One adaptation for farming wetlands is constructing raised fields (RF), i.e., elevated earth structures. Studies of RF agriculture have focused mostly on the vestiges of RF that were cultivated by pre-Columbian populations in the Americas. Ironically, whereas RF agriculture is still practiced nowadays in many parts of the world, including the Congo Basin, these actively farmed RF have received scant attention. Yet, studying how RF function today can shed new light on ongoing debates about pre-Columbian RF agriculture. Also, in a context of climate change and widespread degradation of wetlands, the study of RF agriculture can help us evaluate its potential as part of an environmentally sustainable use of wetlands. We carried out an ethnoecological study of RF agriculture combining qualitative and quantitative methods over a total of eight months’ fieldwork in the Congo Basin. We found that RF show great diversity in size and shape and perform several functions. Incorporation of grasses such as green manure, allows RF to produce high yields, and RF agriculture decreases flooding risk. However, it is labor-intensive and is likely always only one component of a multi-activity subsistence system, in which fishing plays a great role, that is both resilient and sustainable.

In the Congo basin, fishing activities are a major source of protein and of income for many households. Fishermen combine a broad range of fishing methods adapted to the seasonality of the floodplain and the particular features of its habitats. Pond fishing is a collective fishing method that consists in emptying pools still flooded during the low-water season in the otherwise dry floodplain in order to capture the fish that have sought shelter there. This practice is widespread in central Africa but has rarely been described in detail. Studies often depict this activity as quite simple and practiced by groups of women only. Our study, conducted in the region of Mossaka, in Congo Republic, reveals another reality. We found that pond fishing engages dozens of men, women and children working together and that this activity is based on a range of skills and know-how. Pond fishing is one of the most productive and socially valued fishing methods in the region. Like the technical dimensions of pond fishing, its social and symbolic dimensions are also little described in literature on the subject. Because pond ownership is a source of income and prestige, pond fishing crystallizes social competition. Yet, the collective nature of this fishery enhances alliances and social networks. Pond fishing is also rooted in beliefs about multiple relationships between humans, fish, crocodiles, and supernatural forces inhabiting the ponds. Pond fishing, like collective fishing as a whole, has been in decline for the last 50 years. Fishermen nowadays engage preferentially in individual techniques. We examine whether these individual fishing methods allow maintenance of the social and cultural functions of inland fisheries.

Climate‐driven environmental changes bring new risks but also opportunities to populations living along the world's major rivers. Based on ethnoecological fieldwork, in this paper we examine how people living in the cuvette centrale of the Congo basin have adopted flood‐recession agriculture on islands in the Congo River, taking advantage of a secular shift since the 1980s in the hydrological regime of the Congo River. Analyses of the hydrological data reveal that this shift decreased flood risk and significantly extended the growing season on the islands, long enough to enable cultivation of fast‐maturing varieties of manioc and other crops. Flood‐recession farming on islands in the river is today not only an important source of food, but also a source of income for women, who are primarily responsible for seasonal cultivation of fields during the low‐water season. Hydrological changes alone are insufficient to explain the adoption of the new agricultural practice; adoption also arose as a result of dynamic interactions among river fishing, trading, and broader socio‐economic forces. Climate‐change models project an increased frequency of extreme floods. Our results suggest that this change may limit island cultivation in the future. More generally, our findings point to the importance of looking beyond single‐factor, solely environmental explanations in studies of climate‐change adaptation.