A consortium of partners working in the Maringa-Lopori-Wamba (MLW) Landscape attended a week-long workshop in Basankusu, Democratic Republic of Congo in late January 2008. Twenty-six participants attended from ten partner organizations and institutions.

The goal of the week-long meeting was to share progress on various activities undertaken by the partners within the landscape and to assess impacts of priority interventions from MLW activities on livelihoods and biodiversity. Example MLW activities include encouragement of sustainable livelihoods, engagement in sustainable land-use planning and zoning, and forest monitoring.

During the workshop, the participants broke into two groups of livelihood experts and land-use/ Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling experts. Each group held several brainstorming and information-building sessions and made several visits to the field. Local officials from Basankusu were invited to participate in two successful information-sharing sessions about MLW activities. In addition, the Minister of the Environment (Nature Conservation and Tourism) for DRC paid a visit to show his support. He was accompanied by the Ambassador of the United Kingdom in DRC as well as the Special Correspondent of the British Prime Minister.

While in the field, the GIS group collected GPS data and corresponding photos of sites visited. They traveled by vehicle and boat throughout the Basankusu region, and visited different land cover and vegetation types. In addition, they spoke with landowners to gain a better understanding about their farming practices, livelihood activities, and human activities within the landscape. They also visited a palm oil plantation owned by the company CCP.

The week-long workshop allowed time for some capacity-building and training. Participants from UMD and UCL taught other members of the GIS team about remote sensing and interpretation of satellite imagery. An afternoon session was devoted to a participatory mapping exercise which allowed all participants to pool their geographic knowledge of historical patterns of human settlement and human activity within the landscape. Time was spent identifying data needs and devising a strategy for the future management and dissemination of MLW data.

Overall, the workshop was successful in that it allowed for the building and sharing of ideas for current and future MLW activities. In addition, visiting the MLW landscape contributed greatly to the teams' understanding of the land use and land cover of the landscape, as well as livelihood activities taking place within the landscape and deepened the teams' knowledge of the drivers of future land cover change.