The biodiversity of the Congo Basin is at risk from illegal timber exploitation, mining, poaching and large-scale commercial hunting. The human settlements which naturally follow these activities and their accompanying infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and hydroelectric dams are also threatening the region.

The Tri-national Dja-Odzala-Minkébé (TRIDOM) project is taking an international approach to land use planning to solve this multi-country problem.

Under the auspices of the Central African Forests Commission, it is helping the governments of Cameroon, Gabon and Congo to manage a complex of nine protected areas with a central zone spread across the three countries, covering almost 150,000km2, around seven percent of the entire Congo Basin. The TRIDOM area includes the Dja Reserve and the Odzala and Minkébé National Parks.

TRIDOM aims to reduce current threats and combine conservation and development, while maintaining the ecosystems of the protected areas.

The land use plan will establish separate zones for conservation, permanent forest, extractive industries, rural development, and community forest and wildlife management. The identification of the TRIDOM area follows the 1999 Yaoundé Summit and the subsequent creation of the Central African Forests Commission (COMIFAC).

The Congo Basin contains the second biggest rainforest in the
world after the Amazon and is home to many mammal species including the western lowland gorilla, forest elephant, forest buffalo, swallowtail butterfly and many endemic birds, fish and amphibians.

It is also home to the few remaining Congo Basin lions and is
one of Africa’s most botanically diverse regions.
The area provides shelter, food and materials for nearly 20 million people, including the indigenous Baka pygmy population. The Congo Basin is also a vital region for global conservation as it acts as a major carbon dioxide ‘sink’ – removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and helping mitigate climate change.

Conservation work in the project is designed to meet the development needs of the local communities by involving them in the management of natural resources. Another objective is to alleviate poverty by running revenue-generating eco-development activities, including eco-tourism, small scale commercial fish ponds and agro-forestry.

The project will also create a sustainable financing mechanism to cover the core conservation costs of law enforcement and protected area management. This will safeguard the conservation area’s continuous operation. The seven year project is funded by the Global Environment Facility, implemented by UNDP and managed by UNOPS.