Okapi Wildlife Reserve

The Okapi Wildlife Reserve was established in 1992 in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Ituri forest, and protects some 13,726 km², around a fifth of that forest block. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List in 1996.

Its emblematic species is the okapi, a relative of the giraffe with a short neck and striped legs, endemic to the forests of north-eastern Congo and unknown to Western science until 1901, when its description caused a sensation because it was thought improbable that any large mammal remained undescribed. The reserve holds a significant part of the world population of the species.

The territory is inhabited by the Mbuti and the Efe, hunter-gatherer peoples whose way of life in the forest is recognised as part of the property's values, alongside Bantu farmers. The reserve was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1997 and remains there: the successive armed conflicts in the region, artisanal gold and coltan mining within its boundaries, hunting for bushmeat and attacks by armed groups — including the 2012 raid on the Epulu station, with deaths and the slaughter of the okapis at the breeding centre — have shaped its management entirely.