State of Conservation (SOC)

Requests Approved: 0 (from2001-2007)
Total Amount Ap proved: 200,000USD

UNESCO/IUCN monitoring mission in May 2001

a) Insecurity;

b) Poaching;

c) Mining;

d) Transhumance and illegal grazing;

e) Illegal fishing;

f) Lack of resources.

No corrective measures were adopted by the Committee. However, the 2001 UNESCO/IUCN monitoring mission did propose an emergency rehabilitation plan. Main components of this plan were:

a) Zoning of the park, materialization of its limits;

b) Development of a management plan;

c) Inventory of wildlife in the park together with a cartography of major habitats;

d) Management actions to conserve biodiversity and protect fragile ecosystems;

e) Development of cooperation mechanism with all stakeholders, in particular local communities, government services, projects and hunting concessionaires;

f) Strengthening law enforcement in the property.  

A report was received from the State Party on February 5, 2007. The report highlights some progress in the implementation of the recommendations of the 2001 UNESCO/IUCN monitoring mission but unfortunately does not provide information on the current state of conservation of the property. The report mentions the following results: realization of a wildlife survey (of which the results were presented to the Committee at its 30th session), the erection of signs at the entry points to the park in Manovo and Gordill, cartography of the rivers and surveillance tracks, efforts to sensitize the local communities, the construction of a surveillance camp near the Gata swamp, efforts to strengthen law enforcement, the development of a new wildlife law which takes into account the establishment of village hunting areas, and the development of a cooperation with the hunting tourism companies and local communities for the management of communal hunting areas.

It needs to be noted that many of these activities were implemented before 2006 with support of the EU funded ECOFAC programme, of which a component is operating in northern Central Africa Republic (CAR) to develop the communal hunting areas as an economic activity allowing local development and the conservation of biodiversity. Although not focusing on the protection of the park but on the adjacent communal hunting areas, ECOFAC has contributed to conservation activities in the property, in particular by supporting vital anti-poaching activities. Unfortunately, the third ECOFAC phase ended in 2005 and the new fourth phase is not expected to start before the end of 2007. As reported at the 30th session, the World Heritage Centre has provided equipment support to the property in 2006 (a vehicle, two motor bikes and communication equipment), as well as USD 76,653 to support anti-poaching activities and to bridge the funding between the third and fourth ECOFAC phases. A further USD 30,000 as international assistance from the World Heritage Fund was approved by the Chairperson in January 2007 and could be released pending closure of the previous contract.

Unfortunately, the security situation in the region has again deteriorated since the previous session, mainly as a result of the spilling-over of the Darfur conflict in Sudan into neighboring Chad and northern CAR. It is important to note that the international borders in this region do not reflect the ethnic realities, with major ethnic groups present in the region across all 3 borders. Tensions in one country, therefore, quickly affect the other countries. In November 2006 a rebel group in opposition to the current CAR Government, the UFDR (Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement), seized several towns in northern CAR, allegedly with backing from Sudan. The Government, with backing from French troops was able to recapture the towns one month later but the incidents further fuelled insecurity in the region. In Gordill, situated at the north of the property, 15 school children were killed in an air raid. As a result of the insecurity, crop production was halted and many families now depend on the natural resources for survival, leading to increased poaching pressure on wildlife. The rampant insecurity has seriously affected anti-poaching operations.

According to information received by the World Heritage Centre, Sudanese poachers are active in the entire region, hunting down the last remaining elephants. Poaching caravans arrived much earlier than other years and poachers have been operating openly in many areas. Taking into account the dramatic results of the wildlife survey of 2005, which documented a 95% reduction of elephant populations (estimated at approximately 500 elephants) and several other species such as Buffon’s Kob, Defassa Waterbuck and Topi Hartebeest nearing extinction, it seems increasingly likely that the Outstanding Universal Value of this property might be lost in the near future. This dramatic decline can only be reversed through efficient transboundary cooperation with Cameroon, Chad and Sudan to tackle the large scale poaching and a large scale anti-poaching effort. With the conflict in Darfur on-going, resulting in continuing tensions between the countries, such transboundary cooperation seems unlikely to happen. On the positive side a peace agreement was reached between the UFDR rebels and the CAR Government on 13 April 2007, but so far it is unclear how this will affect the security situation.

In view of the above mentioned security problems, the State Party of CAR informed the World Heritage Centre at the beginning of April 2007 that the joint UNESCO/IUCN monitoring mission had to be postponed until later. In response, the Centre requested an additional report on how the current situation is affecting the State of Conservation of the property. At the time of writing of this report, no response was received from the State Party.