Basic Info:
Location: Gamba and Mayumba National Parks (Gabon) and Conkouati National Park (Republic of Congo), Boumba and Nki Protected Areas and Dja National Forest Reserve (Cameroon), Minkebe National Park (Gabon) and Odzala National Park (Republic of Congo), Lobeke National Park (Cameroon), Nouabalé Ndoki National Park (Republic of Congo) and Dzangha-Sangha National Park (Central African Republic)

Amount: US$6.6M ($3.3M UNF, $3.3M in matching funds from partner NGOs)
Partners: World Wildlife Fund US, Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International, Jane Goodall Institute, FAO
Duration: 2003 - 2007

Project Objectives:
• COMBAT illegal hunting and regulate the bushmeat trade
• STRENGTHEN law enforcement for the protection of key trans-border protected areas, linking corridors and their buffer zones
• IMPROVE the management of key protected areas
• PREPARE the nomination of new trans-border World Heritage sites in the Congo Basin forest
• IDENTIFY possibilities for long term funding of the proposed World Heritage sites

Why is this project important?
The Congo Basin forests of Central Africa constitute the world’s second largest rainforest area. These forests cover 70% of Africa’s remaining rainforests and one quarter of the world’s remaining forests. They harbor the highest biodiversity in Africa and are home to a variety of globally endangered tropical forest megafauna such as gorillas, chimpanzees, mandrills, elephants, bongos and okapis.
The forest is also the source of livelihood for more than 20 million people, who depend on it for food, timber, medicinal plants and other products. Despite its widely recognized importance for biodiversity conservation, the Congo basin forest ecosystem is for the moment under-represented on the List of World Natural Heritage: only the Dja Forest Reserve in Cameroon, Salonga and Kahuzi-Biega National Parks and Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are currently recognized as World Heritage.
Congo basin forests are highly threatened. Although deforestation is a major issue, there is growing concern that “defaunation” due to heavy poaching pressures might transform the remaining forests into “silent forests”. Almost all parts of the Congo Basin forest experience some form of hunting pressure, and commercial bushmeat trade is now widely-recognized as the number one threat to the regions’ biodiversity.
Together with the Governments of Cameroon, DRC, Gabon, Central African Republic, NGO partners and FAO, the UNESCO World Heritage Centre is launching the CentralAfrican World Heritage Forest Initiative (CAWHFI) to promote and support the building of protected area management regimes in key forest protected areas in the Congo Basin that will satisfy standards benefiting World Heritage Status, and combat the principal threats of illegal hunting and unregulated bushmeat trade.

Key issues
Bushmeat trade is silencing the forest
The bushmeat trade in Central Africa is estimated at 1 million metric tons of wildlife a year. The trade is driven by an ever -increasing demand from growing populations in the cities. Forest antelopes, bush pigs and primates are the primary victims. Already in West Africa, many of the forest antelope and primate species are on the brink of extinction, and rodents have replaced them as the most commonly eaten animals. Now that the Congo basin forest has been opened up for forest exploitation, the same could happen in Central Africa in the next 5 – 10 years. Scientific data shows that subsistence hunting of wildlife to meet people’s demand for animal protein can only be sustainable as long as population densities remain below 2 inhabitants per square kilometer. The commercial bushmeat hunting is driving species rapidly into extinction and turning the forest from one of the richest ecosystems on earth into silent forests filled with trees but without any larger animals. The ecology of the tropical forest is still poorly understood, but given the ecological role of many species in seed dispersal, this “defaunation” may lead in the long term to a complete collapse of the ecosystem.

Bushmeat trade and logging
The increased problem with bushmeat is closely related to the logging industry. In the past, many of the forests were very remote and access was very difficult. With logging concessions now starting operations in the remotest forests of Central Africa, access to the forest has been facilitated: roads are built to extract valuable timber species and to transport timber to the exporting ports in the region. Logging concessions also bring in new people into the region to build the roads, extract and process timber. Logging company employees live in camps in the concession and depend on bushmeat for their protein intake: it is estimated that each employee consumes between 5 and 10 kg of bushmeat a year. Logging camps also attract other people, looking for jobs. Many will try to earn a living by trading bushmeat to nearby cities. Immigrant hunters follow newly opened concessions, deplete the forest and move on to the next one. Local populations and especially indigenous pygmy groups, are left with an empty forest and scattered livelihoods.

Supporting the Yaounde Commitments
On 17th of March 1999, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon signed the Yaoundé Summit Declaration that commits these countries to meeting the 10% target for protected forests. Success in implementing the Yaoundé Declaration requires that two major and related goals be attained: bringing the bushmeat crisis under control and strengthening national systems of protected areas. The partners to the CAWHFI initiative wish to respond to the call for co-operation made by the Heads of States in the Yaoundé Declaration. Indeed, the objectives of this project directly support those of the Declaration by contributing to upgrading law enforcement and to controlling the bushmeat trade, which are both critical requirements for the conservation of tropical forest protected areas in Central Africa.

CAWHFI.pdf