Programme Ecofaune +

The outcomes of the study trip to Zakouma from December 2017

Andrea — 2018-10-29T14:20:50Z

A mission of study and exchange of experiences organized and financed by the ECOFAUNE+ Project and the APN (African Parks Networks), took place in Chad, more particularly in N'Djamena and the Zakouma National Park in December 2017. What are the lessons learned?

The organization of this mission was suggested by the finding of strong similarity between the ecological physiognomy and the recent history of the experience of Zakouma National Park in Chad and that of the protected area complex of Northeastern CAR.

Similarly to the ZAKOUMA national park, that was able to rebuild its once rich ecosystems very quickly thanks to the unshakable will of the Chadian Government and the consequent investments realized among others by the APN, the North-East of the CAR can also become again a paradise for wildlife, inspired by the experiment on ZAKOUMA.

Two objectives had motivated this mission: (i) a visit to a protected area where intense poaching took place and which managed to stabilize the situation with appropriate political will and investment; ii) identify possible synergies in terms of territorial surveillance, and intelligence between the Aouk program, managed by APN (which should start its activities in the coming months) and Ecofaune + managed by AGRECO.

The mission allowed the two deputies of Ndélé, as well as the Director of Wildlife and Protected Areas and the Director of the Bamingui Bangoran National Park, to confront their Chadian interlocutors and find that, as the case of Zakouma shows, it is still possible to restore the ecosystems of Bamingui Bangoran and Manovo. They saw how also for CAR it is still possible to reverse the path of destruction engendered by the civil war of recent years and the lack of state control over transhumance, poaching and the exploitation of resources.

In conclusion, a very informative experience for all. The lessons learned during this study trip, particularly with regard to the issue of transboundary transhumance management, have also been taken up by the Bamingui-Bangoran SDAT (Spatial Planning Master Plan), prepared by the Ecofaune+ project.

Ecofaune-MINUSCA collaboration for the realization of a community work in Bamingui

Andrea — 2018-10-29T11:31:50Z

A collaboration between Ecofaune+ and the MINUSCA PakBat based in Bamingui, made it possible the construction of the storare room and hangar that will complete the small complex of the Bamingui community bakery.

On 16 September 2018, MINUSCA provided the Ecofaune+ project with a truck for the transport of 1200 bricks from the village of Bamingui to the base of Bamingui Bangoran National Park, where a warehouse and a littel hangar are being built to complete the community bakery inaugurated last August. The big 4x4 truck of the Pakistan contingent was indeed the only means of transport allowing to move more than three tons of bricks, and to cross the river Bamingui overflowing of its bed because of the heavy rains of the last weeks. Throughout the morning, the UN soldiers, along with the Ecofaune staff, helped by the village youth, participated enthusiastically in this initiative of community interest.
And this beacause, of course, everyone is very happy to be able to finally buy fresh bread in Bamingui!

Rangers of the Bamingui Bangoran National Park learn how to cross rivers!

Andrea — 2018-10-29T11:07:49Z

Every year, between July and October, the Bamingui Bangoran National Park is hit by major floods of all its rivers: a real challenge to continue anti-poaching activities in this protected area.

In September, the rangers of Bamingui Bangoran National Park, as part of their ongoing training, learned about watercourse crossing techniques: the «back and forth» method and «utilitarian swimming». The floods that characterize this region each year often require ranges to cross very deep rivers to reach the patrol areas. It is therefore crucial that they learn to safely cross them to continue the fundamental anti-poaching work.

Opening of the experimental Guinea fowl farming in Bamingui

Andrea — 2018-10-29T11:03:57Z

During the month of September 2018 the construction of the enclosure for experimental breeding of Guinea fowl in Bamingui was completed.

The Bamingui Bangoran community's need for protein, where much of the food intake is made up of wild meat, and the economic opportunity presented by poultry farming, have pushed the population of this region to propose, among the microprojects that can be supported by ECOFAUNE+, an experimental breeding of guinea fowl.
In Bamingui, the Group entitled «Standing Woman» («The idea is isolated but its realization is done together» is their motto), is engaged in the development of a guinea fowl breeding programme. The guinea fowl (Numida meleagris), a species native to sub-Saharan Africa, is well adapted to the African climate and is able, unlike exotic chickens, to withstand harsh breeding conditions. The aim is therefore to make this species an important component of the farmyard in the Bamingui Bangoran Prefecture, similarly to the Ouham / Ouham Pendé one, where the guinea fowl is regularly raised and consumed.
At the end of September (with a lot of difficulties!) The first animals arrived in Bamingui by road from the region of Paoua. Once stock will be complete and the animal reproduction ongoing, guinea fowls will diversify the income of "Standing Woman" through the sale of eggs, male guinea fowl and guinea fowl chicks. In their opinion, Bamingui guinea fowl breeding it is a promising example of poultry farming in rural areas and they are ready to promote it in Bamingui Bangoran Prefecture, particularly in Vassako Commune.

The last giraffes of the CAR

Andrea — 2018-10-29T10:51:12Z

Bamingui Bangoran National Park is home to what is now considered the last RCA giraffe population. Since 2017 Ecofaune + is monitoring their numbers and movements to preserve the individuals of this species in the park.

The giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis antiquorum) of Northern RCA are the «kordofan», a subspecies that has become very rare. Once abundant in the park, their numbers declined sharply during the 1980s: in 1985 there were about 1750 individuals; in 2005 their population was estimated at 535 individuals, falling to only 162 in 2010. During the recent civil war, with no possibility of control on the ground and because of an intense circulation of armed people in Northern RCA, this trend is aggravated.
During the 2017 aerial survey conducted by ECOFAUNE + with the support of WCS, only 2 giraffes could be observed. During the March / April 2018 foot survey of 7996 square kilometers, 28 traces of giraffes were recorded, most of them belonging to just one small group. We now know, thanks to the monitoring put in place by ECOFAUNE+ during the last 12 months, that there remains in the park a population of 7 to 8 individuals including a group of 4-5 giraffes which occupies the south-east part of the park and the ZCV Bamingui-Bangoran and a couple observed in the southern sector moving regularly in the ZCV Koukourou; and finally, a young female, a bit more than a year old, named Kristel by the Bamingui Bangoran rangers, found in an area 30 kilometers north of park headquarters. The movements of these groups are regularly monitored by the rangers that constantly patrol the territory. An advanced monitoring station has been set up in the Kristel area to ensure its safety. It is still possible that other giraffes exist in the park or in the area of Manovo, but currently, it is estimated that the total population of giraffes at Bamingui Bangoran (and indeed throughout CAR) would not exceed ten individuals. With such a limited number, the only hope that the species will survive in CAR is based on intensified and strategic protection.
In the meantime, the ECOFAUNE+ project has explored, with an expert from the «Giraffe Conservation Foundation», the possibility of placing satellite units on one or more individuals to better track and protect them. Putting a satellite transmitter requires the capture of the animal, which involves a risk, although little, because of the need to anesthetize the animal to set up the equipment. The reduced visibility, both on the ground and from a plane due to the high dense vegetation at the end of the rainy season, makes it necessary to wait until the dry season to carry out this operation. With such a limited number of giraffes in Northern RCA, it will be important to assess the feasibility of the intervention, including weighing risks and benefits, before any actions is done. In the meantime, Kristel will have grown up, and with the safety of the area resulting from the work of the rangers it is hoped that other individuals will come to seek refuge there.

Opening of the community bakery in Bamingui

Andrea — 2018-09-15T08:28:08Z

The community bakery in Bamingui is operational since August 15, 2018. It is an income-generating activity solicited by the SARA I GA ZO group ("Let's move forward together to be independent"), which contributes to a dynamic of self-development expressed by local women.

«Sara i ga zo» is an entity made up of a dozen women from the villages of Bamingui and Niango, many of whom have made farming their main source of income.
Thanks to ECOFAUNE + COMPONENT NORTH, «Sara i ga zo», was technically assisted to build the bread oven, to learn about the traditional bread making technique as well as about the accounting and financial management of the bakery.
Since it began operation, the women of the bakery produce three weekly batches, 220 loaves per batch, fully sold, including in neighboring villages. Given the success of the initiative, an increase in production is already envisaged. «We produce accessible bread to everyone, without excluding low-income households», say the women in the group. At the same time, this activity will enable the dozen households involved in bread production to increase their monthly income and improve their living conditions.
The entire local population will also benefit from the supply of bread and the socio-economic dynamism of which the bakery is at the origin.

Understand Ecofaune + in 2 minutes

Zhou (Terre Nourricière) — 2018-09-11T12:56:21Z

Discover Bamingui Bangoran Park and its conservation program in 2 minutes of beautiful images.
An introductory video of the program from the 20-minute documentary produced in 2018.

- Current program news / The voice of..., afficher sur la page d'accueil

Valorisation of shea butter in Bamingui-Bangoran

Zhou (Terre Nourricière) — 2018-07-30T14:06:00Z

From 20 to 28 June 2018, at the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park Operational Centre, 19 women from Vassako commune attended a one-week training course on shea nut processing and recovery.

As part of the reinforcement of the Community Eco-Development Fund (FICED) in the Bamingui-Bangoran, ECOFAUNE + finances microprojects focused on the valorisation of biodiversity products. Between June 20th and 28th, a specialist from Burkina Faso's Association “CEAS” held a training course aimed at providing participants with practical and theoretical knowledge on improved techniques for the collection, processing and storage of shea nuts and on the production of high quality shea butter.
The training strengthened the technical capacities of the women's groups in Kotissako and Bamingui involved in the valorisation of shea by: i) supplying the groups with three tools for manually extracting shea butter (manual crusher, manual churn and filter manual butter); (ii) the training of groups on good harvesting, processing and conditioning practices of shea kernels and techniques for extracting shea butter; (iii) the training of women's groups on the use of the equipment.
At the end of the training the 19 women produced 36 liters of high quality butter! More importantly, the training allowed the women, thanks to the “churning” technique, to achieve an average transformation yield of 30% (100 kg of nuts to obtain 30 kg of butter) whereas traditionally the extraction by cooking gave an inferior quality shea butter and a yield that did not exceed 15%.
The women of the two groups will be accompanied in the coming months by the ECOFAUNE social development coordinator, which will consolidate their capacity on the sustainable use of this important resource of the North RCA biodiversity.

Not only the mega fauna! Northern CAR is rich in birds, especially in the floodplain forests

Zhou (Terre Nourricière) — 2018-07-30T14:04:00Z

The December 2017 Ecofaune + Project study shows that North RCA is home to many different bird species because of its wide variety of habitats.

Northern CAR is very important for birds. This is why BirdLife International has identified a large part of this area as an "Important Bird Area". In order to study the importance of the area, systematic bird counts were conducted in December 2017 in five habitat types: (1) wet forest, (2) dry forest, (3) savannah, (4) rocky zone and (5) arable zone.
From these data, we can conclude that floodplain forests attract more bird species than any other habitat and that birds reach high densities here. The floodplain forest in Bamingui was extremely rich (23.6 birds / ha, 52 species) compared to Ndélé (7.2 birds / ha, 26 species). In Bamingui, all the floodplain forests were located along the river (which was not yet dry). On the other hand, in Ndélé, the floodplain forests were dry (apart from a few small ponds). In addition, the vegetation was different, for example large Irvingia smithii in Bamingui and mainly Acacia species in Ndélé. Forests can therefore be considered as key habitats.
In forests, some tree species attract more forest birds than others. Among the trees with high densities of birds are: Acacia sieberiana, Faidherbia albida, Irvingia smithii, Parkia biglobosa, Prosopis africana and Tamarindus indica. Other tree species frequented by many birds had flowers (Bombax costatum or Daniellia oliveri) or berries (Bridelia scleroneura, Ficus capreifolia, Ficus exasperata). Given the wide variation among woody species in the season in which they flower or have berries, large seasonal variations in the use of trees can be expected. Tamarindus indica was already very attractive in November-December (no flowers), but more birds are expected when this tree species is in bloom. The same goes for Parkia biglobosa (flowers in March-April). Taking this into consideration, we can conclude that the preservation of a great diversity of woody species is the best guarantee for the conservation of birds in the region.

New documentary on ECOFAUNE project

Zhou (Terre Nourricière) — 2018-06-05T12:46:00Z

This documentary reflects the testimonies, opinions and expectations of the various local and central actors regarding the evolving state of ecosystems and biodiversity of north-eastern CAR, at the same time providing information on the status of progress of the activities carried out by the ECOFAUNE+ project and on the intermediate results achieved.

The north-east of the Central African Republic is portrayed in this documentary as a wildlife paradise until the late 80's. Endowed with a paradisiacal landscape composed of magnificent savannas, forests, gallery forests and floodplains, this part of the country was home to up to 34,000 elephants and 2,000 giraffes in 1977. The repeated conflicts and the resulting dissemination of weapons are presented as the incubating factors of the large poaching and facilitators of the transboundary transhumance disorder that have exterminated this rich fauna.

This introductory overview is followed by interviews and information around certain activities and measures envisaged and implemented by the project to mitigate these threats and other identified problems. These communications relate to:

1. The process under development of the Master Plan of the project area. In this section, it is highlighted the need for collaboration on issues such as livestock transhumance with African Parks Networks that intervenes in protected areas on the Chadian side (Zakouma national park and the hunting area of Zakouma) and the Chinko site in the South-East of Central African Republic. The participatory nature of the development process of the said Spatial Planning Direction is also highlighted. The studies and surveys carried out (cartography, anthropology, mapping of mineral resources, entomology, ichthyology, hydrology), which made it possible to determine the values and the pressures on ecosystems, are also presented. This sequence is enriched by the extracts of the interventions of the Rector and the Researchers of the University of Bangui, authors of the studies carried out and by that of Dr. Hilde Vanleeuwe concerning the aerial survey. This sequence also lists the expectations that the master plan is supposed to take into account in particular, the zoning and the micro-zoning of the peripheral territories of the protected areas.

2. Qualifying training of young people, with an overview on the objective of the training which aims to provide opportunities for self-employment to young people in order to make future pioneers of development of Bamingui-Bangoran. The other advantageous side of this qualifying training is that it allows diverting these young people from illegal activities, like poaching. It is followed by excerpts from the closing ceremony of the last training session for 50 young people, which resulted in the delivery of the kits corresponding to the socio-professional sector of each.

3. The village hunting zones, which are intended to be a model for the decentralized management of wildlife resources through a partnership between local communities and operators of sport hunting and vision tourism. This sequence underlines the benefits in terms of tax revenues and induced goods generated by this model.

4. The inter-community fund for eco-development (FICED) is also presented. This fund, as it is presented, aims to facilitate the access of local populations to microloans. It is dedicated to financing micro-projects intended on the one hand, to improve the welfare of the promoters and their families and on the other hand, to help reduce the pressure on biodiversity and ecosystems.

5. Bio-monitoring with a focus on the far-reaching results of the aerial wildlife survey carried out in the project area (North-East of CAR) in Mar-Apr 2018, comparing it with the results of inventories carried out since 1977. The use of camera traps and the use of a foot surveys are also mentioned to supplement the information resulting from this aerial survey. The interest of the data of this survey in the planning of anti-poaching operations and in informing the Bamingui-Bangoran prefecture master plan, is also highlighted. The objective of creating a core conservation area to secure the remaining wildlife and attracting that which can come from elsewhere, is also mentioned.

6. Anti-poaching, with a focus on the recruitment process and the training of rangers on anti-poaching as well as on monitoring operations in protected areas and the village hunting zones (HZCs) is presented. This sequence is enriched by the arguments and testimonies of the Park Director and the leaders of anti-poaching patrols.
Communications on measures to correct identified threats and problems are punctuated with comments, concerns and expectations from the diversity of interviewees. Each contribution of the project is related to the opinions expressed by the interviewees and vice versa. Hereinafter some of these opinions:

The unemployment of young people with as a corollary their shift into illegal activities, including poaching, to ensure their survival, poses a threat to wildlife.

The discontinuity of protected area monitoring due to sometimes long interruption periods between two phases of a program or between two successive projects, is detrimental to the achievements of the conservation objectives.

When you prohibit people to poach, it is better to offer alternatives.

ECOFAUNE + will, through sensitization and other actions that it deems useful, encourage the emergence of a behavioral shift toward the conservation and restoration of wildlife in the Northeast.

By protecting wildlife, ECOFAUNE+ contributes to the protection of the local people, by contributing to restoration of the rule of law of the Central African state.

The contributions of ECOFAUNE + is not limited solely to the conservation of the ecosystems and biodiversity of North East CAR. The planes he has rented for his needs have always been used both to transport pharmaceuticals to Ndélé and to carry out emergency evacuations on Bangui.

As a local administrative authority, ECOFAUNE+ has been involved in several awareness-raising campaigns together with local traditional and governmental authorities.

The presence of ECOFAUNE + has the merit of projecting to the outside, a positive image of the Bamingui-Bangoran prefecture. This has already enabled the prefecture to benefit from school, sanitary, administrative and road infrastructure restoration projects.

This documentary was presented for the first time to an audience of about sixty people invited to the Fourth Meeting of the ECOFAUNE +Inter-ministerial Steering Committee held on May 30, 2018 at the “Alliance Française” in Bangui.