LAC TÉLÉ COMMUNITY RESERVE , Republic of Congo — Standing on a riverbank in Lac Télé Community Reserve in March, naturalist Joseph Oyange watched as fishermen guided their pirogues through the lazy current. Nets fanned out in graceful arcs before sinking into waters alive with tilapia and catfish. Nearby, a kingfisher launched from a low-hanging branch, while farther downstream, a hippo belched. “This,” Oyange said, “is the real Garden of Eden.”

Oyange is a Congolese naturalist whose involvement in conservation spans almost 30 years. Much of his work focuses on Lac Télé Community Reserve, in the heart of the world’s largest peatland. He was part of a Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) team that surveyed the reserve in 2006 and 2007 and made the stunning discovery that roughly 125,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) inhabit the Likouala region’s swamp forests; remarkable considering that it outnumbered the approximate total population of the subspecies, classified as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List.

“We always knew there were gorillas in and around Lac Télé,” Oyange said, “but myself and my colleagues had no idea — not a clue — we had so many.”

The reserve, according to the study, has about five gorillas per square kilometer (13 gorillas per square mile) — one of the highest density estimates in the world.

“Foreigners are surprised by this, but we aren’t,” said Emmanuel Mambou, a fisherman from Epena, a cluster of roughly two dozen thatched homes on the banks of the Ngiri River, the nearest settlement to the lake. Mambou has been fishing the intricate network of waterways around Lac Télé for nearly two decades, and joked that lowland gorilla sightings “are sometimes more common than catching fish.”

Télé is a round, 8-by-6-kilometer (5-by-4-mile) lake surrounded by pristine forest at the heart of the Likouala swamps, a vast area of northeastern Republic of Congo that very few people visit.

“I’ve spent years working in the region,” Oyange said, “but I’ve only ever visited the lake itself twice.” He explained that motor vehicles are of no use due to the thick, untamed vegetation, and trekking into the site on foot pitted him against leeches, insects and other fauna, some of which he couldn’t identify. The varying water levels sporadically turned a grueling trek into an impromptu, treacherous swim.

“It isn’t a fun journey.”

A tale of east and west

The reserve was established in 2001 to protect 4,400 km2 (1,700 mi2) of swamp forest, flooded and wooded savannas, and riverways. Jointly managed by WCS and the Republic of Congo’s Ministry of Forest Economy, the reserve is home to large populations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes), red colobus monkeys (genus Piliocolobus), leopards (Panthera pardus), forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis), hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius), duikers and four different species of crocodile, as well as gorillas.

“Although no precise figures can be given due to the lack of specific studies, this area of the Republic of Congo is associated with very low deforestation and degradation rates,” according to the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). “The current deforestation rates are estimated at 0.1 percent. In the western section of the landscape, forests are still untouched because of their inaccessibility.”

In 2010, the governments of the Republic of the Congo and the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo established a transnational protected area, combining Lac Télé Community Reserve and the Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe wilderness area. Clément Kolopp, WCS communication officer for the region, says the landscape is notably well-preserved compared to other parts of the Congo Basin. “It’s such a remote place with not a lot of human settlement, so large parts haven’t been impacted in a major way. If we continue to anticipate threats before they arise, this reserve will remain intact.”

But this only applies to the western side of the reserve. It’s a different story in the east, where poaching, overfishing and deforestation have all become pressing concerns.

“It’s a simple matter of human population distribution,” said local conservationist Selah Abong’o. “The surrounding forests of Lac Télé and the western side of the reserve have no tarmac roads, major urban centers and overall low human populations. That’s why it’s such a Shangri-La to the west, and so much messier to the east.”

Fishing provides

The estimated 20,000 people who live in the reserve rely on fish as their primary protein source, according to surveys conducted by WCS. The 27 villages scattered across the reserve’s vast landscape are almost all along the shores of the many lakes and rivers.

“We eat so many fish because it’s easy to get. We live right on the water,” fisherman Martin Tshibanda told Mongabay. Tshibanda said catching fish in the rivers around Epena, west of the lake, has never been a problem.

But according to Kolopp, WCS’s fisheries consultant has found that the reserve’s fish stock is dwindling in the eastern parts of the reserve, where Kolopp said the number of fishermen has increased, along with demand.

Like much of the African continent, the Republic of Congo’s population is growing fast. In 1990, the World Bank estimated the population at about 4.2 million. By 2023, that had grown to 5.6 million. While the population is growing fastest in urban centers like Brazzaville, the capital, and Pointe-Noire, the commercial center, this still puts pressure on resources within the reserve. WCS has said that fish depletion stems from overfishing, mostly “to supply urban markets further afield.”

On the banks of the Congo River, across the border in the DRC, but less than 200 km (120 mi) from Lac Télé as the crow flies, is the city of Mbandaka, which grew from 250,000 in the early 2000s to approximately 400,000 by 2022.

Oyange said the number of fishers is growing throughout the reserve. “There are fish here, and so more people are realizing that it’s a good way to make a living, especially if they manage to sell to the more urbanized markets.”

But fishing, even when fish is caught then smoked or dried so it can be sold in commercial quantities in distant markets, is less of a threat to the reserve’s ecosystems than other activities. Most of the fish in the area’s rivers are fast reproducers, making them a more sustainable dietary staple than bushmeat. Cane rats, duikers, larger antelopes and sometimes even apes have been consumed by communities within and around the reserve.

“A pretty big conversation among conservationists who study the reserve is how important fish consumption is,” Oyange said. “Basically, if people eat fish and that’s how they get their protein, they won’t go off trying to hunt bushmeat. If that continues, it’s a pretty great defense against poaching.”

Oyange emphasized the need for sustainable fishing methods, but still said fish consumption is placing less ecological pressure on the reserve than hunting larger game would.

Illicit hunting has continued, however, to satisfy urban markets, where bushmeat remains in high demand. Markets in nearby cities like Mbandaka, Bikoro and Inongo sell bushmeat, fish and sometimes even live animals. Brazzaville-based activist Ana Ndaye told Mongabay that in 2021 she traced the supply chain of live animals — fish eagles (Haliaeetus vocifer) and gray parrots (Psittacus erithacus) — sold in markets in Brazzaville and Kinshasa, DRC, back to Lac Télé Community Reserve.

“Live animals captured in the more developed eastern side of the reserve are taken to Mbandaka,” she said. “Usually they’re sold in the markets of Mbandaka. But if not, the city sits right on the confluence of the Congo and Ruki rivers, which directly connects Mbandaka to places like Kinshasa and Brazzaville. This helps facilitate the movement of live animals, fish and bushmeat from the more accessible eastern side of the reserve to far-away urban markets.”

Community-led conservation

The wider Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe wilderness area that the Lac Télé reserve belongs to is the third-largest wetland in the world, surpassed only by South America’s Pantanal and Brazil’s Rio Negro.

“It is the most spectacular place I’ve ever worked in,” said Ananya Rao, a climate scientist based in Mumbai. “And one of the reasons it’s so spectacular is that the reserve is managed, in part, by the local communities living within it.”

While the reserve is officially overseen by WCS and Republic of Congo government, key areas of the reserve’s management have been delegated to local communities through governance structures that involve traditional leaders, local councils and community members, each elected democratically. These local governing bodies make sure that every village is represented when decisions are made about the reserve’s management.

“It’s a participatory approach,” Rao added. “It’s cool because it empowers local residents to take ownership of conservation efforts, especially with decisions about resource management.”

This co-management model, some locals say, promotes a sense of shared responsibility among community members for the conservation of the reserve.

“In the late 1990s, I remember a big conflict where a farmer was cutting and burning a part of the forest near our town,” said Marie Ngouabi Mbanda, a resident of Mbomo district, one of the larger villages inside the reserve. “There were many fights, and I remember threats of violence against the farmer. We didn’t have proper ways to address this conflict. Not at that time.”

Now, however, Mbanda pointed to the reserve’s co-management model as one of the ways conflict within the reserve is dealt with. She said the reserve’s local governance structures also play a role in distributing educational materials, raising awareness that helps prevent conflict in the first place.

WCS and the Republic of Congo government, for example, encourage communities to adopt sustainable land-use practices. David Pambou, a 21-year-old farmer based in a small village north of Mbomo, told Mongabay that his father taught him everything he knows about growing cassava, one of the region’s staple crops. Pambou said that like most other farmers here, his father practiced shifting agriculture, cutting down trees to create new fields in the forest around the village, and burning the fallen trunks and other vegetation to enrich the soil.

Pambou, who began farming cassava when he was just 13, initially mimicked his father’s methods. But local leaders explained a more sustainable agriculture technique being promoted by WCS: agroforestry.

Pambou showed off areas around his home, previously cleared and burned by his father, that are now lush, where cassava is now intercropped with trees and other vegetation.

“The soil is better now that I do it this way,” he said.

Kolopp said WCS also provides training for community members in sustainable fishing practices and harvesting of nontimber forest products, like fruits, nuts and medicinal plants.

Still, growing populations and demand from urban centers continue to put pressure on the reserve’s forests and rivers. The reserve’s managers predict that road networks will expand and improve, facilitating easier movement of people in and out of the area.

Oyange said he believes the best hope for Lac Télé Community Reserve lies in fostering an appreciation for its biodiversity among local residents.

Five kilometers (3 mi) outside Epena village, a forest elephant rumbled through the brush and trudged through the water. Oyange watched the elephant for a moment, then pointed out the reaction from the four fishers nearby.

“They’re in awe,” he whispered, “and that right there gives me hope.”

Banner image: Forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) in Lac Télé Community Reserve, Republic of Congo. Image by Ryan Biller for Mongabay.

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