The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) was responsable for the management of the national parks of Congo through its sister institute "Institute of the National Parks of Belgian Congo" till the independance of Congo from Belgium. During the period 1925 - 1960  several scientific missions were organised by the Institute in order to survey and to make inventories of the biodiversity in the national parks. The material that was brought back to Belgium was added to the scientific collections of RBINS and the Royal Museum of Central Africa.

The archives were only accessible in Belgium and could not be used by the present custodians of the national parks, the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN). In 2003 a start was made with the digitalisation of the archives in order to rapatriate the digitised information to the ICCN. This website gives the posibility to search the archives, photo archives mostly at this stage, and use the information.