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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
African Baka People Crowded Out by Newcomers, Loggers
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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/
3/12/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
In the attached photocopy, CNN reports on the impact upon Baka people
of central Africa as their homelands are opened to logging and other
outside influences. Allowing indigenous peoples to practice their
traditional lifestyles (modified as they wish) upon their traditional
lands would be a substantial force for forest and cultural
conservation.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Rain forest aborigines crowded out by newcomers, loggers
March 11, 1997
Web posted at: 11:32 p.m. EST (0432 GMT)
> From Correspondent Gary Strieker
c 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
EASTERN CAMEROON (CNN) -- The vast rain forest in central Africa is
the home of countless species of plants and animals -- among them, for
40,000 years, the aboriginal people of this forest.
Many call them Pygmies but, in eastern Cameroon, they are the Baka.
In a nation dominated by 13 million ethnic Bantus, there are only
40,000 Bakas. And the Bakas who do live in the Cameroon rain forest
are overwhelmed by change and the ongoing destruction of their forest
home.
Samuel Nguiffo of the Center for Environment and Development says the
Bakas are caught between the majority Bantu and the logging companies.
"Both of them have claims over the forest," Nguiffo said, "and both of
them are more powerful than the Bakas. And most of them, for the
Bakas, are enemies."
As timber companies push logging roads deeper into the forest,
outsiders follow the roads to trap and hunt wild animals, and then
slash and burn to plant crops.
After living in harmony with the forest for thousands of years,
hunting and gathering only what they needed to survive, Bakas now find
many of the forest's resources are exhausted.
The hunters say there are too few animals so that only the best of
hunters -- or those endowed with magical powers -- can catch them. And
the chief in one settlement says the noise from bulldozers and chain
saws drives animals away.
And because the forest has been so disturbed, it's hard to find the
special plants the Bakas use for food, medicines and rituals.
The Bakas are given little in return when they are displaced from the
forest. They have no legal title to any land in the forest they've
occupied since ancient times.
Government policy refers to them as "marginal social groups," to be
made into productive members of Cameroon's society by surrendering
their nomadic life to clear land and plant crops.
Change, change, and more change
In other words, Bakas are expected to abandon the culture and
spiritual life that connects them to the forest, and to join in its
destruction -- a process already begun.
Alcoholism, prostitution, unemployment and exploitation by dominant
Bantus are common dangers confronting Bakas when they leave the
forest.
"They are facing a very violent civilization, and from this
civilization they tend to take only the bad aspects," says university
lecturer Roger Ngoufo.
In their new settlements, the Baka people are in transition, no longer
depending on hunting and gathering in the forest -- and facing an
uncertain future in the fast-growing towns and villages around them.
Several residents in the roadside settlements say they are happy to be
there -- the forest is too dangerous. But others say the forest is
paradise lost.
The settlements have little to offer -- no school, no health clinic,
and only a few menial jobs on a nearby Bantu plantation.
What they really want, and what they should have, says Noel Olinga,
who has worked with Bakas for 16 years, is a pristine forest reserved
for their hunting and gathering. But no one in Cameroon takes that
idea seriously.
The future looks especially bleak for the young.
"They're completely lost," says Nguiffo. "They're not Baka, not full
Baka -- they're somewhere in between."
Traditional Baka initiation rites are held every year to summon the
god of the forest, the Jengi, to induct young boys into manhood and to
bring good fortune. But many Bakas say they haven't seen the Jengi in
a long time.
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