Conservation groups have made progress setting up complaints systems in protected areas in the Congo Basin, but there’s still a ways to go, the Rainforest Foundation UK says in a report released last week. Called grievance and redress mechanisms, or GRMs, these systems meant to be a safety valve for people living near forests marked for conservation in the event they suffer human rights abuses by wildlife rangers or park administrators. In some cases, these are phone hotlines. In others, a conservation NGO or contracted local organization receives complaints directly or through a community representative. After a human rights scandal in Congo Basin protected areas led to U.S. congressional hearings in 2021, donors and conservationists said they’d work to strengthen complaints processes to prevent future abuses. Ecoguards gather in Monkoto, DRC for a ceremony commemorating the completion of their latest round of training: 90 days of instruction on topics including first aid, self-defense, wildlife laws and the importance of respecting human rights during encounters with community members and poachers. Image by Molly Bergen/WCS, WWF, WRI via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). USAID, for example, published guidelines on how to set them up in 2022. In its report, RFUK said there had been “positive steps” since then in the Congo Basin, but that many protected areas still lack a complaints process. For those that have one, there was little data on the outcome of complaints made through them. “Living up to commitments on GRMs means not only far greater investment in accessible,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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