From Childhood Displacement to Conservation Leadership
Mist clings to the forested slopes of Kahuzi-Biega national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the dense canopy shelters one of the last remaining populations of the critically endangered eastern lowland gorilla, also known as Grauer's gorilla. This landscape represents both immense biological wealth and profound political fragility. For 54-year-old Dominique Bikaba, founder and executive director of Strong Roots Congo, this was once home.
His family was among those displaced when their ancestral land was incorporated into the park during the 1970s. The protected area in South Kivu's lowlands harbors elephants and remarkable biodiversity, but it is best known as the principal habitat of Grauer's gorillas, the largest subspecies of primates that can grow up to 250 kilograms in weight. These gorillas represent one of five great ape species found in the DRC's vast forests, alongside mountain gorillas found elsewhere in the Great Lakes region.
A Childhood Between Worlds
Bikaba grew up on the park's periphery, close enough to remember walking in the forest as a child with his grandmother. "My grandmother used to take me to the forest, and we could see how the gorillas lived," he recalls. His upbringing straddled multiple worlds: alongside his biological mother, he was raised by a Batwa (pygmy) mother and his grandmother, spending much of his childhood within the Batwa community whose cultural and spiritual life remains deeply rooted in the forest.
From them, he learned about medicinal plants, wildlife behavior, and practical coexistence. "My grandmother taught me to be 'a man,' but my pygmy mother taught me how to coexist with the forest," Bikaba explains. At that time, Grauer's gorillas were not yet classified as critically endangered, and humans and gorillas maintained a wary but workable balance, with occasional crop-raiding but not yet catastrophic conflict.
War Changes Everything
Bikaba began his conservation work in 1992 at age 20, responding to community leaders' calls to mediate tensions between park authorities and displaced people. Two years later, the 1994 Rwandan genocide triggered a mass influx of refugees into eastern DRC, fueling the first Congo war in the late 1990s, followed by the second Congo war, with fighting continuing to this day.
The consequences for wildlife have been devastating. Before the conflicts, the eastern lowland gorilla population was estimated at approximately 17,000 individuals. By 2016, surveys suggested only about 3,800 remained. "We do not know what the situation is with the gorillas right now," Bikaba admits. "Maybe after the war we might be in a better position to do observations on them and see what has happened."
An IUCN report published in 2016 highlighted how widespread slash-and-burn agriculture and bushmeat hunting contributed to population decline, with ongoing conflicts continuing to aggravate these issues. Bikaba speaks quietly of his own narrow escapes: "I escaped death quite a lot of times, but my friends and relatives were not so lucky."
Building Strong Roots Congo
In 2009, Bikaba founded Strong Roots Congo with the aim of reconciling conservation with community rights around Kahuzi-Biega national park. The organization worked alongside the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature during renewed state efforts to safeguard the forest, but Bikaba maintained a broader focus. "We wanted to go beyond these forests," he explains, describing how communities themselves pushed for stronger protection of gorillas and other species.
An expedition in late 2010, working with approximately 70 chiefdoms outside protected areas, crystallized a more ambitious vision: creating a biodiversity corridor linking Kahuzi-Biega national park with Itombwe nature reserve. The goal remains securing one million hectares for wildlife and Indigenous communities, knitting fragmented habitats back together while formalizing customary land rights.
So far, Strong Roots has helped establish 23 community forests covering about 600,000 hectares. Through partnerships with international conservation groups, the organization supports communities in converting customary tenure into legally recognized community forestry concessions. This model echoes approaches trialed in parts of Latin America where Indigenous stewardship has proven compatible with forest protection.
Conservation at the Intersection of Ecology and Geopolitics
"Importantly, we want to also improve the livelihoods of people," Bikaba emphasizes. Conservation in this region sits at the intersection of ecology and geopolitics, with the park serving as both a sanctuary for species and a theater of conflict that has simmered for more than three decades.
The insecurity complicates everything. "We have never really had peace," he says. His office was looted after M23 rebels took Goma, and fighting has at times made field sites inaccessible. Travel that once took 30 minutes by air from Bukavu to Shabunda can now stretch into a four-day journey through multiple transit points.
The planned corridor will not only protect other large mammals but also reconnect isolated gorilla populations, improving breeding and recovery chances. Crucially, it will be co-managed by Indigenous communities whose relationship with the forest predates colonial boundaries and modern conservation law.
A Vision of Restitution and Coexistence
For Bikaba, raised on the forest's edge and shaped by displacement and tradition, the work carries a sense of restitution. "What we are doing is putting communities back together, so they can thrive together as they have done for centuries," he says.
He remains wary of conservation models that cast local people as threats. "Western conservationists say that Indigenous populations destroy the forest because they are poor, and there is a tendency to try to separate animals from humans," Bikaba observes. "But humans are also part of nature. There is a lot of wisdom we can learn from the communities that live in the forests."
As fighting continues in eastern DRC, the future of Grauer's gorillas remains uncertain. For Bikaba, the lesson of three decades is stark: "If there is one thing we should avoid in life, it's war. If there is a way we can stop war in this region, we should do it. No matter the cost."
