Ecosystem Restoration Associates, ERA, known locally as ERA Congo is a Congolese company specializing in the capture and sales of carbon credits from the Congo Basin forest in a vast concession of nearly 300,000 hectares on the right bank of Lake Mai-Ndombe .
ERA, this 3-letter acronym could be your pass in interactions with the population of the province of Mai-Ndombe. This privilege is the result of development programs carried out on the basis of annual payment of carbon credit. The achievements are visible and perceptible throughout the territory of Inongo and the people swear by ERA at the risk of replacing the central government.
Health
ERA with carbon credit earnings has accomplished a lot. Besides building medical centers, ERA in the Bokebeni village supported the health care of two subjects not the least.
- Madame Mpembe Nzondo, mother of two girls suffered from goiter for 20 years. The two tumors weighing about 5 Kilograms were removed thanks to the gains from carbon credits sales obtained by ERA Congo at the Evangelical Hospital of Vanga. Although Madame Mpembe was unable to win her husband back, her life has resumed a normal course.
- Joel Mbo Mafuta, a young teenager who fractured his right leg during a football match went without proper treatment for 15 months. ERA Congo took care of him by taking him to the Evangelical Hospital of Vanga in the province of Kwilu where the leg was unfortunately amputated following gangrene. Today, the teenager has resumed the normal rhythm of his life while waiting for the installation of a prosthesis which will allow him to resume his studies in Bio-chemistry at the Bwanya Walako Institute.
Mrs. Mpembe in Vanga 
KODAK Digital Still Camera
Education
ERA Congo has completed the construction of 18 schools, six classrooms and 3 administrative premises out of the 28 planned in the villages located in the operating concession on the right bank of Lake Mai-Ndombe.
- ERA Congo offers free uniforms and other school supplies to all schoolchildren in the concession.
- Finalist students and candidates for the national exams benefit from free support for the costs of participation and passport photos in the state exams thanks to the restitution of the profits obtained from the sale of the carbon credit.
- ERA Congo covers the remuneration of teachers who have not yet been mechanized in the schools in the concession.
- ERA Congo has also set up a center for participation in state exams in Lobeke in order to avoid dangerous journeys for finalist students.
- In order to meet the immediate needs of farmers, ERA Congo facilitated the creation of an agri-technical option at the N’songo Institute in the village bearing the same name north of Lac Mai-Ndombe. The progressing option is in its second year.
Agriculture, fishing and breeding
By suggesting the conservation of the primary forest in Mai-Ndombe, ERA Congo had planned alternative means to the survival activities of the indigenous peoples.
- With regard to agricultural activities, ERA Congo has introduced its variety of cassava cuttings called Obama in almost all the villages of the concession. Its particularity is to bear about ten tubers per plant for growth at maturity of 6 months. ERA has established safoutier plantations, a palm grove in Loombe village and a banana plantation to meet the food needs of the people.
- One of ERA’s significant conservation successes in the Congo Basin forest is the restoration of wildlife once considered extinct. Forest elephants, chimpanzees and forest hyena are just a few of many species seen by villagers. The solution to the poaching problem is simple. ERA Congo, for example, has established a breeding enclosure in Loombe village where the heads of animals belonging to the inhabitants are maintained by ERA in a one square kilometer enclosure in order to avoid the wandering of animals which leads to the destruction of field products. .
- The name Mai-Ndombe comes from the Munukutuba for black water . The decoration of this water is linked to the fact that the rotting greenery at the bottom of the water accumulates folic gas which cannot be cleaned for lack of the limestone rocks at the bottom of the lake. This phenomenon does not allow fish to feed in deep waters due to a lack of plankton. They feed on the edges, thus becoming easy prey for fishermen. Unfortunately, the latter use mosquito nets to catch even the smallest fry. In order to stop the decimation of species. ERA Congois investing in fish farming with 8 ponds in Loombe village in order to repopulate Lake Mai-Ndombe.
The achievements above and so many others, have popularized the acronym in the province of Mai-Ndombe and everywhere else. ERA for Locals simply wants. For Madame Mpata Ngonga from Ibali village,
Talking about ERA is giving hope to the people of my village who don’t know the government. When we have a problem, we go to ERA Congo…Mpata Ngonga | Ibali resident
