MMT – Mbou Mon Tour

• Forest heritage conservation: environmental education and awareness on sustainable biodiversity use, bonobo and other protected species conservation and habitat protection; supporting the creation of Local Community Forest Concessions (CFCL) elsewhere; climate change action through reforestation along the Congo and Kasai rivers, agroforestry and assisted natural regeneration.

• Socio-economic development support: training communities in income-generating activities (beekeeping, fish farming, community microfinance, village savings groups, local cooperatives); developing sustainable agriculture and agroforestry through agricultural inputs and small livestock support; improving access to water infrastructure and key social facilities (maternity wards, rural training centres, etc.).

• Ecotourism: upgrading MMT’s site to international standards, marketing and promoting the site’s ecotourism value, and building community knowledge of ecotourism.

• Organisational strengthening: building MMT’s own administrative, financial, technical, scientific and logistical capacity, and that of CFCL governance bodies it supports.

• Scientific research: studies and publications on bonobos, the ecosystem, community-based conservation research, and climate-biodiversity-community interactions, plus research on local communities’ diets.

Mbou-Mon-Tour (MMT) is a Congolese NGO founded in 1997 by local community representatives, backed by traditional authorities and university academics from Bolobo Territory, Mai-Ndombe Province, in response to alarming deforestation and biodiversity loss. This grassroots mobilisation grew into an innovative, community-based conservation programme aimed at socio-economic development compatible with biodiversity conservation. In 2001, MMT surprised the scientific community by announcing the presence of bonobos in Bolobo Territory, some 300 km north of Kinshasa – a habitat type long thought unsuitable for the species – a finding only confirmed internationally after a 2005 WWF inventory, which led to a redrawing of the Lake Tumba landscape. Recognising local communities’ central role in bonobo survival, MMT chose not to create a classical nature reserve but rather a participatory model, where communities set aside part of the forest for bonobo conservation and another for human activities, so that conservation benefits flow back to them. With strong support from traditional chiefs, MMT ran awareness campaigns using popular songs based on old Teke customs prohibiting bonobo hunting and consumption. This led 6 villages to set aside forest for bonobo and monkey protection in 2006, launching a process of community forest creation under Article 22 of the Forest Code, which allows communities to manage their customarily-held forests themselves. Since then, MMT has trained and supported village tracker teams who monitor and habituate primates, collect data on bonobos and their habitat, and patrol the forest. In parallel, MMT built a sustainable agriculture programme and broader socio-economic and infrastructure support, convinced that lasting bonobo conservation requires genuine local development. MMT today runs 6 bonobo monitoring sites, 3 dedicated to progressive habituation and 3 to pure ecological monitoring.

Mbou Mon Tour from Mehdi Husain on YouTube.