Manovo-Gounda St Floris National Park

• Insecurity;
• Poaching;
• Transhumance;
• Mining;
• Illegal fishing;
• Lack of resources.

• Illegal grazing;
• Uncontrolled poaching by heavily armed groups and subsequent loss of up to 80% of the Park’s wildlife;
• Deteriorating security situation and the halt of tourism.

No formal report on the State of Conservation of the property and on progress towards the implementation of the recommendations of the 2001 UNESCO/IUCN mission was received from the State Party at the time of preparation of the document.

In July 2005, the World Heritage Centre participated in a meeting with the European Union and staff of the EU funded ECOFAC project, which is working in the village hunting zones surrounding the Park and which has also provided logistical and financial support to anti-poaching operations in the property. At the meeting, the preliminary results of the wildlife surveys that took place in northern Central African Republic were presented and discussed. Staff from the ECOFAC project expressed fear that poaching in the property would increase significantly as the ECOFAC activities were suspended as of June 2005, awaiting the approval and start up of a new project phase, which was expected to start around April 2006.

Following this meeting, in October 2005 the World Heritage Centre decided to provide special financial support to the State Party (USD 76,653) from the World Heritage Fund’s budget dedicated to World Heritage properties in Danger, with the support of the ECOFAC programme, to permit the State Party to continue vital anti-poaching activities in the property. Furthermore, the State Party acknowledged receipt of equipment purchased with the support of the World Heritage Fund through emergency assistance (USD 50,000) which was granted in November 2004. The equipment consisted of a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser, two motorcycles and radio communication equipment (HF codan, GPS, walkie-talkies). This equipment was handed over to the Ministry in charge of Environment by the Director General of UNESCO during his visit to the Central African Republic from 25 to 27 January 2006. During the visit, the Director General stressed the need to give particular attention to the preservation and conservation of the World Heritage property.

The World Heritage Centre received on 18 April 2006 an interim progress report on the implementation of the emergency funding together with the final report of the aerial survey of May/June 2005 implemented by the ECOFAC programme. The progress report also provides information on the state of conservation of the property.

The report of the aerial survey clearly documents the alarming situation of the Park’s fauna, in spite of the State Party’s efforts to combat poaching with the support of ECOFAC. In comparison to the survey conducted in 1985, the populations of all species covered by the survey have declined seriously, particularly inside the property and the Bamingui-Bangoran National Park. Population densities of most species are actually higher in the adjacent hunting zones than in the National Parks, due to the presence of safari hunting activities and related anti-poaching activities and the fact that poachers coming from Sudan and Chad enter less into the hunting areas than into the National Parks, situated closer to the borders. The property has lost approximately 95 % of its elephant population, now estimated at less than 500 animals. Buffon’s Kob (Kobus kob), Defassa Waterbuck (Cobus defassa) and Topi Hartebeest (Damaliscus korrigum) are at the verge of extinction, whilst populations of Bohor reedbuck (Redunca redunca), Giant Eland (Taurotragus derbianus), Bufallo (Syncerus caffer), Western Hartebeest (Alcelaphus Buselaphus) and Roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) have diminished in the property but increased or stabilised in the hunting zones.

The survey also found a lot of evidence of human activity in the property. Apart from poaching, fishing and cattle grazing are serious threats to the integrity of the property. Given these results, the report recommends concentrating conservation activities on the remaining strongholds of wild animal populations. With the encouraging results from the hunting zones adjacent to the property, the report also recommends applying a zoning scheme to the property, which would allow controlled exploitation of the resources in certain areas, generate revenues for local people and help fund the conservation of priority zones. Whilst the decline in animal populations is dramatic, northern Central African Republic probably contains the last viable populations of many of the mammals’ characteristic for the Soudano-Guinean ecoregion and the remaining populations in the region could still permit a recovery if the poaching threat is brought under control.

The progress report of the emergency project notes that the closure of Phase III of ECOFAC in June 2005 and the reactivation of tensions in the Darfur region in Sudan and the South East of Chad have led to a renewed infiltration of foreign poachers into the Park and its periphery. According to the State Party, the financial support provided by UNESCO was critical to ensuring the pursuit of anti-poaching activities while waiting for the launching of the Phase IV of ECOFAC. The support received from UNESCO as well as from some private operators and a NGO named “Association pour la protection de la Faune de Centrafrique” (APFC) has enabled the State Party to avoid the total invasion of the property by poachers. Anti-poaching activities took place from December 2005 to March 2006. Patrols intervened in the Park periphery with the objective to stop incursions of Sudanese poachers’ caravans and control their exits. The patrols were undertaken by teams of trackers-guards supervised by APFC experts. The teams had 3 armed encounters with Sudanese poaching caravans, which they were able to stop from entering into the property. Patrols were also organised within the Park on the basis of information provided by local NGOs. During those patrols, 6 poachers were arrested and brought to justice; several weapons were seized including one automatic weapon (AK47) and one poaching caravan was driven out of the Park. Efforts were also made to chase cattle herds out of the property.

With regard to the monitoring mission requested by the Committee, the difficult security situation in the country has so far prevented the World Heritage Centre and IUCN from carrying out the mission. The World Heritage Centre and IUCN have been planning to link the mission to a multi-stakeholder workshop to develop a major programme of action and fundraising strategy for the conservation of the property in cooperation with the European Union (EU). However, the start of the next phase of EU funded programme ‘Conservation et utilisation rationelle des ecosystèmes forestières de l’Afrique centrale’ (ECOFAC) has been delayed. If the security situation improves, it is hoped that progress will be made in organising the mission and stakeholder workshop prior to the 30th session of the World Heritage Committee. The World Heritage Centre also received information that the Africa Parks Foundation, a Dutch based NGO specialised in managing protected areas in Africa under public-private partnerships, which recently took responsibility for the management of Garamba National Park in DRC. This NGO is exploring the possibility of also getting involved in Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park.