Through his understanding of the importance of habitat conservation for wildlife in Europe and his professional work on Congo at the museum in Tervuren, Derscheid became an instrumental figure in lobbying for the creation of the first national park in Africa, formally proposed in 1925. He became known to Carl Akeley of the American Museum of Natural History through his cartographic work revising the best available maps of the mountain gorilla habitat in the Virunga Mountains border region of Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. This map documented the loss of forest habitat. Derscheid became a critic of colonial agricultural policy in Rwanda and Burundi, began raising funds and lobbying for the creation of a park to preserve gorilla habitat. He was appointed to accompany Akeley on the 1926-1927 expedition to Kivu, Belgian Congo that first mapped the area in detail and defined the borders of the Albert National Park (now Virunga National Park).