Partnerships
WCS-Congo works with many conservation partners, from community management initiatives and private sector partnerships to transboundary wildlife protection and international donor organizations.
Protected areas form the core of WCS-Congo's biodiversity conservation program, because parks and reserves are the only places where biodiversity conservation is the primary, legally mandated land use. Protected areas are designated to provide long term protection for wildlife and habitat.
However, establishing a national park or reserve is often not sufficient to guarantee the protection of some species, such as forest elephants and bongo, which range long distances and often travel outside the limits of any single protected area. Some species are not currently adequately protected in Protected Areas, whilst other species include significant populations that are found in forest concessions and other non-protected areas. In order to protect species such as these, and address growing threats such as commercial bushmeat trade and road encroachment, we have to focus our protection efforts on the entire landscape.