Lac Télé Community Reserve

Central Africa > Republic of the Congo > Lac Télé Community Reserve

Summary

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• Central chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) & western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) are present in Lac Télé Community Reserve.
• It has been estimated that 7,323 (CI: 3,781-14,184) gorillas and 642 (CI: 297-1,390) chimpanzees occur in the site.
• The chimpanzee and gorilla population trends are increasing.
• The site has a total size of 4,400 km².
• Key threats to great apes are hunting and habitat loss due to expected increase in road construction.
• Conservation activities have focused on monitoring with SMART, anti-poaching patrols, and providing alternative forms of income and protein to reduce the bushmeat trade.

© Guido Trevillini, WCS

Site characteristics

© Guido Trevillini, WCS

Lac Télé Community Reserve is located in the northeastern Republic of the Congo. Consisting of 70% wetland, Lac Télé Community Reserve is one of the world's largest swamp-forest (WCS). The site is located between the Sangha and Oubangui rivers, which seasonally flood the forest, grassland, and floating prairies, and pump water into the lakes, ponds and rivers found at the site. In the centre of the reserve lies an area of firm land, which is an important habitat for gorillas (WCS). The reserve supports one of the densest populations of western lowland gorillas, and it is also home to chimpanzees, elephants, buffaloes, duikers, and hippopotamuses (Ramsar). The reserve was designated a Ramsar site in 1998. In 2017, the Lac Tumba Transboundary Ramsar Site was established, which includes Lac Télé and Grands Affluents in Congo, as well as Ngiri-Tumba-Maindombe in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ramsar). The reserve is owned by the local communities; approximately 20,000 people in the reserve (WCS; Ramsar). These communities heavily depend on the reserve's natural resources for fish, agriculture, construction materials canoes, and medicines (WCS; Ramsar).

Table 1. Basic site information for Lac Télé Community Reserve

Area	4,400 km²
Coordinates	1.316971 N, 17.223215 E
Designation	Community Reserve
Habitat types	Subtropical/tropical swamp forest, subtropical/tropical moist lowland forest, wetlands (inland) – bogs, marshes, swamps, fens, peatlands, subtropical/tropical moist shrubland, subtropical/tropical seasonally wet/flooded grassland, wetlands (inland) – shrub dominated wetlands

IUCN habitat categories Site designations

Ape status

Three surveys were conducted in the study area in 2006, 2010-2011 and 2016-2017. A new survey will be conducted in 2022 (). Data have shown a growing population trend for the two species and particularly for Gorilla gorilla gorilla. While for the chimpanzee Pan troglodytes Lac Tele does not show the highest densities (but the species is found), the centre of the reserve, as well as the northern areas and the external areas of Batanga, seem to host a density of gorillas up to 2.5 individuals/km2 (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).

Table 2. Ape population estimates in Lac Télé Community Reserve

Species	Year	Abundance estimate (95% CI)	Density estimate [ind./ km²] (95% CI)	Encounter rate (nests/km)	Area	Method	Source	Comments	A.P.E.S. database ID
Gorilla gorilla gorilla	2006	5,402 (2,778–10,486)			1,029 km2 of the south-eastern Reserve periphery including Raphia swamp forests	Line transects (Distance)	Rainey et al. 2010
Pan troglodytes troglodytes & Gorilla gorilla gorilla	2006	7,647 (4,044–12,183)			1,029 km2 of the south-eastern Reserve periphery including Raphia swamp forests	Line transects (Distance)	Rainey et al. 2010
Gorilla gorilla gorilla	2017	7,323 (3,781-14,184)			1,029 km2 of the south-eastern Reserve periphery including Raphia swamp forests	Line transects (Distance)	Brncic et al. 2017
Pan troglodytes troglodytes	2017	642 (297-1,390)			1,029 km2 of the south-eastern Reserve periphery including Raphia swamp forests	Line transects (Distance)	Brncic et al. 2017

Threats

As a result of the civil war occurring in the country in the 90s, many war guns are still present in the country. Poaching is widespread, and the laws and regulations of legal hunting do not follow direct scientific criteria. Apes are less targeted than small monkeys, nonetheless the threat is present (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022). The proposed road between Bene (north LTCR) and Epena (east LTCR) would cut the northern area into two pieces, leading to fragmentation and poaching inside an area that is nowadays considered as virgin flooded forest. For this road, authorities have already "posed the first stone"; there is no ESIA foreseen and the funding mechanism is not clear (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).

Table 3. Threats to apes in Lac Télé Community Reserve

Category	Specific threats	Threat level	Quantified severity	Description	Year of threat
1. Residential & commercial development		Absent
2. Agriculture & aquaculture		Absent
3. Energy production & mining		Absent
4. Transportation & service corridors	4.1 Roads & railroads	High		A road project between Epene and Bene is foreseen and proposed by the State. The road would cut the northern area of the reserve, increasing the access to nowadays inaccessible flooded forest and potentially fragmenting the humid environment (if the road will be built on a stripe of terra firma) (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).	Future, but public authorities already organised events to publicly announce the project will be done.
5. Biological resource use	5.1 Hunting & collecting terrestrial animals	Present, but threat severity is unknown		Mammal species hunted for commercial bushmeat markets, not only locally, but also in urban areas further away, e.g., in Kinshasa (WCS). Hunting gorillas in the area seems to be opportunistic (Meyer K., unpubl.data) but some cases of poachers targeting gorillas are known (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).	Ongoing (2022)
5. Biological resource use	5.3 Logging & wood harvesting	Low		Deforestation concentrated along the rivers and in terra firma forests. Trees are logged mainly for firewood collection and slash-and-burn agriculture. Although at the moment is it small-scale, the threat is expected to increase as road networks expand in the area (WCS).	Ongoing
6. Human intrusion & disturbance		Absent
7. Natural system modifications		Absent
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases		Unknown
9. Pollution		Unknown
10. Geological Events		Absent
11. Climate change & severe weather		Unknown
12. Other options		Absent

IUCN Threats list

Conservation activities

The reserve is managed by the Ministry of Forest Economy (MEF) in partnership with WCS Congo. WCS implements surveys every 5 years, in order to establish the densities and the most important areas for management. Anti-poaching activities are constantly funded and implemented. Two PhD projects about a) coexistence between apes and humans, and b) spatial ecology of the gorillas will provide further information in the future, to improve management at the local scale. Community-based conservation is constantly implemented, having hunting as a main theme; for example, sustainable fishing in order to provide alternative proteins to bushmeat and to reduce great ape poaching (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).

Table 4. Conservation activities in Lac Télé Community Reserve

Category	Specific activity	Description	Year of activity
1. Residential & commercial development	Not reported
2. Agriculture & aquaculture	Not reported
3. Energy production & mining	Not reported
4. Transportation & service corridors	Not reported
5. Biological resource use	5.11. Provide training to anti-poaching ranger patrols	WCS Congo, together with the Government of Congo, are recruiting and training rangers to patrol and protect the landscape and its wildlife (WCS).	Ongoing (2022)
	5.15. Implement monitoring surveillance strategies (e.g. SMART) or use monitoring data to improve effectiveness of wildlife law enforcement patrols	Provide rangers with training on the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART)(WCS).	Ongoing (2022)
6. Human intrusion & disturbance	Not reported
7. Natural system modifications	Not reported
8. Invasive & other problematic species, genes, diseases	Not reported
9. Pollution	Not reported
10. Education & Awareness	10.2. Involve local community in primate research and conservation management	A WCS community based conservation team is always active, involving local population writing and signing agreements and management plans (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).	Ongoing (2022)
11. Habitat Protection	Not reported
12. Species Management	Not reported
13. Livelihood; Economic & Other Incentives	13.2. Provide non-monetary benefits to local communities for sustainably managing their forest and its wildlife (e.g. better education, infrastructure development)	Providing alternative forms of income (to reduce bushmeat trade) by developing and implementing a cocoa conservation management program; sustainable fisheries and commerce of dried fish; and a microcredit program (WCS).	Ongoing (2022)

Conservation activities list (Junker et al. 2017)

Challenges

A new road could dramatically impact the conservation status of the site (see threats). The most important local challenge is finding a way to improve the local economy: bushmeat is nowadays a widely used source of income. Tourism is not easy to create, due to the lack of a regularly working airport (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).

Table 5. Challenges reported for Lac Télé Community Reserve

Challenge	Source
Corruption	Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022
Lack of national protection	Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022

Research activities

Two PhD projects are active in the area. The first one is anthropological research focusing on the coexistence of humans and great apes. The second project regards the spatial ecology of gorillas, targeting movements in function of resources (Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022).

Documented behaviours

Table 6. Ape behaviors reported for Lac Télé Community Reserve

Behavior	Source
making ground nests	Trivellini, G. pers. comm. 2022

External links

WCS Lac Télé Community Reserve
Ramsar Lac Télé/Likouala-aux-herbes

References

Rainey, H. J., Iyenguet, F. C., Malanda, G.-A. F., Madzoké, B., Santos, D. D., Stokes, E. J., Maisels, F., & Strindberg, S. (2010). Survey of Raphia swamp forest, Republic of Congo, indicates high densities of Critically Endangered western lowland gorillas Gorilla gorilla gorilla. Oryx, 44(01), 124. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003060530999010X
Brncic et al 2017. Ndoki Likouala large scale mammal Survey, 2017. WCS Internal report

Page completed by: Guido Trivellini & A.P.E.S. Wiki team Date: 08/04/2022