"If you think of the world as having two lungs, the Amazon rainforest
is one lung, and the Congo Basin
forest is the second. It's a place everyone should be concerned about in a time of climate change," says Patrick Berg
"If you think of the world as having two lungs, the Amazon rainforest
is one lung, and the Congo Basin
forest is the second. It's a place everyone should be concerned about in a time of climate change," says Patrick Bergin, the organization's CEO.
The Congo Basin is also home to the bonobo
, forest elephants
and Congo peacocks
-- species whose survival is dependent on that of the surrounding forest. Bergin has launched an innovative program to save the environment, not just the one region, but on the whole African continent -- the cradle of civilization and potentially its ecological safe keeper.
Over the next decade, the African Wildlife Foundation is building 15 conservation-themed primary schools in some of Africa's most remote regions -- areas that are also highly strategic from an environmental standpoint. The schools are designed to be state-of-the-art, built with attractive faculty housing that will hopefully lure some of Africa's best teachers.
In exchange, the organization not only helps to shape young minds to further the cause, but gets written agreement from the local community to set aside a patch of land for conservation purposes -- a stretch that will be free form hunting, logging and unplanned agriculture.
"It's a bargaining tool," admits Bergin.
"[These communities] are rich in land, but poor in cash. We brought in a resource to help build a school, and we barter."
Education in the Bush
Bergin notes that when it comes to education in Africa, resources go first to schools in the city, then to those in the surrounding towns.
"Kids that live in the Bush are likely to be deeply disadvantaged," he says.
It is precisely that segment, he argues, that needs access to good schooling to protect the future of the continent.
"When children do not get access to a good education, they're doomed to a life where exploiting natural resources is the only way to make a livelihood. If you can't get a skill or a job that allows you to enter the modern economy, harvesting bush meat, cutting trees -- these are your only options," he says.
Construction has already begun on the first school in Ilima, an extremely isolated village in the Democratic Republic of Congo that sits on the corridor between two protected areas.
"We work in a lot of parts of Africa that are remote, but this takes the cake," says Bergin. Getting there involves a two-day motorized canoe trip from Kinshasa, followed by a five-hour motorcycle ride. What that means is that getting materials in and out of the area can prove troublesome.
Architectural firm MASS Design Group
has partnered with the African Wildlife Foundati