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Expedition Diary - Congo Basin

Education for Nature

Judith Mashinya
© WWF

Conserving the Congo: Education for Nature

For almost 15 years, WWF’s Education for Nature (EFN) Program has been equipping conservation leaders with the training and practical experience to take on challenges in their home countries. Follow Judith Mashinya of WWF’s EFN Program as she travels through the Congo Basin to visit conservationists supported by WWF. Along the way, she travels across lagoons teeming with crocodiles and learns how to avoid a buffalo attack.

Only 700 mountain gorillas still survive in the wild. A WWF-sponsored survey indicates that, after a decade of conservation efforts, mountain gorillas are showing a slow but steady comeback.
© Harvey / WWF-Canon

Part 1: Living Forests

WWF has been working in the Congo Basin for more than 30 years to protect the region’s biodiversity and promote the sound use of natural resources. The forests of the Congo Basin cover 500 million acres and span the boundaries of six countries. It is here that you’ll find forest elephants, gorillas and other amazing wildlife. The Congo Basin also holds up to one-quarter of the world’s tropical forests.

One facet of our capacity-building work here is the Education for Nature Program. I headed to the region to learn more about the needs of women conservationists in the Congo Basin and to assess the impact WWF’s EFN program has had in the region over its 15-year history.