A Homegrown Group Will Co-Manage Itombwe Nature Reserve
Strong Roots Congo will co-manage Itombwe Nature Reserve with the national wildlife authority, a first for a homegrown NGO in the modern DRC.
Strong Roots Congo is the first local NGO in the modern DRC to share that job with the state
On 13 October 2026 Mongabay reported that Strong Roots Congo will co-manage Itombwe Nature Reserve in South Kivu with the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature. Reporter Elodie Toto's account, summarised by Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler, calls it the first time in the modern history of the Democratic Republic of Congo that a homegrown NGO will co-manage a protected area with the wildlife authority. The vehicle is a public-private partnership.
Dominique Bikaba, who founded Strong Roots, told Toto it was an honour, and that he thought the government chose the group because it had watched them put local communities at the centre of conservation. The organisation has secured nearly 600,000 hectares of community land — about 1.5 million acres — as a corridor between Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Itombwe. It aims to secure 1 million hectares. Critically endangered Grauer's gorillas live in the reserve.
The partnership comes three months after the DRC adopted a National Forest Policy that recognises the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to manage forest. That matters because many protected areas in the country were created by evicting the people who already lived there. Conflict with park authorities was the predictable result. Putting a local organisation on the co-management line is a different design. It is not, by itself, a new count of gorillas, a published budget, or a guarantee that the partnership survives a hard year in South Kivu.
Key Facts
- Reported: 13 October 2026, Mongabay
- Parties: Strong Roots Congo and the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICCN)
- Corridor already secured: nearly 600,000 hectares; aim 1 million
- Reserve: Itombwe, South Kivu; Grauer's gorillas present
- National Forest Policy recognising community forest rights: adopted about three months earlier
- Sources: Mongabay, EnviroLink summary of the same report
Why This Matters
Conservation stories from Congo are usually about a species or a threat. This one is about who signs. Communities that were removed to make parks do not become partners by being photographed. A co-management deal is a structural change, and it should be described as a deal, not as a rescue.
What We Don't Know Yet
We have a founder's brief of Toto's report, not the contract, not the seat split, and not a new biological survey. "First in the modern history of the DRC" is Mongabay's framing of the agreement. We cannot independently read the partnership text from here. South Kivu is not a quiet province. A signature is the start.