Development of sustainable agriculture and protection of the bonobo in the territory of Bolobo

The project “Development of sustainable agriculture and protection of the bonobo in the territory of Bolobo” is carried out in the future forest concession of the local communities of the Mbali river located in the territory of Bolobo, Province of Bandundu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The project will cover the village lands of around 84,735 ha belonging to the Bodzuna, Embirima, Makaa, Mbee, Mpelu and Nkala villages, ie around 6,000 people. The Bolobo region is home to bonobos, a species endemic to the DRC and listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

The latest inventories carried out in 2015 reveal a density of bonobos estimated at 0.76 ind. / km² for all the sites concerned. They live in a forest-savanna mosaic (40% herbaceous-shrub savannah and 60% tropical rainforest). Almost all of the households there practice shifting slash-and-burn agriculture, impoverishing the soil and degrading the forests. This practice poses a major threat to bonobo habitat and the environment globally. This is how this project encourages the cultivation of legumes in the savannah, which enrich the soil and allow the population to increase their income while gradually reducing their dependence on the forest.

MMT’s mission is to safeguard biodiversity, more particularly the bonobo (Pan paniscus), and its habitat by associating its protection with the development of alternative economic activities likely to improve the living conditions of the local population. To accomplish its mission, MMT, based on article 22 of the Congolese forest code, is supporting the local population in the process of obtaining a forest concession from local communities to develop the conservation of Bonobo through the revaluation of customs, respect and application of laws, participatory community monitoring, ecotourism and the development of alternative income-generating activities.

It is in this context that MMT wishes to develop a pilot field project for the multiplication of legume seeds with high nutritional and market values ​​in consumption centers such as Bolobo, Mushie, Tshumbiri and Ngabenge (in the DRC) and M’pouya. , Makotimpoko and Mongolo (in Congo Brazzaville). The seeds from the pilot fields will be distributed to the population who will cultivate them in the barren savannah in order to reduce the pressure on the forest, habitat of the bonobo.

It is also a question of developing sustainable agriculture favorable to both self-consumption and the diversification of income sources. The main objective of this project is to increase the involvement of local populations in the conservation of bonobos by reducing pressure on their habitat and improving the diet and living conditions of local populations. This project is part of a global program: “Great Apes of Central Africa of the PPI” (PPI-GSAC) which is a joint initiative developed by 6 African Civil Society Organizations, partners of the PPI in Central Africa whose objective is the pooling of their experiences and an action program.