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OE Companion Discussion Group

In Salonga National Park (the only national park in bonobo habitat), there is no local involvement, and surveys undertaken since 2000 indicate the bonobo, the African forest elephant, the okapi, and other uncommon species have been devastated by poachers and the thriving bushmeat commerce. The ZSM's initial aim was to survey Salonga National Park to determine the conservation status of the bonobo within the park and to supply monetary and technical assistance to strengthen park protection. There is robust local, and broad-based mostly Congolese, resistance to establishing national parks, as indigenous communities have beforehand been pushed from their forest houses by the forming of parks. In 2002, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative initiated the Bonobo Peace Forest Project (supported by the worldwide Conservation Fund of Conservation International), in cooperation with national institutions, native NGOs, and local communities; the Peace Forest Project works with local communities to establish a linked constellation of community-based mostly reserves managed by native and indigenous people. Estimates vary from 60,000 to fewer than 50,000 living, in response to the World Wildlife Fund. Organizations such because the World Wide Fund for Nature, the African Wildlife Foundation, and others, are attempting to focus consideration on the excessive threat to the species.