Congo Basin

Working with Dominique Bikaba

The Forest Health Alliance works closely with Dominique Bikaba, founder and executive director of Strong Roots Congo, our long-standing Congolese partner organization. Bikaba grew up on the edge of Kahuzi-Biega National Park, raised partly within the Batwa community, and has spent more than three decades reconciling gorilla conservation with the rights of the communities who live alongside the forest, through years of war and insecurity in eastern DRC.¹

Together we are building the Kahuzi-Biega–Itombwe corridor, which aims to secure one million hectares of forest for wildlife and Indigenous communities and to reconnect isolated populations of Grauer’s gorillas. Strong Roots has already helped establish 23 community forests covering some 600,000 hectares, co-managed by the communities themselves.¹ Our partnership also supports the Batwa Agricultural Program, the Kahuzi-Biega Environmental School and Eggs for Kids. Since 2020, the work has also been supported by Age of Union, the conservation alliance founded by Dax Dasilva; together, the partners report more than 600,000 hectares protected through 23 community forest titles, benefiting 3,842 community members.² In September 2026, Strong Roots was also entrusted with co-managing the 760,000-hectare Itombwe Nature Reserve for ten years, the first Congolese NGO chosen to manage a protected area in the DRC.³

‘I escaped death a lot of times’: one man’s lifelong work protecting gorillas and communities in Congo

The Guardian’s profile of Dominique Bikaba, April 2026 · Read the article →

1. Tam Patachako, “‘I escaped death a lot of times’: one man’s lifelong work protecting gorillas and communities in Congo”, The Guardian, April 6, 2026.
2. Age of Union, “Forest Health Alliance” project page.
3. “For the first time, Congolese NGO to manage a DRC protected area”, Mongabay, September 16, 2026.