Cameroon's Indigenous Baka Sing to Save Their Vanishing Forest Home
Ngala Killian Chimtom, Radio France Internationale via AllAfrica
November 5, 2023
In the south-eastern rainforests of Cameroon, the indigenous Baka people
are seeing their habitat decimated by logging, farming, mining and
construction. Where once they sang and danced to celebrate a hunt or give
thanks to the spirits, their traditional performances have become acts of
protest and calls for conservation.
The sun has set, but the forest is alive with sounds.
The Baka gather around a large fire, their faces glowing in the flickering
light. They are ready to celebrate a successful hunt, to honour their
ancestors, and to connect with the spirit of the forest, which they call
the Jengi.
They form a circle around the fire, their music produced by clapping of
hands, beating of drums and alternating vocal sounds that pierce the
forest. Clad in their exquisite costumes of leaves, feathers, beads and
rattles, they sing in unison, producing an intricate polyphony that
reverberates through the woods.
But all is not well in the forest.
Singing for Survival
"We are singing for the survival of the animals and birds," Ngarlo Freddy,
a legendary Baka dancer, told RFI.
"We have to preserve the forest biodiversity so that our children and
grandchildren will grow to see them, the same way our grandfathers and us
are seeing today, because there are some places where everything has been
lost such that children can't even see the dung of an elephant."
It's a concern shared by the more than 30,000 Baka people who live in the
forests of south-east Cameroon, who have seen their ancestral habitat
decimated in the interest of development.
Cameroon plans to attain the status of "emerging country" by 2035. Road
construction, forest exploitation, mineral extraction and plantation
agriculture have become key parts of that strategy.
And that means the natural home of the Baka people is fast disappearing.
According to Global Forest Watch, Cameroon lost 1.84 million hectares of
tree cover between 2001 and 2022 - nearly half of it precious humid primary
forest, which typically stores more carbon than other forests and offers
irreplaceable benefits for biodiversity.
'The Forest is Ours'
What is happening in the forests of Cameroon reflects a trend across all
countries that share the vast basin of the Congo River. Considered the
second "lung of the earth" after the Amazon, the Congo Basin rainforest has
come under severe threat.
A recent study by the Observatory for Central Africa Forests suggests that
at least 27 percent of undisturbed rainforests in the Congo Basin present
in 2020 will disappear by 2050 if deforestation and forest degradation
continues at its current pace.
The sounds of chirping birds, screaming chimpanzees, croaking frogs and
trumpeting elephants are gradually being replaced by the sounds of
chainsaws and the rumbling of trucks loaded with logs destined for European
and Asian markets.
The Baka are responding in music. Songs to celebrate a successful hunt have
been turned into songs of protest.
"La forĂȘt est pour nous" ("The forest is ours") is the title of one of the
many songs Ngarlo's musical group has produced.
"This is our forest, this is our home," Freddy's brother and fellow dancer,
Marcelin Ngarlo, tells RFI.
"Nothing should stop us from going into the forest. The forest is our
culture. We get so many things from the forest, like yams and honey - that
is why we call it our forest."
But his eyes turn misty as he watches his three children play in the
courtyard, oblivious of the change around them. "If this continues, I am
afraid for their future," he says.
According to Ngarlo, the destruction of the forest would also mean the
destruction of everything the Baka hold dear: their source of food and
medicine, and most especially the Jengi - the forest's spirit and the
beginning and end of life itself.
Baka women join in the singing, their calls echoing through the trees. They
say they want to awaken the spirit of the forest and remind the world of
its beauty - and its importance.