Around the Luki Biosphere Reserve, ULB-Coopération supports the members of 6 associations within COAPMA (Collectif des apiculteurs du Mayombe). In a context of strong pressure on natural resources, beekeeping represents an opportunity to diversify farm income, while encouraging integrated and sustainable management of land and forest resources.
The Luki reserve now covers 33,000 hectares and is the southernmost relic of the Mayombe forest massif – an ancient equatorial forest stretching from Gabon to the DRC.
The turbulent history of this protected area begins in colonial times with the goal of exploiting precious woods such as Limba (Terminalia superba), going through the advent and collapse of crop plantations intended for export (coffee, cocoa, bananas), until reaching its current status as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1976, now co-managed by INERA (Congolese agricultural research institute) and MAB (Man & Biosphere).
These successive stages caused significant population movements – from the displacement of entire villages to create the reserve, to the various migratory movements that still take place today. The demographic growth observed is part of an already complex land tenure context, where the notion of property in the sense of “modern” law is superimposed on customary law still strongly enforced – and currently leads to a situation of very strong pressure on the land.
The agriculture practiced around the area is mainly done in the AIB system (slash and burn agriculture), with a preponderance of food crops, the most representative of which is cassava in various associations. For many non-rights-holding, non-native farmers, cultivating cassava over a cycle of two years on average before abandoning the plot is the only possibility given the precariousness of their access to land. The planting of perennial species is indeed often inaccessible to them as tenants for fear that this will lead to land grabbing.
With demographic development, these itinerant cropping systems see their fallow periods dramatically shorten – limiting the possibilities of regeneration and leading in the most extreme cases to a phenomenon of “savannization.” This loss of soil suitable for cultivation in turn accentuates the already existing land pressure, and then pushes the most vulnerable to turn to the forest to practice collection and hunting activities. However, above all, the most concerning is the carbonization for the production of “makala” (charcoal), the demand for which continues to grow with the development of urban centers.
The objectives of our SYNAPIC project are part of our understanding of the “integrated management of territories and resources.”
The underlying assumption is that beekeeping activities have the potential to:
The major challenge for the support actions for fruit-bearing beekeeping and for this potential impact on the territories to materialize is to integrate as best as possible the different profiles of farmers who live together around the reserve (and differ in particular by their access to land or capital allowing investment – two major factors of production).
Indeed, without secure access to land, or the possibility of planting bee species there, some future beekeepers could become discouraged, leaving this activity only to those with privileged rights – which would further reinforce inequalities. In the same way, if beekeeping only becomes the prerogative of large rightsholders with extensive land reserves (“marginal” lands), the impact of apiaries on agroecosystems will be more limited than if they manage to integrate them fully into existing agricultural systems.
The project, therefore, aims above all to co-construct, with the various producers and guarantors of land management, models for the integration of beekeeping within the various production systems and an equitable definition of their access and exploitation methods.
The actions of the SYNAPIC project revolve around three axes:
began in 2017 with an allocation of 180 hives and 100 hives. These hives have been distributed to members who are currently trying to repay them in annual installments to build up savings that will allow them to increase their herd. In addition, “kits of beekeeping equipment” are shared within each of the apiaries. Finally, support for the construction and equipping of “self-managed mini-honey houses” within each of the 6 associations has made it possible to improve the extraction and storage capacities of beekeeping products to increase their quality and hygiene. To date, the SYNAPIC project supports commercialization by selling half of the honey produced by beekeepers in urban markets, allowing them to receive an immediate income after harvest and not sell off the other half of the production which will be sold at local markets. In addition, beekeepers also benefit from access to cuttings and seeds via the honey botanical garden in synergy with INERA, one of whose objectives is to supply nurseries.In addition to these operational activities, a continuous work of research and capitalization is being developed with the goal of contributing to the collective identification of the integrating beekeeping methods within production systems and to evaluate them for current and potential impacts on the territories.These activities include the launch of a large agrarian and land study in collaboration with ERAIFT and WWF-DRC, the first stage of which took place via a training-action in agrarian diagnosis in 2019, which then led to several other studies.(Training, maintenance support, income, production)
ULB-Cooperation teams implement the SYNAPIC project. Based at the Kinzau Mvuete branch, on the outskirts of the Luki biosphere reserve, a team of 4 experienced beekeepers – supported by project managers based in Mbanza Ngungu – is in charge of technical support for apiaries, organization of training, support for marketing or even enrichment with bee species and maintenance of nurseries.
This support for beekeepers is done through collaboration with COAPMA and its 6 beekeeping associations that surround the reserve.
Synergies have been developed with players very present in the area:
Belgian Cooperation (DGD)
€1,175,291
2 posters to understand at a glance?
beekeeping (in french)
The links between beekeeping and agroforestry (in french )
Want to read our studies?
Here are 5 studies (in french) that have been carried out since 2018 and which have allowed us to deepen our understanding of the area, and to (re-)assess the relevance of the interventions of ULB-Coopération and its partners: