Decision 44 COM 7A.41

Garamba National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo) (N 136)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC/21/44.COM/7A,
2. Recalling Decisions 41 COM 7A.7 and 43 COM 7A.7, adopted respectively at its 41st (Cracow, 2017) and 43rd (Baku, 2019) sessions,
3. Welcomes the continued efforts of the State Party aimed at improving the anti-poaching measures, with the deployment of an additional 183 guards, to strengthen its operational capacities, intensify its surveillance efforts and implement initiatives to support the communities, and encourages the State Party to pursue its efforts with support from its partners;
4. Notes the significant decrease in the number of elephant carcasses poached, the estimate of the current numbers of the species at around 700 individuals, and the seizure of wildlife products, but notes with great concern that the population has declined by more than 90% since the onset of the security crisis in 1996 and has continued to decline since the last census in 2017, and that elephant poaching remains a major threat, and requests the State Party to continue its efforts to control poaching in order to create conditions for the recovery of wildlife and to provide the World Heritage Centre with more ample information on elephant numbers in the property for examination by IUCN;
5. Also notes with satisfaction the increase to 62 individuals of the Kordofan giraffe population and the absence of poaching in 2019 and 2020, and recalling that the sub-species remains in critical danger of extinction, reiterates its request to the State Party to pursue its monitoring and ecological protection efforts of this species, and also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre the Strategy and Action Plan for the conservation of giraffes within the property;
6. Thanks the donors who continue to support the conservation of the property, in particular the European Commission and the Government of Norway through their funding to the World Heritage Fund;
7. Expresses its deep concern with regard to the absence of any indication of the presence of white rhinoceros in the Park since 2008, confirming the probable extinction of the sub-species, and further requests the State Party, in cooperation with the World Heritage Centre and IUCN, to carry out a reflection on the impacts of this probable extinction on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) on the property;
8. Commends the State Party for the dialogue on transboundary cooperation between the Direction of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) and the State Service responsible for South Sudan Wildlife (SSWLS) and also encourages the State Party to strengthen this cooperation to reduce criminal transboundary activities, such as poaching and transboundary commerce of illegal wildlife products, notably through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for transboundary cooperation;
9. Regrets the absence of a Management Plan for the property and an operative buffer zone and urges the State Party to accelerate the creation of a buffer zone and to finalize the Management Plan of the property including its periphery, while ensuring its coherence with the sustainable development strategy of the Park, the Land Use Plan for the hunting grounds, the 2019 ministerial decree prohibiting artisanal exploitation in the hunting grounds, the relocation strategy for the refugee camps outside the Park initiated in 2018 and any other strategic document;7C
10. Also regrets once again that the State Party has not yet submitted the final version of the Desired state of conservation for the removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger (DSOCR) and also reiterates its request to the State Party to develop clear indicators for the recovery of the key wildlife populations based on the proposal prepared by the 2016 mission, data available from aerial survey and the monitoring system, so as to identify an achievable calendar for the eventual removal of the property from the List of World Heritage in Danger;
11. Finally requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2022, an updated report on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above, for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 45th session;
12. Decides to no longer apply the Reinforced Monitoring Mechanism to the property;
13. Also decides to retain Garamba National Park (Democratic Republic of the Congo) on the List of World Heritage in Danger.