According to the recent law 1/10 N° of 30 May 2011 on the creation and management of protected areas in Burundi, the Rusizi Nature Reserve is a protected area under the governance of co-management between the State and the local communities. This new vision in the management of the Rusizi Nature Reserve comes at a time when this protected area is in a disastrous situation of degradation following the various conflicts between INECN and communities over the use of natural resources. These conflicts have their origin in the fact that the creation and management of this reserve have always been prescriptive with the exclusion of local communities who have finally lost the right to use biological resources.

The new law therefore appears to be a tool for the effective involvement of local communities in this reserve management exercise. It is therefore a new protection policy that responds to the variety of rights recognized by communities and the State and demonstrated by the sharing of authority and responsibility in the management of the reserve.

The law considers that the management of a protected area must be accompanied by activities to develop human environments, in particular by granting communities the right to use the natural resources of the protected area. Indeed, article 27 of the same law stipulates that a memorandum of agreement on the right of use and its application procedures must be signed between the organization responsible for the conservation of nature in its functions, in this case INECN, and a segment of the population concerned by these rights.

It is with this in mind that INECN, in its stages of co-management with communities, has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the NTUGIRIRANIRE IMBABAZI MUKURABANA Association in order to establish a rational system for collecting phragmites from the Rusizi Nature Reserve.