Roughly 63,000 square kilometers of closed canopy rainforest cover the northeastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in and around Ituri Province.
Ituri is one of the very few tropical forests on the planet to have maintained continuous forest cover right through the Pleistocene (the epoch of the repeated glacial/interglacial cycles which began about 11,700 years ago).
How does a rainforest survive the climatic shifts which have stripped most of central Africa of its forest cover?
Around the final glacial maximum (some 20,000 years ago) it acted as a refugium, a reservoir of forest species which subsequently expanded out again over the area.
It now forms the eastern anchor of the Congo Basin (the world’s second largest tropical rainforest system) which covers some 2 million sq km across six countries.
The basin is thought to store some 8% of the carbon contained in the world’s forests and the Ituri is an active part of that system. Forest dependent communities have inhabited the area for thousands of years.
Geography & Ecosystem Overview
Quick reference
Area: ~63,000 km² | Rainfall: 1,700 to 2,000 mm annually | Canopy height: 40 to 60 m | Latitude: 1° to 3° N
The Ituri is in the far north east of the DRC, bounded on the east by the Albertine Rift and on the west by the Lualaba River drainage.
It’s equatorial so there are two wet seasons and no real dry season at all. The rainfall is virtually always above 80mm per month.
Forest classification puts the Ituri in the Guinean and Congolian lowland rainforest type which is the principal vegetation type across Central Africa.
Primary stands have a closed canopy from 40 to 50m and there are some emergent trees which can go above 60m.
Below that you have a midstory and a fairly open understory which gives the forest the vertical structure that determines the amount of light that reaches the ground and the species that can survive there.
The Congo Basin forests have an estimated 25 to 30 billion tonnes of carbon in the form of aboveground biomass and soils.
The Ituri contributes a significant proportion to that total given its old growth status and the very limited historical clearance.
For context, West African forests have lost some 80% of their original cover since 1900. The Ituri still has the majority of its trees.
Wildlife of the Ituri Forest
Over 150 mammal species and over 300 bird species have been recorded in the forest, which is of course exceptional in terms of the concentration of specialised species found almost nowhere else on the African continent.
Okapi
The okapi is the flagship mammal of the Ituri and the only living member of the giraffe family adapted to closed canopy conditions.
The IUCN lists the species as Endangered with a wild population estimated at 10,000-20,000.
The Okapi Wildlife Reserve is home to some 5,000 of them.
Okapi are solitary browsers and will feed on the foliage of over 100 plant species, many of which are toxic to other herbivores.
Striped markings on the hindquarters provide natural camouflage in the dappled light of the understory.
It’s genuinely very difficult to spot an okapi in the wild. They move very quietly through the undergrowth, they freeze instantly at the slightest sign of disturbance and adults require a home range of well over 5 sq km of primary forest.
African Forest Elephant
The IUCN lists the African forest elephant as Critically Endangered with populations in the region having declined by more than 60% over the past 30 years.
Forest elephants in the Ituri are typically 2 to 2.5m at the shoulder and reach an adult mass of about 2700kg.
These herbivores are the basin’s main seed dispersers, moving seeds from large forest fruits out to 50km.
Primates
The Ituri supports at least 13 primate species.
Eastern chimps are in the northern parts of the forest and they live in groups of 20 to 80.
De Brazza monkeys hold territory along river corridors and swamp edges, Angolan colobus occupy the upper canopy (30m and above).
The forest also harbours red-tailed monkeys, blue monkeys and a number of nocturnal galagos.
Forest Ungulates
The forest ungulates are the bongo, the water chevrotain and at least seven species of duiker.
Of these the blue duiker is around 4kg at maturity and is one of the smallest of the native antelope species on the continent. They form the principal prey for the resident carnivores.
Carnivores and Birds
Forest leopards and African golden cats are the dominant cats in the ecosystem.
The area has over 300 bird species including the Congo peafowl (a ground bird confined to the NE Congo Basin) and a number of hornbill species which use the hollows of mature trees for their seasonal nesting.
The Okapi Wildlife Reserve
The Okapi Wildlife Reserve covers some 13,700 sq km along the western edge of the Ituri Forest.
UNESCO added the reserve to its World Heritage list in 1996, on the grounds that it is the principal refuge for the world’s okapi population.
Armed conflict in Ituri province placed the site on the List of World Heritage in Danger the following year and it has remained on that list for nearly 30 years.
The reserve is managed by the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature and the Okapi Conservation Project (a programme of the Wildlife Conservation Society).
The reserve has a force of about 200 rangers who patrol an area larger than Lebanon.
Their job is to prevent poaching, monitor the wildlife and act as a link between the communities and the forest.
By 2026 the reserve is still active under security conditions which have had a direct impact on daily life in Ituri for over 20 years.
Ranger patrols cover some 12,000km of forest tracks each year. Community programmes are now in place with over 50 of the surrounding villages, focusing on sustainable agriculture and alternative protein sources to reduce the pressure on the wild game populations.
The conservation project also operates a captive breeding facility near the town of Epulu which has been successfully breeding okapi calves since the 1980s.
Indigenous Peoples: The Mbuti and Efe
The Ituri Forest is the traditional homeland of the Mbuti and Efe peoples who have one of the oldest continuous forest cultures on the planet.
Archaeological and genetic records show they’ve been in the Congo Basin for over 4,000 years.
Today some 35,000 Mbuti and Efe people live in the wider forest area.
The Mbuti are in the southern areas and hunt with communal vine nets. The Efe are in the north-eastern areas and hunt with poison tipped arrows.
Both groups operate in mobile bands of 15 to 60 people who shift from one temporary forest camp to another every few weeks to avoid local depletion of resources.
Generations of forest residency have resulted in a very comprehensive botanical taxonomy indeed, with over 220 plant species documented in terms of their use by the community for medicine, construction and food.
Honey harvesting in the main wet season (May to August) is a major source of nutrition, providing up to 70% of the calories consumed during the peak months.
The management structures in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve incorporate the various communities through the establishment of customary hunting zones which cover some 3000km2.
Involving the resident indigenous trackers in the biological surveys directly leads to improved accuracy of field monitoring in remote forest areas that patrol teams simply don’t get to.
Threats and Conservation Challenges
Security Conditions and Ranger Protection
Sustained civil instability remains the principal operational risk in Ituri.
Factions of the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo and the Allied Democratic Forces maintain active camps along the forest perimeter.
These armed groups fund their activities through illicit control of resources which has a direct bearing on the conservation staff working on the ground.
Over 20 wildlife rangers have been killed in the line of duty in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve since 2012. It’s a stark illustration of the pressures that field staff are under on a daily basis.
Resource Extraction and Forest Loss
Artisanal mining operations are placing a massive pressure on the interior waterways of the forest.
Thousands of informal miners are mining gold and coltan from the alluvial deposits, resulting in massive siltation of the Epulu and Ituri river systems.
Global Forest Watch satellite monitoring recorded over 15,000 hectares of primary tree canopy lost in Ituri Province in 2024 alone.
Road construction associated with logging concessions is hastening the process, opening up the previously remote core areas to agricultural clearance and commercial bushmeat hunting.
Multilateral Funding and Conservation Benchmarks
International funding programmes provide essential operational support to field teams operating under such compounded pressures.
The Central African Forest Initiative has committed $500m in regional assistance packages to help stabilise forest boundaries and to promote green economic alternatives for the rural populations.
Since 2023 collaborative enforcement initiatives between the provincial authorities and NGOs have resulted in the removal of a number of illegal mining camps from within core reserve boundaries.