Battle for the Forests: DRCs Indigenous communities seek to take back ancestral land

Community organisations and Tenure Facility have made huge strides over the past year to defuse the clashes in the Democratic Republic of Congo that have erupted when Indigenous Peoples have been barred from traditional land that has been designated as conservation areas.

It comes down to working to establish the rights of Indigenous Peoples to manage their lands. Or simply putting people back into the conservation mix.

“My ancestors lived in and off the forest during the dry season, where we would go to our ancient sites, hunt, and make a living” said Albert Limongwo, a member of the majority Iyeki People in Monkoto territory in central DRC, and a founder of the Monkoto Union of Indigenous Peoples.

“We were stopped from entering our land by ICCN,” he said, referring to the DRC’s governmental agency charged with protecting in the country.

Limongwo pointed to how the ICCN’s 300 eco-guards had prevented access to Salonga National Park, situated at the heart of the central basin of the Congo River. “Since then, the (Indigenous) Batwa People have been forced into manual labour for the Bantu [agricultural settlers] in exchange for food or clothing,” he said.

“This oppression persisted until some of us received an education and realised that we could do it ourselves, own our own boats, and till our own lands,” he added.

With stories like this, “conservation” for many of the DRC’s Indigenous People has become synonymous with exclusion as they are evicted from ancestral lands to create protected areas, leaving behind trauma and impoverishment.

Such exclusion not only deprives people of their rights, it backfires in environmental terms.

A recent report, “From Abuse to Power: Ending Fortress Conservation in the Democratic Republic of Congo”, by the Oakland Institute, details how exclusionary conservation approaches have displaced Indigenous Peoples and local communities, destroyed livelihoods, and fostered violence. It also notes that such measures have undermined their own goal of biodiversity protection.

In a similar vein, a recent study designated the Monkoto Corridor, where Salonga’s displaced forest communities were resettled over three decades ago as a key biodiversity area. Unlike protected areas, the Corridor is community-managed and demonstrates high biodiversity value, underscoring the vital role Indigenous communities play in sustainable conservation and climate change mitigation.

A new path

Change is a-foot. Last year, a landmark ruling of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights recognised the Batwa’s rights to their ancestral lands in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, in the eastern part of the country and some 900 km from the Monkoto corridor. The decision challenges traditional conservation approaches, which exclude local people from conservation areas and often foster illegal resource extraction and environmental degradation.

At the same time, community organisations and Tenure Facility are working on approaches that combine both Indigenous land rights and conservation.

Dominique Bikaba, executive director of Strong Roots Congo, a Congolese organisation working with Indigenous Peoples and local communities and based in South Kivu, advocates for collective tenure of traditional lands for local communities and Indigenous Peoples. Specifically, his organisation aims to support communities manage a contiguous block of natural forests spanning 1 million hectares between Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Itombwe Nature Reserve in South Kivu Province.

Tenure Facility funding supports Strong Roots in establishing Local Community Forest Concessions (CFCLs), a legal mechanism under DRC legislation that enabled Indigenous Peoples and local communities to legally manage their forests through participatory planning for land use and protection as well as individual and collective benefits.

“Tenure Facility has been instrumental in our journey,” Bikaba said, while Strong Roots has attracted further donor interest in CFCLs, community-led conservation and climate resilience initiatives.

Field reports indicate that co-management arrangements such as those advocated by Strong Roots are bridging historical divides.  Indigenous practices such as biomonitoring now complement government conservation efforts, reducing illegal logging and promoting sustainable resource use.

“Protected areas have often failed in Africa because conservation efforts have tried to separate humans from nature. But humans are part of nature and separating them only leads to the destruction of both,” Bikaba said.

Dr. Albert K. Barume, United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on the Human Rights Council and co-author of the CFCL framework, sees participatory mapping as a key feature in dealing with the conservation vs people clash.

“It fosters collaboration and resolves conflicts,” he said.

In Sud Ubangi Province, for example, communities supported by Tenure Facility have successfully mapped their ancestral lands, secured tenure rights, and integrated traditional knowledge into conservation. Recognised land rights have reduced conflicts, fostered biodiversity protection, and enabled sustainable agriculture and reforestation.

A Turning Point

The rise of rights-based approaches could not be timelier. As nations race to meet global commitments to protect 30 percent of the Earth’s lands and waters by 2030 — the “30×30” target — many are proposing new protected areas. However, rights-based organisations warn of the risks of reverting to exclusionary methods that displace Indigenous communities. Rights-based approaches to conservation ensures that Indigenous Peoples receive resources and decision-making authority to protect ecosystems.

The DRC has embraced the 30×30 target. It has joined the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and is integrating biodiversity preservation into sectors such as agriculture, forestry, and mining through its National Strategic Development Plan.

It is also developing a National Strategy for Conservation Outside of Protected Areas, which aims to establish a framework for community-led conservation.

At the same time, with a review of the Forest Code on the horizon, the government is coming under pressure from commercial interests to put the brakes on the roll out of community forest concessions.

Yet it is clear that, without partnering with communities, conserving DRC’s vast biodiversity will not be possible.  As history shows, excluding people from nature only hastens its destruction. Inclusion is not just a moral imperative—it is essential for the planet’s future.