Conservation Education

Conservation education enlightens communities about the importance of living more sustainably and being active stewards of their local environment. Our education team works with schools around the Reserve to create a curriculum that engages students and provides them opportunities to be active participants in conservation and to value living in a forest with okapi.

Schools are provided with educational materials, from posters that identify the local fauna to targeted curricula that highlight the value of intact forests, okapi, and biodiversity. Students in the region are all exposed to okapi and their conservation needs, with the goal of creating vocal message multipliers of conservation, who are from the communities that interact with the forest the most.

OCP educators regularly meet with community leaders and government officials to act as an interface between communities and ICCN to make sure confusion about what is and is not allowed the Reserve does not create conflict or result in a misuse of resources. Our educators travel thousands of kilometers each year traveling over single mud filled tracts to engage communities, foster cooperation, and disseminate critical messages on protecting the forest ecosystem. They are a very brave and caring team that makes all our work possible.

Radio broadcasts are the most productive method of sharing information in the region and the safest way to connect with many people living over an immense insecure area. Education programming is broadcasted on seven stations two to three times a week around the Reserve covering topics like the role of ICCN ecoguards, impacts of climate change, student participation in conservation, forest protection, the role of the Mbuti in the Reserve and the management structure of the Okapi Wildlife Reserve.