The Congo Basin peatlands, the world’s largest tropical peatland complex, critical for global carbon storage yet remain poorly understood from a human dimensions per-spective. This study explores the perceptions, lifestyles, and knowledge systems of In-digenous Peoples and local communities around Lake Tumba, Democratic Republic of Congo, to identify practices supporting peatland conservation. Using a mixed-methods approach—household surveys (n = 320), focus groups, and statistical analyses includ-ing chi-square tests and Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA); the study reveals a predominantly Indigenous agrarian society with limited formal education and strong reliance on peatlands for food (93.7%), construction materials (79.0%), and medicines (75.9%). While regulating services such as carbon storage were seldom recognized, traditional ecological knowledge was evident in sacred species protection, ritual plant and animal uses, and intergenerational knowledge transfer, mainly father-to-son. However, 95.3% of respondents cited religion as the main barrier to this transmission. MCA confirmed that livelihoods, village status, and ritual practices form an integrated socio-cultural system aligned with conservation. These findings stress the role of en-dogenous governance in sustaining peatland-compatible lifestyles. Conservation ef-forts should move beyond carbon-centered or top-down approaches to reinforce land tenure, traditional governance, and knowledge transmission, thereby protecting both peatlands and the cultural identities sustaining them.
Essouman et al. (Tue,) studied this question.