In January 2011, the Jane Goodall Institute convened conservation partners to develop a conservation action plan for great apes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation & Tourism and the Institut Congolais pour Conservation de la Nature. The main goal of this initiative was to identify critical threats to gorillas, chimpanzees and their habitats in the landscape, and to develop conservation strategies to address these threats. The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Action Planning methodology was followed. This approach is widely used and recognized as a rigorous, robust, and logical methodology due to the emphasis on science and use of the best available information. Given the vast area of the landscape and availability of the experts, partners and key actors, the conservation plan was conceived during a series of workshops with precise objectives, themselves preceded by preparatory meetings.