Smoked-fish ponds instead of bushmeat

Eight families near the Mbeli forest in the DRC have built fish ponds with our help. They now raise tilapia that they smoke and either eat or sell, and the protein that used to come from hunting inside the reserve increasingly comes from the ponds instead.

Telling people not to hunt does nothing on its own. If a family's meat comes from the forest, a ban just makes them poorer and hungrier, and it makes them resent the project and the rangers along with it. The only honest version of that conversation starts with what they eat instead.

A pond answers that. It gives a steady supply of fish close to home, which is less work than a day walking the forest to check snares and carries far less risk of running into a ranger patrol. Smoked, the fish keeps, and the surplus brings in cash at the market.

We funded the pond digging, the first stock of fingerlings and some basic training in keeping the water healthy. The families did the work and now run the ponds themselves, which is the only way this lasts past our involvement.

We are clear-eyed that ponds will not end hunting on their own. Some people hunt for reasons a fish pond does not touch, and there will always be those who prefer bushmeat or hunt for sale rather than the pot.

What the ponds do, paired with Espérance Bofenda and the rest of the ranger collective on patrol, is change the maths for a family deciding how to feed itself this week. When the easy, legal option is also the cheaper one, fewer people walk into the reserve with a snare.