Conservation Strategies
WCS aims to help conserve biodiversity in Congo by working with the Government, local communities and private sector partners to adopt a landscape scale management approach, establishing and maintaining a network of well-managed protected areas.
WCS believes that protected areas should form the core of conservation activities in the Congo Basin, since parks and reserves are the only places where biodiversity conservation is the primary, legally mandated land use. However, we also need to maintain high-quality habitat and wildlife conservation in multiple use areas adjacent to and between protected areas if we are to safeguard the full range of Congo's biodiversity and wide ranging species such as elephant and bongo. This strategy integrates diverse goals of conservation and human use, including protection, commercial exploitation, local subsistence use, agriculture, industry, and urban development within a complex mosaic of land and resource use.
As people around the world continue to expand into wilderness areas, and as we successfully conserve healthy wildlife populations, the needs of people and the needs of wildlife will increasingly clash. This means that we must develop land-use management practices and policies that enable people and wildlife to share the same landscapes.