management and community development (managed by the customary powers).Buffer zone : An area extending 5 km from the limits of the integral zone where current residentsmay remain and may continue their agriculture and pastoral livelihoods, but where no new agricul-tural clearing and no new immigration will be permitted. Subsistence hunting of non-protected spe-cies and extraction of NTFPs by residents will be permitted to continue, using traditional methods(snares, spears, bows, nets made from natural, i.e., non-metallic, materials). Harvest and growthrates of these non-protected species and production rates of NTFPs will be evaluated and moni-tored by scientific study (with full cooperation and participation of remaining residents), and if sub-sistence hunting of any individual species (or extraction of NTFPs) is not sustainable, hunting andextraction rights may be limited for appropriate periods of time or by season. Neither logging norcharcoal production will be permitted in buffer zones. Commercial mining in general will not be per-mitted, but small mining concessions to residents may be granted if consistent with the communityconservation and development vision.Development zone : Zones outside of the Nature Reserve, but within the chefferie where all legalactivities are permitted (consistent with customary and national Laws). These zones will receiveconservation education and awareness-raising initiatives, and will be targeted for rural develop-ment.

LESSON LEARNED 6



After considerable study of administrative maps,it was realized that the proposed southern bor-ders of Tayna overlapped with the Territory of Wa-likale. The Tayna Reserve under thisconfiguration would be mostly in the Territory ofLubero where the customary powers for the Ba-tangi-Bamate were located, but would cross overinto another territory (Figures 3 and 4).This approach had been quite natural for the cus-tomary powers, since in the area south of Tayna,most villages were Bamate and Batangi, eventhough they were administratively located in ano-ther territory (highlighting the fluid nature of chef-ferie boundaries compared to administrativeboundaries laid down in the colonial era). For theTayna staff working in the field, it had also beenquite natural, since their surveys of gorillas hadtaken them south through mountainous, uninha-bited areas with no biogeographical boundaries. The Tayna customary powers reviewed this issueand made the political decision to keep the Taynaboundaries within “their” Territory of Lubero, and

shifted the integral zone north. This decision, ho-wever, was made much easier since their modelfor community conservation had been taken upby two neighbouring chefferies to the south-eastand south-west, with those communities designa-ting integral zones that abutted Tayna’s southernborder (Figure 3). In addition, Tayna field staffwere already actively training the staff from thetwo other Reserve projects of UGADEC that bor-dered Tayna to the south. Ultimately, the bounda-ries of the three reserves in question (Figure 3)were decided upon after deliberations within theUGADEC Federation and a series of trips to thefield to seek stakeholder approval. In 2002, the Tayna group had noted on their mapthe presence of chimpanzees and primary forestnorth-east of their proposed reserve (two dottedcircles in Figure 3), but this was secondhand in-formation provided by locals, since these areaswere the most mountainous and isolated terrainin their chefferies (Figure 4). However, during aseries of field expeditions by the Tayna staff du-ring this time period, they verified this informationand determined that gorillas were also found insome parts of this forested area. During thesefield trips, they discovered that there were no ac-tive villages in this zone and through engagementwith local stakeholders living on the periphery ofthe zone, received agreements from them thatthey could shift their hunting activities away fromthe new reserve area. They therefore incorpora-ted these zones into the Tayna Reserve by crea-ting a small corridor that extended northeast(Figure 3). This process was completed beforethe Tayna group submitted its next application tothe National Government to become an officiallyrecognized Nature Reserve (see below).

Obtaining legal status as aDRC protected area and crea-ting a unique community-based management approach By early 2006, the Tayna group, as well as theirneighbours to the south, the Kisimba-Ikobo grou-pements, submitted proposals to the Ministry ofEnvironment and the ICCN to become officiallyrecognized Nature Reserves. Each proposal in-

Community nature reserve boundaries arecreated in a context of stakeholder partici-pation and agreements, political realities,and the location of important biodiversity.Because of this grass-roots approach, pro-posed boundaries can undergo substantialchange before a consensus on their finalconfiguration is reached. In this project, tech-nical advice from international NGO partnersrelated to determining a final configuration forthe integral zone emphasized : 1) keeping the protected area within govern-ment-recognized administrative borders;

2) working collaboratively with neighbouringcommunities to increase connectivity of in-tegral zones (this approach was supportedby finding funding for neighbours);

3) efforts to incorporate high biodiversityzones and maintain connectivity throughthe creation of “mini-corridors”.

LESSON LEARNED 7



Figure 4. Upper figure displays the boundaries for combined Chefferies of the Bamate –Batangi Peoples;lower figure shows the integral zone for the Tayna Nature Reserve with buffer zone and location of si-gnage for demarcation.

Expanded image from Fi-gure 2, showing the boun-daries of the combinedChefferies of the Bamateand Batangi Nations (blue).The area of the Chefferiesoutside the integral zone ofthe Tayna Nature Reserve(yellow) and the bufferzone (see below) is des-ignated as a DevelopmentZone under the Tayna Ma-nagement Plan. This areais reserved for rural deve-lopment and is receivingconservation educationand awareness-raising ini-tiatives. Note the intenseareas of deforestation justoutside the limits of Tayna.Part of the Chefferie ex-tends into Virunga Nationalpark on the western borderof Lake Edward.

The Tayna Nature Reserve as it ga-zetted by Decree only includes thecompletely protected integral zone(red). A five km buffer zone extendsaround the reserve as part of Tayna’smanagement plan (yellow) but it notnecessary in the south where Taynais adjacent to two other UGADEC in-tegral zones (see text). Boundary de-marcation is by signage at 500 mintervals (yellow dashed) or signageat 2 km intervals in deeper forest fol-lowing well known rivers and geogra-phical boundaries (red). There arethree research stations in the south(yellow triangles) and another neatthe TCCB University (red asterisk).One boundary area (pink) is still beingdetermined with local stakeholders.



cluded the following documentation: 1. Official recognition by the government thatthe Tayna (and Kisimba-Ikobo) group hadreceived NGO status;

2. A management plan for the reserves, inclu-ding proposed administrative structures;

3. Documentation that the Tayna (and Ki-simba-Ikobo) group had an active Memo-randum of Agreement with the ICCN,describing their terms of cooperation;

4. Documentation that the Tayna (and Ki-simba-Ikobo) group had notified and soughtapproval from the provincial and territorialauthorities;

5. Agreements signed by local communitiesthat they supported the Nature Reserveprojects;

6. Vacances de terres (see above) signed bythe local customary powers and land usersindicating that the land found in the propo-sed reserves was not in use and would notbe needed in the future;

7. The boundary limits for the proposed re-serves (integral zones).

These proposals were reviewed by the Ministryof Environment and the ICCN, and were appro-ved and signed into law by the Minister as twoseparate decrees creating the Tayna and Ki-simba-Ikobo Nature Reserves. Once created, the two Reserves became part ofthe DRC network of protected areas under themandate of the ICCN. Management contractsbetween the ICCN and each of the Reserves’community management groups created a co-management regime in which the local commu-nities were responsible for management of theReserve, overseen by the ICCN via annual repor-ting and the creation of a CoCoSi (Site Coordina-ting Committee) for each reserve.

Recent management activitiesPhysical boundaries demarcated.

Late in 2007, the Tayna Nature Reserve becamethe first protected area in DRC to provide a com-plete physical delimitation for its boundaries. By2006, despite the success of this community re-serve approach, anecdotal evidence suggestedthat unclear boundaries were one of the limitingfactors of Tayna’s conservation capacity: fieldstaff reported that much of the illegal extractionby local residents stemmed from a lack of specificknowledge about the placement of the bounda-ries rather than a disregard for conservationgoals. To address this, a project was developedto place signage along the boundaries of the re-serve, employing local dialogue committees. Thiswas accompanied by an awareness-raising cam-paign. The demarcation project was implementedthrough eight local dialogue committees in vil-lages nearby the reserve, led by Tayna field staffand Tayna Center for Conservation Biology(TCCB) students. It began in late 2005 with aTayna management meeting that developed andimplemented the following step-by-step phasesof the project :

20 Available upon request, contact the author at [email protected] or Pierre Kakule at [email protected].

A first priority activity for any community-managed protected area should be to pro-vide a physical delimitation for itsboundaries. Local people need physical boun-daries to comply with conservation planning. Inthis project, we learned that a demarcation pro-ject needed to be done with and by local villa-gers in “dialogue committees”. Theirparticipation served to achieve consensus onthe “micro”-specifics of boundaries and sensiti-zed local stakeholders as to the exact place-ment of the boundaries. The work of placing thesigns also provided temporary employment forlocal people. The project also provided a broa-der education campaign about the necessity ofphysical demarcation of the Reserve throughprinted brochures and radio broadcasts

LESSON LEARNED 8



1. An initial “Leaders” workshop, in which tworepresentatives of each village dialoguecommittee were invited to the TCCB to ga-ther feedback from local stakeholders andto develop the details for the workplan;

2. Field visits by Tayna staff to villages withdialogue committees to sensitize local sta-keholders about the demarcation project;

3. Publication of 1000 brochures in Frenchand Swahili that were distributed in thesevillage meetings that described the Taynaproject and the importance of demarcation;

4. Radio broadcasts that described the impor-tance of the new project (via Tayna commu-nity radio station, as well as two othercommercial radio stations in the area);

5. Rotational field visits by Tayna staff to dia-logue committees to install the signs withmembers of the villages;

6. The use of the demarcation project toachieve final consensus on boundary limitsas the boundary signs were installed;

7. Establishment of a monitoring protocol ma-naged by the dialogue committees inconjunction with the Tayna field staff.

This project, which was completed in late 2007,resulted in the placement of signs at 500 m inter-vals near boundaries with the highest human traf-fic (villages in the buffer zones), with boundariesin more remote areas of the forest having signsplaced at 2 km intervals, often following well-

known rivers and streams (Figure 4). Additio-nally, large signs were placed in four key villages(Figure 5). Local villagers, led by the dialoguecommittees and Tayna field staff, were hired ona temporary basis to install the signs. Completion of a business plan for the TaynaReserve. The Tayna Reserve completed its ma-nagement plan in 2008, and along with interna-tional partners decided that the managementplan also needed an accompanying businessplan that detailed recurring costs related to staf-fing and operations. Convening of the CoCoSi (Site CoordinatingCommittee). The contract with ICCN, in whichthe RGT was responsible for Reserve manage-ment, called for a yearly meeting of a CoCoSiidentical to the standard management protocolsfor other DRC National Parks. The first Tayna Co-CoSi was held in September, 2007 and a secondwas held in September, 2008. These were atten-ded by the Tayna management group, the ICCN,Tayna’s international partner, the Dian FosseyGorilla Fund International, local stakeholders,and territorial authorities. This committee evalua-ted overall progress towards conservation anddevelopment goals, and created an activity andfinancial plan for each coming year.

Figure 5. Signage demarcating the boundaries of the Tayna Nature Reserve. This project, completed in2007, installed 195 boundary signs at 2 km and 500 m intervals (Figure 4), and eight large signs in villagesnear the reserve. The project was done in conjunction with local stakeholders through “Dialogue Com-mittees”, and local people were temporarily hired to place



Discussion and summaryThe Tayna experience demonstrates is that thereis no abstract formula or planning methodologyto create a community-managed protected area.As conservation NGOs, we sometimes mista-kenly believe that once we complete a project’slogical framework of activities and budget, thereis then a straight line along the continuum ofconception to implementation to stable and sus-tainable operations. Nothing is further from rea-lity. Unanticipated obstacles frequently emergethat require creative and adaptive solutions. Fun-ding may not be secured, and when it does ar-rive, there are often shortfalls due to unforeseenevents. Negotiations with local stakeholders canstall and sometimes break down. Key staff mem-bers may become ill or even die. Security canworsen. Governments and key policy makerschange. Logistics somehow end up being farworse than imagined. None of this minimizes therole of planning. To the contrary, without a firstroad map, one can literally get lost in the wilder-ness. But we now realize that the first planningmatrix will only partially resemble the path onetakes to later planning iterations three or fouryears into a project. One cannot emphasize en-ough the role of adaptive and flexible manage-ment policies along the way. Reaching a stablemanagement regime takes years. The Tayna project was originally conceived fromfield experiences, discussions in village councils,and around campfires, rather than through paperplanning documents. This approach better re-flects how local African groups conduct much oftheir customary governance and contrasts with awestern, linear view of the future. Nevertheless,these two approaches developed into a uniquesynthesis between a local organization and wes-tern international conservation NGOs, with muchlearning along the way. The very organic natureof the project in fact became its strength, and themyriad ways in which we all needed to adapt pro-vided a solid foundation for a novel approach toconservation in central Africa. As the Tayna groupgrew in experience and assimilated the technicaladvice of their conservation NGO partners, thelog-frames, Powerpoints©, scientific articles, ma-nagement and business plans blossomed. In re-

trospect, it is difficult to imagine how the projectcould have evolved otherwise. Without the initial“boots-on-the-ground” experiences and the loveof nature the local people exhibit for their forestsand animals, the abstract planning, administra-tive and scientific approaches would have beentoo disconnected from the very “nature” theywere trying to protect. This experiment in grass-roots communityconservation continues. With the leadership pro-vided by the Tayna Reserve, the approach hasbeen scaled up to seven other sister projects ineastern DRC, and from that, a Federation ofthese projects, UGADEC, has emerged. Later,using some elements of the Tayna model, theSankuru Nature Reserve was created. In Equa-teur Province, the Tayna model has been almostexactly replicated by another community group,Vie Sauvage, which wishes to establish the Ko-kolopori Bonobo Nature Reserve (the MinisterialDecree is now awaiting signature). As the Tayna model is now being replicated, itclearly demonstrates what we have learned asthe basic enabling conditions necessary to suc-ceed in community conservation: 1. Strong motivation on the part of local com-munities to safeguard their biodiversity andto pursue integrated conservation and de-velopment initiatives;

2. The presence of well functioning customarypowers, which provide the leadership ne-cessary to motivate local communities andmaintain an institutional foundation for wellorganized interventions;

3. A partnership with an international partnerthat encourages local leadership to flourish,can translate local aspirations about re-source management, conservation and de-velopment into internationally recognizedapproaches for creating protected areas,and can provide the essential funding to de-velop and implement projects;

4. A national government with the political willto attempt novel approaches to conserva-tion and local management regimes.

Without these basic enabling conditions, webelieve it unlikely that the Tayna experience

would have resulted in the first community-managed, nationally recognized protectedarea in DRC, nor would the model havespread to other areas.

A number of specific lessons learned from thisexperience may also be useful for internationalconservation groups to apply elsewhere to cata-lyze similar projects: 1. Look for the emergence of local groups.Be attentive to any locally organized groupsthat emerge with ideas about conservationand resource management. Their mere pre-sence probably indicates local motivation toact, and if due-diligence research confirmsthat they do indeed have potential, be wil-ling to test them with incremental financialand technical support.

2. Translate local aspirations to global fra-meworks. Aid the local group to modify andtranslate their local aspirations and ideasinto international (and national) frameworks.Here, it is important to create a knowledge-transfer process so that concepts of suffi-cient scale to preserve ecologicalprocesses and connectivity, protection ofglobally important species, ecosystem ser-vices, and technical and financial sustaina-bility are integrated into their approach.Encourage local groups to become enga-ged at wider levels (provincial, national, re-gional, international) to increase theirknowledge base.

3. Understand the local groups’ interests.It is unusual that human communities do so-mething for nothing. Be cognizant that thelocal group is quite aware of their opportu-nity costs. Through direct contractual quidpro quo arrangements providing benefits,and through extensive education aboutlong-term benefits, ensure that local groupsperceive their actions as enabling them toreach development objectives.

4. Moral, ethical and philosophical princi-ples are essential. Often, as conservationNGOs, we are the first groups to reach iso-lated areas where biodiversity is still intact.Because of this isolation, local people maylack immediate, critical needs, most oftenrelated to health and food security issues.

As a priority, find partners or donors thatcan help meet these needs as a gesture ofgoodwill. Hungry, ill people are unlikely tobe interested in long-term resource mana-gement. To ignore these needs is moral re-lativism and will not go unnoticed by localcommunities.

5. Foster independence and autonomy.We, as conservation NGOs, often believewe have most of the answers in our toolkits. Local groups know their social contextsbest, and they need the freedom and theopportunity to conduct their own experi-ments to gain experience. Empowerment isnot a top-down process, nor can it be fast-tracked. Project sustainability ultimately de-pends on the ability of local communities tomanage their own natural resources.

104 Case study 3 - CHAPTER 2


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