Club Ebobo - Conservation Education around the Nouabalé-Ndoki Park
Gorilla populations throughout Western Equatorial Africa are rapidly
declining. Illegal bushmeat hunting and the lack of law enforcement are
seen as the main reasons for the conservation crisis western gorillas
are facing. Furthermore the commercial bushmeat trade (particularly when
primates are involved) is a serious threat to human health because it
exposes people to emerging infectious diseases, such as Ebola hemorrhagic
fever.
A variety of actions is therefore needed to mitigate the threats western
gorillas and other large mammals are facing. Immediate responses include
conservation activities such as anti-poaching patrols, enforcement of
laws and the provision of alternative protein resources, and longer term
mitigation actions address the problems gorillas will face in the coming
years caused by human population growth or habitat loss and disturbance.
Conservation education is likely to play a vital role in the list of actions
needed to guarantee that gorilla populations throughout Western Equatorial
Africa remain viable, and this includes awareness campaigns in the short
and the long term.
Immediate actions must involve awareness and outreach campaigns about
current wildlife laws, directed towards law enforcement offcials - police,
judges, and customs-officers. Further, both rural and urban people need
to be informed about these laws, about the ethical, cultural, economic
and ecological importance of gorillas, and the risks of diseases resulting
from the consumption of primate bushmeat. Such activities can be conducted
through formal and informal meetings, exhibitions, poster campaigns, or
broadcasting in local radio and television stations, and work best if
they are coordinated between different conservation organizations (local
and international), logging companies and the wildlife authorities. At
the same time long term education programs have to be put in place with
the aim of changing the attitudes of local people to the value of wildlife.
If we want to ensure the survival of gorillas in the future we have to
address our conservation effort to the future generation - the children.
The Mbeli Bai Gorilla Study is part of the Nouabalé-Ndoki
Project, a collaboration between the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS) and the Government of Congo, which strives to maintain strong links
with the local communities living around the Nouabalé-Ndoki National
Park in northern Congo through a participatory approach to conservation.
The Mbeli Bai Study has been running a conservation education program,
"Club Ebobo" (Ebobo is the local name for gorilla), in local
schools around the national park since 1998. Club Ebobo, which is receiving
vital support from various North American zoos, has the objectives to
teach the school children about the fauna and flora of the region's ecosystem,
so that they appreciate and take pride in the biodiversity that exists
in their region, and to promote the conservation and research activities
undertaken within the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, within a population
that would otherwise have very little contact with the protected area.
Such changes in attitudes will discourage the trade in illegal bushmeat
by reducing the likelihood that the current generation of schoolchildren
will consume or trade bushmeat in the future.
Photo: Thomas Breuer
Originally, researchers of the Mbeli Bai Study established Club Ebobo
in Bomassa, the village near the park's headquarters (it is currently
reaching around 100 children in Bomassa). Past experience in Bomassa has
demonstrated that Club Ebobo's efforts have to stretch beyond the classroom,
particularly when addressing issues such as risk of diseases through consumption
of gorilla bushmeat, illegal hunting of protected species, and hunting
with cable snares (which is illegal in Congo). In recent years we have
continuously expanded this education activity to the east of the Nouabalé-Ndoki
National Park, and Club Ebobo has reached the local town of Makao in 2005
(reaching around 80 children), and to the logging town of Thanry-Congo
(reaching around 400 children). This region, once extremely remote and
home to several different indigenous groups of hunter-gatherers, is now
surrounded by logging concessions, and has undergone a complete demographic
and economic transformation over the past years as a direct result of
logging activities in the region. The implementation of Club Ebobo in
Makao has resulted in the participation of many Bambenzele Pygmy children
that formerly did not visit the school.
Club Ebobo sessions are typically held on a monthly basis by our Congolese
research assistants together with the teachers of the three different
primary schools. Sessions are held in French and in the local language
Lingala, and classes which often contain more than 100 pupils are separated
by age.
Activities of Club Ebobo are designed to encourage creativity amongst
students rather then using the learning-by-rote system that is popular
in Congo's schools. They involve fact sheets, songs and games (searches,
"spot-the-difference" pictures and other worksheets, card games
and role playing games), with animal puppets and tales of real-life experiences
from the Mbeli Bai Study research staff, each based around a chosen theme
(protected species, importance of rain forests, environmental issues…).
We also use multi-media material (in collaboration with the International
Conservation and Education Fund) to show videos, PowerPoint presentations
and photographs. We teach the local children about gorillas and their
behaviour, and explain the importance of the research being conducted
at Mbeli Bai with an emphasis on the importance of conserving wildlife
and their habitat. Some sessions deal with more complicated matters, such
as the complexities of the ecosystem and more complex conservation issues.
This encourages children to see animals and the ecosystem as a complex
and interesting web of interactions, rather than just a natural resource
to be exploited. Basic school materials and T-shirts are provided to pupils
and teachers.
To evaluate the impact of our education program Club Ebobo, we are performing
evaluation schemes that aim to measure the success of our education program
at three levels (increase of knowledge, changing attitude, changing behaviour).
This approach will also be expanded including pre-post tests and comparison
with schools that have not had visits by the Club Ebobo team.
In the past year the conservation group of the Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has adopted Club Ebobo's
aims with the establishment of a similar primary school education program,
"Club P.A.N.", which is organized and implemented by the Wild
Chimpanzee Foundation (with the help of the World Wildlife
Fund) around the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. In particular
we have developed an education book that is used at both sites and have
developed standard evaluation sheets that aim to measure the success of
our education programs, in particular regarding the increased level of
knowledge of the children. Further efforts will be made to extend these
evaluation schemes to address issues of attitude change and change in
behaviour, particularly the reduction of bushmeat consumption.
Club Ebobo is also sharing our experience with additional conservation
education projects within Western Equatorial Africa with the aim of establishing
similar structures in as many sites as possible. Further, we are collaborating
with North American zoos and Wild Research, a National Science Foundation-funded
program whose stated mission is to deepen public engagement in science
and conservation in North American zoos. Material produced by Wild Research
will be available for use in Club Ebobo sessions. Collaborative efforts
between different in-situ and zoo education programs will improve our
ability to effectively address issues of gorilla conservation education
and awareness campaigns. Such collaboration will allow us in the future
to expand nature clubs, such as Club Ebobo, to the main town of bushmeat
consumption in the region.
Thomas Breuer
My sincere thanks go to the Ministère de l'Économie Forestière et de l'Environnement for permission to work in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, and to the staff of WCS's Congo Program for crucial logistical and administrative support. I thank all my research assistants that have helped in planning and preparing Club Ebobo sessions, in particular Franck Barrel Mavinga who is a fabulous entertainer and teacher for Club Ebobo. The long-term continuation of the Mbeli Bai Study and Club Ebobo would not have been possible without the continuous support provided by our long-term donors, notably the Brevard Zoo, Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden, Sea World & Busch Gardens Conservation Fund, Toronto Zoo, WCS and Woodland Park Zoo.
Dr. Thomas Breuer has been working in Central Africa for around a decade. Since 2002 he has been working for the Wildlife Conservation Society as the principal investigator of the Mbeli Bai Study in the Noubalé-Ndoki National Park, studying the social organization and behavior of western gorillas. He has also been leading the local conservation education program Club Ebobo in the villages surrounding the park.