An Institute for Community Conservation Education

The establishment of the umbrella organisation UGADEC (Union des Associations de Conservation des Gorilles pour le Développement Communautaire à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo - Union of Associations for the Conservation of Gorillas and Community Development of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo) was a response by prospective members who wanted to join forces in order to conserve the fauna and flora of eastern Congo and consolidate conservation activities through sustainable development.
The Tayna Centre for Conservation Biology, TCCB, a private technical training institute, is in the process of being established in order to improve and reconcile conservation and development activities in the UGADEC zone of intervention. It was initiated by the Chief Conservator, Pierre Kakule Vwirasihikya, who is also the coordinator of the Tayna Gorilla Reserve Project (RGT) and the executive secretary of UGADEC.
The idea to establish such an institute arose from the need for technicians with the capacity to initiate and administer various participatory community conservation projects in the region. In the past, the RGT had to train its students at the Higher Education Institute of Ecology and Conservation (ISEC) Kirumba. Because of curricular differences between the ISEC and the TCCB, the RGT will pull the current 18 students out of ISEC/Kirumba. Instead, it will offer them
the chance to join 64 other students who are children of landowners and UGADEC members (RGT, RéCoPriBa, ILSN, ACPN-IM, COCREFOBA, RGU, RGPU, REGOUWA) and of other community members involved in the conservation of ecosystems. This professional and scientific training course will support participatory community conservation by re-inforcing protection and action capacities and improving the management of natural resources.
In addition, the foundation of the institute will open up the possibility for research in these reserves, which will have a positive impact on the populations living close to the reserves. Finally, it will also open up possibilities for sustainable socio-economic development in the areas of the association members. As outlined above, the particularity of this technical training institute is its objective of re-enforcing the local stakeholders’ capacities in the area of participatory community conservation, of which the project is the first example in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Thanks to a construction fund and student scholarships received from USAID (United States Agency for International Development) gorilla directives through the DFGF-I (Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International), the TCCB will open its doors in January 2004. It will offer three study courses:

• research and conservation biology,
• conservation and management of protected areas,
• education, communication and information.

At the end of this scientific course, the TCCB will be able to send researchers to the field as well as community protected area managers and outreach staff to work in environmental education. The institute is open to the ICCN and other institutions who agree with the TCCB program. It is ironic that this ambitious project is about to unfold in spite of the financial difficulties within UGADEC itself, which have limited its activities. Therefore UGADEC continues to appeal to well-wishing people and organisations to help in the protection of rare species, to help create an ecologically balanced environment and to support sustainable development in protected area border zones - i.e. to assist this young institution to achieve its goals. UGADEC is very grateful to DFGF-I and USAID for their support for community-based conservation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We reiterate our thanks to Conservation International for having agreed to add their full support to the TCCB. We also acknowledge Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe for its contribution to the implementation of this project.

Pierre Kakule Vwirasihikya

Pierre Kakule Vwirasihikya has been working in the Virunga National Park since 1982 and became a Senior Warden in 1988. He took part in gorilla monitoring in the park. Currently, he is both the Tayna Gorilla Reserve Coordinator (since 1998) and the UGADEC Executive Secretary (since 2002). He won the ASP Conservation award in 2002.

Democratic Republic of the Congo overview

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