Antoine Tabu, African Wildlife Foundation's DRC Country Coordinator, explains why he believes that the promotion of local communities' well-being is crucial to the success of sustainable tourism in DRC. "We can do everything in the field of conservation, but as long as man is not at the center, poaching will continue to increase in our protected areas; and the local community and indigenous peoples will continue to stand in the way of any conservation action."
For World Ranger Day, AWF celebrates eco-guard ecologists who painstakingly assess the conservation status of biodiversity in protected and conserved areas.