Kahuzi Biega National Park is under the management of the Institute Congolese pour la Conservation de la Nature has a basic management and surveillance structure. However, the park’s 1975 expansion, which included inhabited lowland areas, resulted in forced evacuations with about 13,000 people of the tribal community of Shi, Tembo and Rega affected and refusing to leave.

Cooperation by the communities living around the park and employment of the Twa people to enforce park protection was pursued by the park authorities. In 1999 a plan was developed to protect the people and the resources of the park and this played a key role in the conservation of the low land Gorillas (Eastern Lowland Gorillas) and other primates in the park like Monkey, Cercopithecinae, Common chimpanzee, Colobinae, Hamlyn’s monkey and many more.

An Eastern lowland gorilla Among the 136 species of mammals identified in the park, the eastern lowland gorilla is the most prominent. According to a 2008 status report of the DR of Congo, the park had 125 lowland gorillas, a marked reduction from the figure of 600 gorillas of the pre-1990’s conflict period, and consequently the species has been listed in the endangered list.

The park is the last refuge of this rare species.[6] According to the census survey of eastern lowland gorillas reported by the Wildlife Conservation Society in April 2011, at least 181 guerrillas were recorded in the park.

Flora and fauna

The park has a rich diversity of flora and fauna and provides protection to 1,178 plant species in the mountainous region of the park, with some 136 species of mammals 349 species of birds, as of 2003,

Flora

The park’s swamps, bogs, marshland and riparian forests on hydromorphic ground at all altitudes are rare worldwide. The western lowland sector of the park is dominated by dense Guineo-Congolian wet equatorial rainforest.

The eastern mountainous sector includes continuous forest vegetation from 600 metres (2,000 ft) to over 2,600 metres (8,500 ft), and is one of the rare sites in Sub-Saharan Africa which demonstrates all stages of the low to highland transition, including six distinguishable primary vegetation types: swamp and peat bog, swamp forest, high-altitude rainforest, mountain rainforest, bamboo forest and subalpine heather.