UPEMBA
LANDSCAPE
Nature doesn’t stop at park boundaries. Wildlife migrates, rivers connect distant villages, and activities outside Upemba National Park directly impact the ecosystems within it.
Overview
We embrace the Landscape Approach. Instead of managing the park as an island, we treat the entire region as an interconnected network where nature, people, and sustainable economies thrive together.
The Upemba landscape weaves together protected wildlife areas, community lands, rivers, and local villages. Our goal is to balance three vital objectives:
01
Protecting biodiversityc, habitats and critical migration corridors
02
Improving the livelihoods and climate resilience of local communities.
03
Supporting green economic opportunities that reduce pressure on natural resources.
Four Strategic Pillars
I. Ecological Connectivity
Upemba is a vital sanctuary for rare mammals, birds, and aquatic life. We ensure wildlife can safely move, migrate, and adapt to a changing climate by protecting ecological corridors and buffer zones outside the park.
IV. Inclusive Governance
A shared landscape requires shared decisions. We bring together local communities, traditional authorities, and civil society as active partners. This collaborative model builds trust, reduces resource conflicts, and ensures local voices shape our conservation strategies.
II. Sustainable Livelihoods
Conservation succeeds when local communities prosper. We partner with neighboring communities for sustainable agriculture, eco-friendly enterprises, and alternative livelihoods—turning conservation into a shared economic benefit.
III. Climate Resilience
Healthy forests, wetlands, and grasslands act as natural shields against climate shocks. Protecting the wider landscape secures crucial ecosystem services that communities depend on, including clean water regulation and fertile soil.
“Conservation and development are not opposing goals. Healthy ecosystems support thriving communities, and thriving communities are the strongest guardians of nature.”
—Zebra
The Upemba Landscape
The rapid development of the Lobito Corridor, supported through the PGII¹ / US–EU Strategic Infrastructure Partnership, the European Union’s Global Gateway strategy, and the NDICI regional landscape approach, is reshaping the future of southern Democratic Republic of Congo. As investment accelerates in transport infrastructure, mineral processing, logistics, and regional trade, attention naturally focuses on roads, railways, energy systems, and industrial nodes. Yet one of the most strategic components of this transformation remains largely absent from current planning: the landscapes that sustain and secure these investments.
Among these, Upemba National Park occupies a central place. Although major mining concessions in Haut-Katanga, Lualaba, and Tanganyika are often perceived as geographically distant from the park, sometimes separated by 90 to 100 kilometers, distance does not imply disconnection. The Upemba-Lubudi-Sampwe-Bena Mulumbu landscape functions as a single interconnected ecological, social, and security system. Water flows across this landscape into productive zones. Transport infrastructure, including RN33 and strategic rail connections feeding the Lobito Corridor, crosses ecologically linked areas. Population movements, labour dynamics, informal extraction routes, and security pressures all transcend administrative boundaries.
This reality calls for a shift toward landscape-scale governance involving the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, mining operators, infrastructure developers, public authorities, and conservation partners. Such an approach is necessary to better align infrastructure expansion and economic development with ecological integrity and territorial stability.
The EU’s holistic INDICI landscape approach provides a practical framework for this integration. The Global Gateway vision goes beyond financing infrastructure; it aims to build resilient territorial systems capable of sustaining long-term economic transformation. Within this logic, protected areas should be recognized as essential regional assets, forms of natural infrastructure that secure watersheds, regulate climate, reduce conflict risk, and reinforce state presence.
In the context of Greater Katanga, this perspective aligns directly with the emerging ambition for a green and resilient regional economy. Upemba can serve as a flagship demonstration of this model, illustrating how conservation landscapes underpin broader development trajectories.
Key arguments for a landscape approach:
III. A landscape approach enables coherent territorial planning across ecological, economic, and security dimensions, ensuring that infrastructure investments are not undermined by environmental degradation or instability.
I. Conservation should no longer be viewed as peripheral to industrial development or as an isolated environmental agenda. Properly managed protected areas function as strategic buffer zones that protect transport routes, reduce land-use conflict, reinforce local governance, and strengthen the social licence of industrial operators.
IV. It also creates the foundation for a broader partnership under the concept of a Greater Katanga Green Alliance, bringing together public and private actors around a shared territorial vision aimed at ensuring that economic growth is accompanied by ecological integrity, social inclusion, and regional stability.
II. For companies investing in the corridor, support to landscape resilience is therefore not philanthropy, but sound risk management.
