Complexity of zoning management in biosphere reserves: the case of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve in DRC

Riparian communities activities threaten conservation in biosphere reserves in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) is no exception to this degradation. Thus, the objective of the presents study was to elucidate the local factors underlying the high pressure on natural resources and analyze the complexity of biosphere reserve zoning management using an interdisciplinary approach combining document review, field surveys and semi-structured interviews. Our results revealed that the zoning applied to the YBR did not take into account social dynamics. With population growth, the riparian community is doomed to remain in restricted areas, leading to over-exploitation of the space and land degradation, forcing the population to travel long distances to reach fertile plots into the protected area. Also, the lack of employment and the absence of participatory zoning also exacerbate tensions between the manager and the riparian community. For an effective management of the YBR, political authorities should become more involved in the participatory zoning of conservation areas and village exploitations. In addition, they should improve farming techniques to mitigate soil degradation

Complexity of zoning management in biosphere reserves: the case of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve in DRC

International audienc

Effectiveness of the Yangambi biosphere reserve in reducing deforestation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Published online: 14 Jan 2023Establishing protected areas creates an opportunity to reduce deforestation. This study aims to inform the Congolese government’s efforts to promote forest and biodiversity conservation by assessing the effectiveness of the Yangambi Biosphere Reserve (YBR) in reducing deforestation. Group and individual interviews designed to understand the causes of pressure on forest cover in the Yangambi landscape complemented satellite imagery analyses. The results indicate that deforestation inside the YBR is not significantly different from outside the YBR. They demonstrate the lack of impact of the YBR in reducing deforestation. The dependence of communities on forest resources would have led to an explosion of bare and fallow land replacing forest areas. A sufficient budget allocation for conservation coupled with capacity building of managers to implement integrated conservation projects could offer alternative livelihoods at the community level, reduce pressure on natural resources from local development and ensure biodiversity conservation in and around the YBR