On June 5 the w
orld celebrates World Environment Day. The theme for the 2017 World Environment Day is, Connecting People to Nature. On this day we are encouraged to take time away from our daily lives to appreciate and engage with our natural world.
‘World Environment Day is the ‘People’s Day’ for doing something positive for the environment. Its aim is to harness individual actions and transform them into a collective power that has a legacy of real and lasting impact on the planet. The beauty of the day is in this diversity. It’s when citizens across the world collectively act, care and show their love for the planet. World Environment day
Securing tenure in critical ecosystems
Natural reserves continue to provide critical functions to humanity. They provide a wonderful environment for us to interact, connect and experience the healing and other benefits that nature has to offer.
The Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG) Land and Resource Tenure Rights working group is piloting new approaches for securing tenure in critical ecosystems. These ecosystems are anchors for biodiversity that support livelihoods for growing local populations. Strengthening rights and securing tenure, especially over the community lands managed as common property, are central to the conservation of this biodiversity.
The Kabobo Natural Reserve is one of these critical ecosystem that the working group has been working on securing. On December 21, 2016, the reserve was gazetted as the first protected area of Tanganyika Province in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) representing a great milestone for ABCG, the Tanganyika Provincial Government and other stakeholders who worked hard to enable this realization. This is also a major step towards more fair participation in conservation in Africa’s largest forested country.
ABCG is applying the lessons learnt in the gazettement process in other areas of DRC and in the other ecosystems that we are working in in order to secure tenure and enable the communities living around these areas continue to protect and reap the benefits that come from living in harmony with nature.
Photo: Indri indri, target species for ABCG’s land use activities, Photo Credit: Harison Randrianasolo, CI/Madagascar