The Odzala-Kokoua National Park (OKNP) is located in the Congo Basin and is the second largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon. The Lossi Reserve of Fauna is a community-based conservation satellite of Odzala-Kokoua National Park, which aims to strengthen the participation of local communities in the preservation of natural resources and environment. The research program was complemented by the study of two focal gorilla groups to develop a pilot experience of “western lowland gorilla viewing” to support the ECOFAC conservation program in the Odzala-Kokoua National Park. The initiative creates an experience of a pioneer community-based conservation in central Africa. The Lossi Reserve (LR) was officially decreed in 2001, and becomes the first step to give local communities the authority of co-management of natural resources.
This valuable experience was partially truncated by the epidemics of the Ebola virus in the region. The area has undergone at least three outbreaks of Ebola virus between 2002 and 2005; the latest hit OKNP. The study of the outbreaks impact and the mechanisms of disease transmission in the population of gorillas and chimpanzees have been complemented with the study of potential control measures (Research collaboration: University of Barcelona, CIRMF, WCS veterinary team, Max Planck, University of Rennes). At present, there is an “important” gorilla and chimpanzee populations non-affected by the epidemic located near human settlements in the interzone between OKNP and LR protected areas. These forests are currently dominated by logging concessions, however, and thus Ebola-orientated activities need to be accompanied by effective law enforcement and strategic zoning plans in order to protect remaining populations from poaching. (See attached document Bermejo LifeWeb Application Project Odzala-Lossi)
Project challenges:
1) Develop conservation enterprises that benefit local communities to increase connectivity between landscapes, ecosystems, habitats and maintenance of biodiversity and ecological processes; 2) Sponsor education and training for current and future protected areas scientists and staff; 3) Strengthen Lossi community-based conservation area, and its periphery at legal, policy, financial, institutional and community levels. 4) Work with governments to facilitate the official and effective management of the Odzala-Kokoua and Lossi Interzone considering local, national and international values, and support conservation policy; 
5) Develop a regional platform (College of Central Africa Tracking Expertise) to preserve an endangered technique in central Africa. The “master” trackers performance will be a strong support for the studies of animal populations to establish the fluctuations in the number of individuals of a particular species, the stability of communities, the factors that affect it, and the influence of a particular component within a community. The education program will as well implement a skills-training project through a non-formal adult education programme following a participatory approach research. In the preliminary courses, the master trackers had began their training as Evaluators/Educators at international scale.  (See Odzala-Lossi Reserve Grasp funding activities outputs).
Threats: 
Biological Resource Use:  Hunting & Collecting Terrestrial Animals; and Logging & Wood, and Invasive & Other Problematic Species & Genes:  Problematic Native Species. << Read less

Develop conservation enterprises that would benefit local communities and increase connectivity between landscapes, ecosystems and habitats; Preserve endangered species; Sponsor education and training for protected areas scientists and staff; Strengthen the management of the community-based Lossi conservation area.

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Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of Chimpanzees and Gorillas in Western Equatorial Africa. The Odzala/Lossi/Pikounda/Ngombe/Ntokou Complex is a priority area for the conservation of chimpanzees and gorillas in western equatorial Africa as determined by consensus at the 2005 workshop in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo. Figure 3 shows the great ape priority areas overlaid onto the CARPE Congo Basin Forest Partnership (CBFP) landscapes. There is high overlap between priority areas for great apes and priority areas for biodiversity in general. The Odzala/Lossi/Pikounda/Ngombe/Ntokou Complex includes the OKNP, the proposed LR extension and a series of adjacent logging concessions, extending on their eastern side to the Sangha River, which delimits this vast landscape from the Sangha-Trinational Complex. Over the past three years, this region has experienced at least three outbreaks of Ebola threatening great ape populations within the OKNP, and the LR. Urgent attention needs to be focused on the epidemiology of this outbreaks and their likely impact on great ape populations, complemented by targeted research into potential control measures. In all likelihood, substantial ape populations still remain in the peripheral Ngombe, Ntokou and Pikounda forests. However, these forests are currently dominated by logging concessions, and thus Ebola-orientated activities need to be accompanied by effective law enforcement and strategic zoning plans in order to protect remaining populations from poaching. Three main threats to chimpanzees and gorillas in western equatorial Africa, and suggested immediate and longer-term responses needed: poaching, disease and logging. << Read less

The project is integrated in the African Parks Network (APN) and Leaderships for conservation in Africa (LCA) long term management and funding of the OKNP and LR. In February 2010, it was signed a protocol between the Republic of Congo (RC) and APN, led in the management and financing of the OKNP, and the communities adjacent to the Park. This Protocol aims to formalise the framework of collaboration among the RC and the APN to establish public-private partnerships agreement with Congo Government on a long term basis, by combining world class conservation practice with business expertise. In February 2009, it was signed a protocol between the RC and LCA relative to the management and development of the ecotourism of the OKNP and its periphery. Investment agreements are structured in a manner which protects the integrity of the park and its ecology, while also ensuring a positive socio-economic impact on the people in the region and an appropriate flow of income to the park.
The carbon will be part in the African Parks Network (APN) business plan of Odzala as a success factor for long term sustainability. << Read less

Governance, Participation, Equity and Benefit Sharing:  The project involves a variety of community management efforts as explicit and declared intent to protect and maintain biodiversity that may also be recognised by government, and explicit measures (e.g. regulation) for the purposes of biodiversity conservation managed through legal or other effective means (including customary law); and have some of management body in place (community-based institutions).
To promote equity and benefit-sharing:
1) Recognize and promote protected area governance types related to their potential for achieving biodiversity conservation goals with full participation of local communities; 2) Facilitate the legal recognition and effective management of local community conserved areas; 3) Engage local communities and relevant stakeholders in participatory planning and governance. 
To enhance and secure involvement of local communities and relevant stakeholders:
1) Implement specific plans and initiatives to effectively involve local communities, with respect for their rights consistent with national legislation and applicable international obligations, and stakeholders with particular emphasis on identifying and removing barriers preventing adequate participation; 2) Support participatory assessment exercises among stakeholders to identify and harness the wealth of knowledge, skills, resources and institutions of importance for conservation that are available in society; 3) Promote an enabling environment for the involvement of local communities and relevant stakeholders in decision making, and the development of their capacities and opportunities to establish and manage protected areas. << Read less

Congo is a CBD and CPB Party
The project presents linkages with the priorities identified through:
1) National Biodiversity Action Plans: Biodiversity for Development; Ecosystem Approach; Impact Assessment; Protected areas; Biological biodiversity and Tourism; Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices; 2) Poverty Reduction Planning (PRSPs): Improving the social environment (indigenous people); Promoting macroeconomic growth and stability (tourism); and 3) National Land-Use Planning:  Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (Tridom) Landscape, recommends to take into account its master plan, the peripheral zones of the protected areas, ecological connectivity needs, and natural limits, and the logging concession blocks in the periphery of the protected areas. << Read less

Goal 1.2: To integrate protected areas into broader land- and seascapes and sectors so as to maintain ecological structure and function
Goal 1.4: To substantially improve site-based protected area planning and management
Goal 1.5: To prevent and mitigate the negative impacts of key threats to protected areas
Goal 2.1: To promote equity and benefit-sharing
Goal 2.2: To enhance and secure involvement of indigenous and local communities and relevant stakeholders
Goal 3.1: To provide an enabling policy, institutional and socio-economic environment for protected areas
Goal 3.2: To build capacity for the planning, establishment and management of protected areas
Goal 3.4: To ensure financial sustainability of protected areas and national and regional systems of protected areas
Goal 3.5: To strengthen communication, education and public awareness
Goal 4.1 - To develop and adopt minimum standards and best practices for national and regional protected area systems
Goal 4.3: To assess and monitor protected area status and trends
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