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This briefing note summarizes the results for the Tri-National de la Sangha (TNS) landscape of a regional baseline assessment to analyze vulnerability.
The assessment was conducted between 2011 and 2012 in five landscapes of the Congo Basin, as part of the Climate Change and Forests in the Congo Basin: Synergies between Adaptation and Mitigation (COBAM) project.
The TNS landscape covers a total of 43,936 km2 across three countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic and Republic of Congo. The landscape includes three national parks. The areas surrounding the parks have multiple uses with zones for logging concessions, community use and professional hunting.
The vulnerability assessment focused on current vulnerability, which includes an analysis of both past trends and present conditions. In particular, the analysis considers the social aspects of vulnerability, understanding it as processes rooted in the actions of human actors and their interactions with the natural resource base on which they depend. Different dimensions of vulnerability framed the baseline assessment, which applied a participatory approach.
Baseline results show that villagers believe that deforestation and forest degradation have accelerated over time. Participatory monitoring could not only raise awareness of the loss and degradation of forests, but also lead to empowerment and commitment to improve the state of forests managed by villagers. Information gathered through this decentralized monitoring system would be very valuable for forest and wildlife conservation organizations that are working in the sites.
Pilot activities, such as those supported by the COBAM project, could lay the foundations for longer-term solutions, as long as there is systematic learning that enables reflection and refinement along the way. This will require mechanisms to support the learning process and facilitate experimenting, monitoring and improving over time.
The insights generated by the current analysis will be combined with more in-depth research to explore future vulnerability and identify synergies between mitigation and adaptation in the project sites. Results from further analyses and evaluation of future strategies will generate recommendations to inform decision- making and planning at local and national levels across countries in the Congo Basin
Download the briefing note (PDF, 639kb)
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