Community engagement at Lilungu

Community members unloading boat carrying construction materials at Ikela.

BCI DRC’s chief of operations, Bienvenu Mupenda, has returned from a two month mission to Lilungu. He and local partners spent their time coordinating fieldwork, supporting the final construction of a new conservation center, and deepening engagement with local communities. He was accompanied by a new member of the BonDiv research team, which is well into its 18 month project  to study the diversity of bonobos and their habitat in the region.

A major focus of the mission was community consultation alongside APBL (the Association for the Protection of the Bonobos of Lilungu) across the two groupements (village groupings) where bonobo monitoring teams patrol. Community meetings brought together chiefs, women’s groups, and civil society to clarify shared conservation goals and to hear directly what residents want to see in the next three to five years—more employment through the addition of trackers, income-generating opportunities for women, improved coordination support, and essential services like schools, healthcare, scholarships, and better roads.

Community members hard at work on conservation center construction.

On the ground, real progress is already visible: construction materials were transported deep into this remote region, major building steps were completed (including doors, windows, masonry, and painting), and monitoring teams received vital field equipment like ponchos, boots, and headlamps. 

Donor support is what makes these concrete advances possible—strengthening local leadership, improving capacity for bonobo protection, and helping communities build the infrastructure they need to sustain conservation for the long term.

The conservation center at Lilungu, with only finishing touches to go.