Life in the Congo has been a torturous and deadly one for many people, and for Corneille Ewango, it was no different. Born into a poor family in the western part of the Congo, his father a soldier and uncle a fisherman and poacher, Mr. Ewango, as a young boy in his early teens, fell into assisting his family in the unlawful "way of life" gathering ivory tusks, meat and other hunted animals to sell in city markets.

At the age of 17, Mr. Ewango got involved in poaching until the age of 20. He wanted to do it, he says, because "I believe to continue my studies. I wanted to go to university but my father was poor. My uncle even. So I did it…and for three to four years I went to university." Mr. Ewango applied every year for three years to become a doctor in Biomedical Science without success. His desires to become a doctor to serve his family because they were poor, and to help his community since they did not have good health care fell short having been turned down because his field of study was Biology.

Mr. Ewango then thought he was "getting too old," but did not give up, and went into Tropical Ecology and Plant Botany at a university in Kisangani, completing with honors and earning a teaching assistantship. In 1991, following his studies, Mr. Ewango, as a student, took his internship in the Ituri Forest's Okapi Faunal Reserve (at the time, a forest reserve with endemic animals and plants) where he soon found his passion, botany and wildlife conservation.

With a passion to learn more, Mr. Ewango continued at a research center. And in 1995, began working at the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Ituri Forest, helping to do research and develop an herbarium with 4,500 sheets of plants that have been cut, dried, packed and mounted on paper for Ituri Forest research study as well as agricultural, medicinal and scientific studies.

At the end of the totalitarian regime of Mobutu Sese Seko, life for the people of the Congo became very difficult, so did the work that the Wildlife Conservation Society tried to do. When Joseph Kabila, the Congo's first democratically elected leader after Mobutu was overthrown, started his movement to liberate the Congo, Mobutu's rebel soldiers fled to the west, passing through the Okapi Faunal Reserve, destroying the natural forest, the animals, looting and senselessly murdering many people in their wake, including the native pygmies who inhabit the forest.

Not able to speak Swahili at the time or Lingala, the language of Mobutu's soldiers, Mr. Ewango chose to stay at the reserve while many left, fearful of being a targeted by the militia. Concerned for his own life, the life of the staff and worried that everything would be lost, Mr. Ewango carefully tried to save as many things as he could, hanging valuable pieces of equipment in the tree canopy, burying the new engine of the 4 x 4 Land cruiser, and transporting the 4,500 botany collection in trunks on a cycle for four days to secure them at a Ugandan herbarium.

After the militia was gone, Mr. Ewango returned the botany collection back to the center so that everyone at the center could continue their studies. Eventually, another conflict erupted with soldiers extracting the natural resources of the protected forest to advance their movement. Mr. Ewango refused to allow the destruction and began negotiations to try and protect the staff, the equipment and the surrounding communities of about 1,500 people. During the long ongoing negotiations, Mr. Ewango cleverly summarized the plans and strategies of the soldiers in emails, reporting the changes daily to many people and many major news stations around the world. The reports created pressure on the rebels, causing them to flee the protected area.

Shortly after, Mr. Ewango, with a small amount of money he had left, started to rebuild the herbarium. He then continued to fundraise for more money and built a small center to train young Congolese students as well as monitor climate change on biodiversity to see the effects that the Ituri Forest has on carbon reduction. Since then, he has amassed 15 years of data from this study.

Recognized for his bravery, Mr. Ewango received a scholarship to pursue his Masters in Tropical Botany from the University of Missouri, St. Louis in the United States. He then returned to the Congo where he continues his research in conservation of local species of plants in the Ituri Forest.

When asked what people can do to help him, Mr. Ewango replies "Helping us, people are sometimes acting by ignorance. I did it myself…if I know when I was young that killing elephants I'm destroying biodiversity; I would not have done it. Many of you have seen the talents of Africans, but there are few that are going to school. Many are dying because of all those kinds of pandemic, HIV, malaria, poverty…not going to school. What we can assist us by building capacities. How many have got opportunity like me to go to US to do a masters and go now to the Netherlands to do a PhD? Many of them are here because they don't have money and they can't go even to university, they can't attend the bachelor's degree. Building capacities for young generation is going to make better future for tomorrow for Africa."