In Africa's Congo Basin, Indigenous peoples lose homes to conservation
efforts
Ngala Killian Chimtom, EarthBeatJustice
October 30, 2024
See link
https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/justice/africas-congo-basin-indigenous-peoples-lose-homes-conservation-efforts
for photos.
Bernard Messono today lives by the roadside.
A 28-year-old Indigenous Baka man from Elango village in Cameroon's East
Region, he was forced out of his natural home in the forest by encroaching
logging and mining companies. But a third source also led to his people's
displacement: government conservation efforts.
"We come from the forest," Messono said. "No one should tell us not to
enter the forest. The forest is everything to the Baka."
"The forest for the Baka is a source of life," he told EarthBeat during a
September visit to his new village, roughly 80 km (50 mi) northeast of the
Dja Faunal Reserve where he once lived. "It gives us food: honey, fruits,
wild tubers and wild game. It is also our pharmacy because when you are
sick, it is from the forest that you get the tree leaves, the bark, and
roots that treat you."
The situation facing the Baka people is a familiar one for Indigenous
communities across Africa who have faced a loss of access to ancestral
lands due to conservation efforts to preserve biodiversity and ecosystems.
But it's a problem that could only grow without steps to respect and
protect Indigenous rights, Indigenous peoples and their allies say.
It is one of the issues under discussion this week as nations meet in
Colombia under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. The
main focus of the meeting is enacting a global pact to halt and reverse
biodiversity loss, including a goal of conserving 30% of global lands and
waters by 2030.
Faith-based organizations have been vocal at the COP16 summit and beyond in
urging that conservation measures, while critical for preserving species
and ecosystems, must respect the rights and land ties of Indigenous
communities and include them in decision-making about ways to protect
nature.
That includes the Catholic bishops of Africa, who have joined other
Catholic groups in urging the European Union and the African Union to
ensure that biodiversity conservation funds do not result in the
displacement of Indigenous communities in Africa.
In a Sept. 17 statement, the Justice, Peace and Development Commission of
the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (known as
SECAM) pushed the European Union to "take proactive measures to ensure that
EU biodiversity conservation funds do not lead to mass land alienation and
threaten the livelihoods and stability of indigenous and local communities
on the continent."
The commission called for "a new conservation paradigm that respects and
protects the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities."
SECAM, which represents the eight regional bishops' conferences in Africa,
also joined a policy brief on Indigenous rights coordinated by CIDSE, a
network of most European-based Catholic development organizations,
alongside other Catholic, Indigenous and nongovernmental organizations.
The Catholic appeal is part of a broader initiative to protect the human
rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities, who make up a small
portion of the global population but hold an outsized role in stewarding
the world's biodiversity. A 2018 study found that Indigenous peoples manage
or have tenure rights over more than a quarter of the world's land surface
and roughly 40% of ecologically protected areas.
The call highlights a recurring issue: Conservation initiatives, much like
development efforts, have often led to the eviction and displacement of
Indigenous communities from lands they consider their natural home.
A nomadic people recognized by their small stature, the Baka are the first
known inhabitants of Cameroon. They have lived as hunter-gatherers across
the lush rainforests of the Congo Basin for thousands of years.
The eviction of the Baka from their natural home in the forest dates back
to the 1960s. Both the outgoing colonial French government and the incoming
independent government pushed the Baka people from the forests to allow
logging and the creation of national parks.
Access was further limited in 1994 — two years after Cameroon ratified the
U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity — when the government established
conservation regulations for forests, fisheries and wildlife resources that
included a provision restricting access to protected biodiversity areas.
Removing the Baka from the forest is akin to disconnecting them from their
god, known as the Jengi, Messono said.
Traditionally, the Baka would kill an elephant each year to connect with
the Jengi. This practice has ceased due to the protections accorded to the
endangered African forest elephant and other iconic species.
"The law restricts us from going to the reserves, which now harbor most of
the species we use for the Jengi," Messono says.
"I am not happy with the situation," he added, explaining the Baka now use
animals of "little spiritual value," like pangolins, antelope and even
porcupines to perform the Jengi ritual.
Roughly 400 kilometers (250 miles) away, near the Lobeke National Park to
the southeastern part of Cameroon, Ndobo Marianne, a Baka woman, voices her
frustration over the park's establishment, which restricts access for the
Baka people.
"You get harassed by eco-guards when you enter the park in search of a
means of survival," she told EarthBeat.
Across Africa, other Indigenous communities face systemic violations of
their rights as governments and nongovernmental organizations strive to
keep environments inviolate.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Kahuzi-Biega National Park — a
protected area and UNESCO World Heritage site renowned for its tropical
forest and abundant biodiversity — has become a source of conflict.
A 2022 report by Minority Rights Group, a nongovernmental organization
defending Indigenous peoples' rights, documented what it deemed "the highly
organized, grievous, and widespread human rights abuses" that park guards
and the Congolese army carried out between 2019 and 2021 against the Batwa
people.
The report, titled "To Purge the Forest by Force: Organized Violence
Against Batwa in Kahuzi-Biega National Park," stated that the violence
began after some Batwa families returned to their ancestral land inside the
park. The report's authors gathered evidence of soldiers burning whole
villages, sexual violence against women, and at least 20 Batwa members
killed.
The Batwa were initially removed from the land in the 1970s and subjected
to "four decades of broken promises of resettlement, reparations and
justice from the Congolese government and other stakeholders," according to
the report.
Conservation efforts have also been a main driver of displacement in
Tanzania, including for its Maasai people, said Joseph Oleshangay, a human
rights lawyer, activist and a Maasai traditional leader (alaigwanani).
"From Ngorongoro, Loliondo and Ruaha, displacement is happening like no
time before. In Ngorongoro, the government is pushing around 100,000 people
to create an exclusive conservation scheme. In Loliondo, thousands of
people have been effectively displaced and the government created exclusive
hunting areas for the Dubai Royal family," Oleshangay said.
He said the Tanzanian government goes as far as using a "scorched-earth
policy" to force people out of the conservation parks. In Ngorongoro, for
example, the government since 2022 has paralyzed all social services in an
effort to trigger mass displacement, according to Oleshangay. In Loliondo,
Oleshangay said, the government has seized and confiscated more than 58,000
livestock, including 36,000 between January 2023 and April 2024 — a blow to
families' finances.
"Government is limiting the means for food supply and trading activities,"
he said. "Livestock traders are arrested. People doing mobile money
transactions are arrested because the government believes limiting access
to food supply is an easy push for people to get out."
Related: 'We will not go anywhere': Maasai resist Tanzanian government
evictions
In light of these reports, Catholic bishops in Africa are urging the
European Union not to fund conservation projects that result in the
violation of Indigenous peoples' rights.
CIDSE, the bishops of SECAM, and other partners in a policy brief have
called for robust monitoring and accountability measures to ensure
international biodiversity finance doesn't lead to human rights abuses.
The brief, which was presented by CIDSE officials Oct. 30 at COP16 in Cali,
also urged the EU to prioritize funding for agroecology and other
sustainable farming practices — which they say protect biodiversity while
safeguarding human rights and livelihoods — and to make funds easier to
access for Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Members of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns join with Amazon and
Maasai leaders at the faith hub at the COP16 United Nations biodiversity
summit in Cali, Colombia. An Oct. 28 event focused on strengthening
partnerships with Indigenous and local communities to halt biodiversity
loss. (Lisa Sullivan)
Members of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns join with Amazon and
Maasai leaders at the faith hub at the COP16 United Nations biodiversity
summit in Cali, Colombia. An Oct. 28 event focused on strengthening
partnerships with Indigenous and local communities to halt biodiversity
loss. (Lisa Sullivan)
The Catholic groups stressed that biodiversity efforts must begin with
recognizing the "crucial role" Indigenous peoples play in protecting and
restoring nature. It noted that the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global
Biodiversity Framework includes recognition of Indigenous and local
communities' rights to their traditional lands.
"Respecting and protecting the right of Indigenous Peoples and other local
communities to stay on the land and giving them control over key decisions
impacting their land is therefore the most urgent and effective measure to
halt biodiversity loss," the Catholic report said.
Oleshangay concurs, arguing that for any conservation effort to be
successful, it must involve Indigenous and local communities.
"The danger of the conservation efforts that do not involve Indigenous and
local communities is that, rights such as right to land, access to
resources like water, pasture ... right to cultural practices, right to
safeguard of spiritual sites are all not considered in the implementation
of conservation schemes," he told NCR.
The joint policy brief outlined several key recommendations for the EU to
consider before funding conservation initiatives.
Related: Indigenous leaders press for their land rights as COP15 debates
ecosystem protection areas
It called for an end to "fortress conservation" approaches — where people
are evicted from ancestral lands and humans separated from the rest of
nature. Instead, the brief favors co-management models that empower
Indigenous peoples and local communities to protect biodiversity in
partnership with global actors.
"This means avoiding any kind of displacement, promoting conservation
approaches that integrate humans and nature, and ensuring biodiversity
finance is managed and monitored by local communities," SECAM said in its
statement.
The African bishops also called for the legal recognition and protection of
the human right to land as a fundamental element of effective biodiversity
conservation. SECAM's Justice, Peace and Development Commission insisted
that all biodiversity projects, especially those funded by the EU, must
secure the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities, in
line with international human rights standards.
For Bernard Messono, it's critical that the Bakas are incorporated in
conservation efforts.
"We cherish the forest. We know how to preserve the animals," he said. "For
instance, when we go hunting, we don't kill female animals, especially the
pregnant ones. We kill older males for food so that the animals don't go
extinct.
"We can bring that experience to the conservation agenda."