{"id":43119,"date":"2026-04-06T19:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=43119"},"modified":"2026-04-06T19:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:22:16","slug":"i-escaped-death-a-lot-of-times-one-mans-lifelong-work-protecting-gorillas-and-communities-in-congo-democratic-republic-of-the-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=43119","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I escaped death a lot of times\u2019: one man\u2019s lifelong work protecting gorillas and communities in Congo | Democratic Republic of the Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"


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M<\/span>ist hangs low over the forested slopes of Kahuzi-Biega national park, where the canopy still shelters one of the last strongholds of the eastern lowland, or Grauer\u2019s, gorilla. It is a landscape of immense biological wealth and equally immense political fragility. For 54-year-old Dominique Bikaba, it was once home.<\/p>\n

His family was among those displaced when their ancestral land was incorporated into the park<\/a> in the 1970s. The protected area, in the lowlands of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), harbours elephants and a remarkable range of wildlife, but it is best known as the principal home of the Grauer\u2019s gorilla, the largest subspecies of primates, known to grow up to 250kg (39st) in weight<\/a>. It is one of five great ape species found in the DRC\u2019s vast forests, including mountain gorillas, which are also found in other parts of the Great Lakes region, such as Rwanda and Uganda.<\/p>\n

Conservation, for Bikaba, the founder and executive director of Strong Roots Congo, has always been entwined with memory, dispossession and survival.<\/p>\n

He grew up on the park\u2019s periphery, close enough to remember walking in the forest as a child. \u201cMy grandmother used to take me to the forest, and we could see how the gorillas lived,\u201d he recalls. His upbringing straddled worlds: alongside his biological mother, he was raised by a Batwa (pygmy) mother and his grandmother. Much of his childhood was spent within the Batwa community, whose cultural and spiritual life is deeply rooted in the forest.<\/p>\n

From them he learned about medicinal plants, wildlife and what coexistence means in practice. \u201cMy grandmother taught me to be \u2018a man\u2019, but my pygmy mother taught me how to coexist with the forest,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>A group of critically endangered Grauer\u2019s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri<\/em>). The conflict in DRC has had a devastating impact on their numbers.<\/span> Photograph: Nature Picture Library\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the time, Grauer\u2019s gorillas were not yet classed as critically endangered. Gorillas and humans shared space in a wary but workable balance. \u201cSometimes they would come out of the forest and feed on our crops. Baboons would come for our bananas,\u201d Bikaba says. It was an uneasy proximity, but not yet a catastrophe. War would change that.<\/p>\n

Bikaba began his conservation work in 1992, aged 20, after finishing his studies and responding to a call from community leaders to help mediate tensions between park authorities and people who had been displaced since the park was opened. Two years later, the 1994 Rwandan genocide triggered a mass influx of refugees into eastern DRC, fuelling the first Congo war<\/a> in the late 1990s, followed by the second Congo war<\/a>. Fighting continues today.<\/p>\n

The consequences for wildlife have been devastating. Before the conflicts, the eastern lowland gorilla population was estimated at about 17,000<\/a>. By 2016, surveys suggested roughly 3,800 remained. \u201cWe do not know what the situation is with the gorillas right now. Maybe after the war we might be in a better position to do observations on them and see what has happened,\u201d Bikaba says.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Vendors trade at the charcoal market in Murhesa. Charcoal production contributes to deforestation in DRC<\/a>.<\/span> Photograph: Victoire Mukenge\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An IUCN<\/a> report published in 2016 highlighted that the widespread practice of slash-and-burn and hunting for bush meat contributed to the decline of the population \u2013 and the country\u2019s ongoing conflicts have continued to aggravate the issue.<\/p>\n