Global conservation maps often overlook community lands, impacting decision-making and reducing local agency. We focus on the high-profile and regionally important case of Massaha’s ancestral territory (Ibola Dja Bana Ba Massaha). In Gabon, the forest is largely gazetted into logging concessions and described as an Eden-like wilderness despite long-term human presence. We compare Massaha’s biocultural maps to global, colonial,...

Aim Forests support the majority of the planet's terrestrial biodiversity, and in recent years the characterisation of soundscapes has emerged as a powerful tool for understanding forest ecosystems, both in terms of ecology and for the purpose of conservation. But it is still poorly understood to what extent generalisations can be made about soundscapes in different parts of the world, and to what extent we should expect sound...