Congo-Brazzaville

 Deuxième semaine de santé de la mère et de l’enfant en République du Congo

Le Gouvernement congolais organise du 10 au 14 septembre, la deuxième édition de la semaine de santé de la mère et de l’enfant en collaboration avec l’Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS), le Fonds des Nations Unies pour l’enfance (UNICEF), le Fonds des Nations Unies pour la population (UNFPA) et d’autres partenaires.

Cet évènement donne l’occasion aux parents de faire vacciner les enfants âgés de zéro à onze mois contre le tétanos. Les enfants vont recevoir des médicaments contre l’anémie, alors que les femmes enceintes bénéficieront des moustiquaires imprégnées d’insecticide.

Les femmes allaitantes ayant les enfants de zéro à deux mois recevront la vitamine A. Le déparasitage et le supplément en vitamine A sont également prévus pour des enfants âgés de six mois à cinq ans.

Les malades souffrant du pian et les personnes qui sont en contact avec ces malades dans les départements de la Likouala et de la Sangha, seront traités au cours de cette semaine. Tous ces actes médicaux notamment la vaccination, la vitamine A, la moustiquaire imprégnée d’insecticide, les médicaments contre les vers intestinaux et l’anémie, le traitement du pian sont gratuits.

La santé de la mère et de l’enfant constitue une préoccupation au Congo où le taux de mortalité maternelle est de 781 pour 100.000 naissances vivantes et celui de mortalité infantile de 75/1000. La situation sanitaire des enfants de moins de 5 ans se caractérise par une mortalité néonatale de 33/1000 naissances ; une mortalité infanto-juvénile de 117/ 1000 naissances.

Parmi les causes de ces décès figurent la malnutrition, l’hypertension artérielle, les hémorragies, les anomalies maternelles ou fœtales, les infections après l’accouchement, les maladies telles le VIH/SIDA, le paludisme, la tuberculose, les anémies.

Le pays s'est doté d'une feuille de route destinée à réduire le taux de mortalité maternelle et infantile. Dans le cadre de cette feuille de route, plusieurs actions ont été menées et ont permis d'enregistrer des résultats encourageants grâce à l'appui des partenaires au développpement.

 The spirits traditionally associated with the protection of a vital rapids and waterfall complex on the mighty Congo River have won international recognition as the Congo Brazzaville site and its spirits were included on a global protection list.

Les Rapides du Congo-Djoué, a 2,500 hectare site not far downstream from Congo's capital Brazzaville, was one of four African wetlands inscribed on the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands register of wetlands of international significance earlier this month. This will ensure stronger national and international efforts and funds to protect the area.

The largest site is the 1.525 million hectare Sangha-Nouabalé-Ndoki wetland in the north-west of Congo Brazzaville, a vast area of lakes, marshes, ponds and floodplain forests on the Sangha River, a major Congo River tributary.

According to ecologists, the area is significant in regulating flood flows and providing dry season reserves for the Congo basin generally. It is also said to be important for transport and is habitat for a number of species of conservation concern – including the Giant Pangolin, chimpanzees and leopards.

The much smaller Congo-Djoué Rapids surround a natural barrage on River Congo and its major tributary Djoué, which is said to be vital to Central Africa's two largest cities, Brazzaville, and the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa.

But it is also an important cultural site. The Congo-Djoué Rapids site is centred on one of three forested islands: L'Ile du Diable (Devil's Island), traditionally the home of spirits who not only protect the areas but ensure good fishing, health and influence to those initiated into their secrets.

However, for the uninitiated, the spirits – for which Nile crocodile or half-human, half-fish "sirène" tokens are venerated – can exert a malign influence.

Gilbert Madouka, of the Ministry of Tourism and the Environment and Congo Brazzaville's Ramsar representative, said the area was being recognised for its cultural as well as its environmental significance. "The sirène and the Nile Crocodile are revered in our area like gods," Mr Madouka said.

"That is why this habitat that houses the gods always causes fear among the population and access to these areas to exploit their natural resources is often based on decisions by traditional authorities – which to a certain extent, diminishes the human pressure on the area," he added.

Environmentalist groups - including WWF, which has been involved in the management of Congo Brazzaville's wetlands since 2002 - celebrate the decision to strengthen the protection of these sites and thank the Congolese spirits for their well done job to scare off intruders so far.

The first scientific days on environment opened in Brazzaville with experts discussing the effects of climate change in Congo, APA notes here.

The Marien Ngouabi University organised the event in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

The theme of this three-day meeting is "Climate change and ecosystem vulnerability, adaptation measures" in a bid to sensitise development actors on these changes.

Development actors, under the patronage of Marien Ngouabi University and UNDP experts, will focus on the effects of climate change in Congo in order to create synergies, and put science at the centre of these change actions.

Climate change is a fact in Congo since decades with physical effects which include the rise in temperature, erosions, silting up, loss of mangroves and sea water inflow, among others.

These first days have allowed scientists to review the knowledge acquired on the characterisation of climate change in Congo, as well as environmental studies.

The sixth session of the World Forum of Sustainable Development will be held on Oct. 27-30 in Brazzaville, capital of Republic of Congo, the Congolese Ministry of Forest Economy announced Tuesday.

The forum will be attended by international organizations including the African Union (AU), African Bank, African Development Bank, Economic Commission for Africa, World Environment Fund, United Nations Environment Program, United Nations Development Program and FAO.

The session, the first to be held in Africa since its launching in 2003, will be devoted to the sustainable development in Africa.

The forum will conclude with a political resolution by the AU, which will be taken as a reference for discussion at the 19th session of the UN sustainable development commission.

According to Henri Djombo, the Congolese minister of forest economy and vice president of the organizing committee of the forum, participants will include political figures, researchers and financiers, and they will discuss issues on sustainable development, effects of climate changes and food crisis in Africa.

The Congolese Maritime Transport and Merchant Marine ministry, in partnership with international development organisations, initiated a workshop on ’coastal erosion in Central Africa’ which opened Monday in Louango (300km from Brazzaville), the economic capital of Congo located in the department of Kouilou.

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) financed this four-day meeting (6-10 October) which must seek ways and means likely to find solutions to a phenomenon which threatens the African coast.

The participants from Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Angola as well as specialized United Nations organizations are attending the event.

International cooperation on wildlife conservation seems to be working in the Republic of Congo, where the number of gorillas, a species at risk for extinction, has risen substantially.

A recent census by the Wildlife Conservation Society indicates there are currently 125,000 western lowland gorillas in the northern part of the Congo. Estimates from the previous two decades placed the entire population of western lowland gorillas found in seven Central African nations at 50,000.

"These figures show that northern Republic of Congo contains the mother lode of gorillas," said Steven E. Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "It also shows that conservation in the Republic of Congo is working. This discovery should be a rallying cry for the world that we can protect other vulnerable and endangered species, whether they be gorillas in Africa, tigers in India, or lemurs in Madagascar."

Paula J. Dobriansky, the under secretary for democracy and global affairs at the U.S. Department of State, agrees: "For the first time in recent memory, we are hearing good news about an endangered species. What that tells us is that conservation strategies are vital, and they are working." Dobriansky addressed a Wildlife Conservation Society event September 15.

The new results showed more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas living in two adjacent regions covering 47,000 square kilometers (18,000 square miles) in the northern part of the Congo. Population densities ranged as high as eight individuals per square kilometer in one particularly rich forest patch, which ranks as among the highest densities for gorilla populations ever recorded, according to a statement by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

 For so long now, there has been almost nothing but bad news about the likely fate of gorillas. They have been the victims of deforestation and incessant warfare in Central Africa. They have been hunted for meat. They are susceptible to the Ebola virus. Estimates in the 1980s suggested that there were roughly 100,000 western lowland gorillas — one of four subspecies. Since then, that number was thought to have declined by half.

But a rigorous new census of western lowland gorillas conducted by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society has found as many as 125,000 of them living in two northern regions of the Congo Republic — more than double the number thought to exist elsewhere throughout their range.

This news is that rarest of things: a second chance for a critically endangered species. The number itself — and the scientists’ confidence in it — is the result of an intensive search of inaccessible rain forests and swamps. It also resulted from counting gorilla nests, rather than the secretive creatures themselves.

These gorillas have been protected by their remoteness and by the inaccessibility of their habitat. But remoteness will ultimately be no deterrent to the threats that have decimated them elsewhere. This extraordinary discovery should be a powerful incentive to create new protected areas to help western lowland gorillas the way other national parks in the Congo Republic have already done. But it will take more than that. Without careful management of the forest resources that surround protected areas — and strict enforcement — a national park is nothing more than a line on a map.

This news is an utter exception to the fate of primates across the globe. A recent, comprehensive survey, presented at the same conference as the news of the gorilla census, indicates that more than half of primate species face extinction. Scientists are finding new species — 53 since 2000 — but too often finding a new species simply means having a chance to watch it die away.

A grueling survey of vast tracts of forest and swamp in the northern Congo. Congo Republic has revealed the presence of more than 125,000 western lowland gorillas, a rare example of abundance in a world of rapidly vanishing primate populations.

As recently as last year, this subspecies of the world’s largest primate was listed as critically endangered by international wildlife organizations because known populations — estimated at less than 100,000 in the 1980s — had been devastated by hunting and outbreaks of Ebola virus. The three other subspecies are either critically endangered or endangered.

The survey was conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society and local researchers in largely unstudied terrain, including a swampy region nicknamed the “green abyss” by the first biologists to cross it. Dr. Steven E. Sanderson, the president of the society, marveled at the scope of what the survey revealed. “The message from our community is so often one of despair,” he said. “While we don’t want to relax our concern, it’s just great to discover that these animals are doing well.”

The society is to release its findings on Tuesday at a meeting of the International Primatological Society in Edinburgh. Conservation society scientists said the continuing threat of Ebola precluded a change in the gorilla’s status. But the discovery was mainly stirring excitement.

“This is the light of hope you look for,” said Richard G. Ruggerio, a conservation biologist at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. But he cautioned that the large gorilla populations in the two studied tracts, which cover 18,000 square miles, should not lead to complacency. “It’s a different kind of alarm call, an opportunity that is increasingly rare on this planet — to do something before there’s a crisis,” he said. A separate global update on primates is being issued Tuesday at the Edinburgh meeting, showing that — with a few exceptions — forest destruction and, increasingly, hunting for meat, pets and Chinese medicinal products are imperiling monkeys and other primates, from Congo Republic to Cambodia.

In Vietnam and Cambodia, 90 percent of primates — including gibbons, leaf monkeys and langurs — are considered at risk, said scientists affiliated with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which issued the update with .

“What is happening in Southeast Asia is terrifying,” said Jean-Christophe Vié, deputy chief of the group’s species program. “To have a group of animals under such a high level of threat is, quite frankly, unlike anything we have recorded among any other group.”

The lowland gorillas discovered in the Congo Republic survey are secure for now, but pressures are growing on wildlife in central Africa as international demand builds for tropical hardwood and other resources. The government of Congo Republic has granted national park status to one of the studied regions, Ntokou-Pikounda, which is estimated to hold 73,000 gorillas. But there is little money for staff or operations, conservation society officials said.

Over all, Dr. Sanderson said, the situation for the surveyed gorillas in Congo Republic appears promising. Along with the park plans, some logging companies that sell lumber certified as responsibly harvested are working with the conservation society and the government to adjust practices in ways that preserve habitat and limit meat hunting.