His report described the culture of the lime growers of Gabon, the need to establish experimental farms, and construction of a port at Pointe-Noire that would be the terminus of the railway from Brazzaville.

[2] The problems of rubber collection that he described caused the Minister of the Colonies and the Museum to import Hevea brasiliensis to Guinea, Ivory Coast and Dahomey, and Palaquium gutta to Gabon.

[2] In 1895 he was candidate for the Gabon-Congo delegation to the French Africa Committee, representing the colonists, and raised questions about Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza's approach to colonization.

[3] In 1897, in La France Noire, Bourdarie acknowledged Brazza's honesty and his contribution to the French Congo colony but opposed his appointment as Commissioner General of the colony on the basis of his lack of tact and the opposition he had raised among the colonists,[4] In 1895 the Algerian Arab interpreter Djebari claimed that survivors from the Flatters expedition were still being held prisoner by the Tuaregs at the oasis of Taoua.

After a lecture tour in Belgium he was received on 25 May 1898 by Leopold II, who charged Captain Laplume to inquire on the trials of domesticating elephants undertaken at Fernan Vaz by the Fathers of the Holy Spirit.

[7] It advocated respect for the institutions and authorities of the colonized societies, gradual modernization at their own pace through collaboration between traditional elites and the colonial authorities, with progressive granting of political rights including the vote and French citizenship, while letting the colonized peoples retain their traditional laws, customs and culture.

[2] In 1909 Bourdarie and Professor Paul Pellet of the École des Sciences Politiques founded the Souvenir colonial français to create bronze plates that marked the deeds of the French overseas.

At the invitation of the Resident General he made a trip to Morocco in 1916 and visited Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakesh, Fez, Taza, Mazagan and Safi.

[12] During World War II Bourdarie continued the work of the Académie des sciences coloniales in 1939–40, moved to his house at Vayrac when the Germans advanced, then returned to Paris.