The Ivindo National Park (Parc National de l'Ivindo (PNI))
(300,000ha) is one of the 13 new parks created in Gabon in august 2002. The
development of conservation and valorization activities within the PNI are new
to the area and involve changes that affect and worry local communities residing
next to the park. These communities have not been prepared nor involved in the
plans.
People's traditional territories (old villages) are located
along the Ivindo river, flowing through the new National Park. People's main
economic activities are hunting, fishing and sand digging, all of which take
place in or on the shores of the Ivindo river, in the area covered largely by
the new park. Alternative economic opportunities are scarce.
Makokou is the main town in the region and situated just next
to the park (see map). Administratively, Makokou includes several villages, a
number of which have activities along the Ivindo river. Except for a few studies
on hunting, traditional culture and ethnobotany, there is very little
information on local people's needs or priorities regarding their environment
around the PNI (or any of the National Parks that have just been created). The
village of Loa loa was chosen for this pilot study. It is closest to the park
and has the highest number of fishing and hunting camps along the Ivindo. The
majority of Loa loa is from the Kota ethnic group, although others are also
present (Makina and Fang)
Map of the study area and sample plots.
The study
The team stayed in the village for 4 weeks
(31/03/2005 to 26/04/2005).
People often had difficulty in understanding our
intentions, as they were not used to this kind of research. They confused us
with Park authorities and conservation NGO's who do not have a very good
reputation among the villagers.
People participated well in the first community
meetings and mapping exercises. Later on it became more difficult to motivate
people. As in Cameroon, people were not interested in non-alcoholic refreshments
and snacks during exercises and the village work involved managing continuous
demands for alcohol and other compensation. Alcohol consumption and internal
conflicts were a recurrent problem. Nevertheless: when people were participating
they were generally willing to share a lot of information and experiences.
Particularly the women made a lot of efforts on drawings during mapping and
showing the products that they collect.
Community mapping with older women and PDM
exercise with younger men.
The fieldwork described 30 plots in 25 days. The
two botanists were of the ethnic group as our village and knew a lot of the
local names, leading to many constructive discussions. Plots were surveyed near
the village but also along the river. For this we organized two trips of 7 and 5
days, camping. Due to time constraints we limited the plots to the area most
frequently used. We also stayed quite close to the river, as one of our
informants was an old man who could not walk for hours at a time. Plant
identification has been done by our main botanist Prosper Mbazza.
Plot in a swamp and a botany lesson from our
informant Mr. Mangongwé André
Sponsors
- EC - European Commission
- CIFOR within the framework of the project:
"Rehabilitation and revitalization of the IRET Research Station at
Makokou/Ipassa".
 
Partners
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