Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ Perception and Lifestyle Compatible with Peatlands Conservation in the Lake Tumba Periphery, Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo

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.