Cameroon: Baka Livelihoods Damaged by EU-funded Protected Areas

The Dja Faunal Reserve in South Central Cameroon was created in 1950 by the French High Commission for Cameroon. In 1981 it was named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and in 1987 it became a World Heritage Site. Since 1992 the reserve has been managed by the EU-funded ECOFAC programme, which has been supporting the establishment of a network of protected areas across Africa. In the middle of the 20th century the Baka now living in Miatta village, located many tens of kilometres from the Dja reserve, were forced to move from their ancestral village Mabé, located in the heart of the present reserve, to their present location along the Sangmélima-Djoum road. The period of their move coincided with the implementation of the National Sédenterisation Policy, when many Baka were encouraged to move their main camps nearer to the main transport axes.

After their move, neighbouring Bantu communities benefited from Baka's free labour, their supply of medicinal plants, and reduced prices for game, which the Baka were allowed to hunt. Over time the Baka community in Miatta has become split between those concentrating on cultivation and those relying mainly on hunting and gathering activities in the forest. A key constraint to Baka subsistence agriculture is the lack of customary rights over land near the Bantu communities where most Baka are located. Many Baka in Miatta simply cultivate for others in exchange for food or other material goods, usually on very unfavourable trading terms. Forest-based activities remain a central feature of life for most Baka living under these precarious circumstances, even for those Baka who now rely mainly on agriculture.

Many Baka continue to rely on forest products gathered from areas adjacent to Miatta, as well as further afield, near hunting camps distant from Miatta, even within the Dja Reserve itself. Baka from around the park still visit their ancestral territories in the reserve to harvest plants, fruits from old trees, or other essential forest products, although this must be done in secret, as it currently is against the law. Baka's continuing reliance on the forest is becoming more acute as the production of the forest near Miatta has declined, due mainly to population pressure and consequent over harvesting. Baka in the Djoum area have had to bear the brunt of pressure applied by ECOFAC forest guards who now control forest access, and who find it easy to confiscate game from fearful Baka, even when the game was hunted legally to serve subsistence needs.

"If they (the ecoguards) catch us with only one antelope which we caught in this forest, which is a long way from Dja, they take it and often our other food as well ….they have it for their supper," said Baka from Djoum region.

The FPP project entitled "Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas in Africa: From Principles to Practice" aims to promote dialogue between African indigenous peoples and conservation bodies, to break down barriers of ignorance and understanding and to seek viable ways of working together to implement more sustainable and just conservation policies. This initiative enabled the first ever meeting between Baka community representatives and senior managers of the Dja Reserve working for ECOFAC. For the first time since the park was established there was a formal forum where Baka's views about the Reserve's management could be discussed with park staff. During this meeting Baka expressed their unhappiness with the reserve and forest protection regimes that they believe are overriding their rights to secure their subsistence needs. This makes them very unhappy with the work of ECOFAC forest guards, especially when they see outsiders coming in to hunt or log with impunity. In the meeting Baka representatives were surprised:

"That meeting was the first time that ECOFAC ever talked to us about the Dja Reserve … we learned that ECOFAC's employees were not doing what their boss said they should be doing," said a Baka from Dja.

ECOFAC has now launched a wider programme of community consultations all around the Dja Reserve, which will hopefully allow for meaningful participation of the Baka communities who have so far been persecuted by the project. But Baka participation is by no means guaranteed - they have good reasons to be cynical about ECOFAC's motives.

By: John Nelson, Forest Peoples Programme, e-mail: johnnelson@blueyonder.co.uk , www.forestpeoples.org ; based on the work of Samuel Nguiffo, CED and FPP fieldnotes.

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Rwanda: Indigenous Batwa Opening Channels of Cooperation with Conservation

In 1925 King Albert 1st of Belgium created a Protected Volcano Zone covering present Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and this later became Albert National Park. In 1960 Albert Park was split into the Virunga Park, and the Parc des Volcans in northwest Rwanda. Both are important ecotourism sites due to their populations of endangered mountain gorillas. Nyungwe National Park in the Rwandan South West was established as a Forest Reserve in 1933, and like the area around Volcans is a zone of high biodiversity, especially in relation to the much larger, adjoining areas that have been taken over for cultivation by Rwanda's dense population.

Both of these protected areas overlap the traditional lands of indigenous Batwa, yet Batwa were not consulted when the parks were established, even though these forests were central to Batwa livelihoods at the time of their creation. Over the intervening years, removal of human inhabitants from protected forests and increasing enforcement measures by conservation authorities, coupled with demands on Rwanda's scarce land and forest resources by Rwanda's growing population and large numbers of returning refugees has led to extreme pressures on forest-dwelling Batwa livelihoods. The Rwandan Batwa can no longer practice a forest-based lifestyle. Central problems for these Batwa is their persistent inability to secure land for their communities outside the forests, and their social marginalisation which is due to deep-seated prejudice against the Batwa as a 'Pygmy' people and their extreme poverty. Surveys carried out in 1993 and 1997 showed that only 1.6% and 1.5% of Batwa families respectively had agricultural land compared with a national average of 85%. Batwa access to health care and education is very low. Batwa primary school enrolment is estimated at 28% compared to a national average of 88% .

Over the past few decades Batwa communities have received little information about the management of either Volcans or Nyungwe Parks, even though in both regions many Batwa have remained reliant on the resources within them to secure their livelihoods, especially around Nyungwe Forest in the more remote South West. Hunting, honey collecting, and gathering food and material from the forest are still important elements in the cultural of current and former forest dwelling Batwa communities. Batwa in these two case study areas are aware, however, that "their" forests have come under outside protection; their accounts of their evictions from the protected areas and the repressive measures employed against Batwa who try to continue to secure their livelihood from the protected forests are illustrative:

"You speak to me of the parks, and all that I know is that the authorities and soldiers came from far away, in order to chase us away with guns and tell us never to return to the volcanoes, where we were forbidden to hunt, look for honey, water, and wood", said a Batwa man.

Despite this attitude by park managers, and the ongoing threat of repression by the forest guards near their rural communities, many Batwa living around both protected areas still rely partially upon forest resources, especially since there are few alternative livelihood options open to them, due to their socio-economic marginalisation and lack of land. Despite their dependence on forest resources, prior to 2001 Rwandan government and NGO conservation agencies had never consulted them about park management plans, and have continued to apply traditional enforcement measures in line with national conservation legislation. These include provisions barring hunting and gathering activities in the forests, which in their present form are incompatible with the continuation of Batwa forest-based livelihoods:

"Our objective was to protect the environment. When we start our work, we are not interested in knowing who did or did not live in the forest from hunting and gathering. Our mission is to forbid all activities in the forest by the resident population, hence it is not our role to identify Batwa in the forests", said Rwandan protected area manager.

Since 2001 in Rwanda a dialogue has opened up between indigenous Batwa and government agencies, including the Office Rwandais pour Tourisme et Parcs Nationaux (ORTPN), through the efforts of CAURWA, the Rwandan Batwa NGO. CAURWA engaged with government ministries and international conservation organisations to make them aware of the impact of Volcans and Nyungwe National Parks on Batwa communities, and facilitated local workshops between Batwa and conservation authorities in the two case study areas. These consultations have led to increasing cooperation between conservation authorities, CAURWA and local Batwa communities over the development of alternative sources of income for Batwa living near the parks, and have begun a process of dialogue to enable Batwa to secure at least part of their living from the reserve areas.

By: John Nelson, Forest Peoples Programme, e-mail: johnnelson@blueyonder.co.uk , www.forestpeoples.org , based on the work of Kalimba Zephyrin and CAURWA. Figures based on The Twa of Rwanda: 35-41; Visites et recensement des familles Twa. Association pour la Promotion Batwa, 1997; Lewis and Knight - The Twa of Rwanda; Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire (CWIQ) (2001). Reported in Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper: Zero draft. p 30. Kigali: MINECOFIN.

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Swaziland: Paper mill pollutes river and people

Residents south of the Matsapha Industrial Estate, where the nation's manufacturing sector is based, recently complained of ailments resulting from the consumption of "poison" water from the Lusushwana river. The river is clean when it flows out of Mantenga Nature Reserve, but then it passes through the Matsapha industries where its colour changes, according to residents who depend on the river for their water needs. "It is brown one day, grey the next," said Thab'sile Dlamini, who lives in an informal settlement that has sprung up along the riverbank. The head teacher at Mthonjeni Primary School has reported widespread stomach ailments among students, though no fatalities. Two-thirds of Swazis live below the poverty line and many still source their water from nearby streams. Residents blamed several factories operating in the area, including Swazi Paper Mills.

The Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA) was established seven years ago under the Ministry of Tourism to monitor compliance with environmental laws in a country where a largely peasant population is dependent on untreated water hand-drawn from rivers. Rather ineffective for the first five years of its existence, it has recently surprised environmentalists by threatening to shut down one of the country's oldest industries when it discovered chemical effluents originating from Swazi Paper Mills that flowed into the river via a canal leading through a power station. The director of SEA, Jameson Vilakati, investigated the mill and reported: "They did not deny anything, but stated that a certain machine was not functioning, which forced untreated waste material to be deposited into the river." Vilakati added that an SEA directive would compel the company to shut down operations until the discharge problem is fixed.

This has been a signal to Swazi Paper Mills that the approval of permits and expansion plans -- for a new planned paper pulp and wood-chip mill-- in future will be tied to a company's environmental record.

"This is a new reality," said a SEA source. "Before, it was 'anything goes'. Swaziland wanted to attract industry, and we had what seemed to be unlimited land and rivers, which most people took for granted. We're now running out of resources, and conservation is essential." Unfortunately, polluted rivers and ill people have had to bear witness of that.

As usually happens, polluters are portrayed --prior to "accidents"-- as environmentalists. Swazi Paper Mills is no exception. The Swaziland Business Year Book 2003 describes the company in the following way: "Corporate responsibility in terms of the environment is a key consideration ..." The fact that "a certain machine was not functioning" and that untreated waste material --meaning highly toxic effluents-- was being knowingly discharged into the river shows the true meaning of "corporate responsibility" and the importance of government control over corporations' activities.

Article based on information from: "Swaziland: Environment authority shows its teeth", IRIN, http://irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=33726 ; Swaziland Business Year Book 2003, http://www.swazibusiness.com/sbyb2003/index.php?f=09

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-Uganda: Will oil solve or increase the country's problems?

Recently, a joint venture company between Heritage Oil & Gas --a subsidiary of the Canadian-based Heritage Oil Corp-- and South Africa's Energy Africa have announced the preliminary results from trial drilling. The exploration for oil has been going on for some time now near the country's western border and the results point to billions of barrels' worth of oil deposits along the western arm of the East African Rift Valley in the Semliki. Uganda's Semliki basin, 265 km west of Kampala, is part of a larger prospective oil field that stretches into eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, which Heritage Oil says has reserves estimated at several hundred million barrels.

This news arrives to a country where its economic growth has declined from an average of 7 per cent to 5 per cent. Returns from coffee, which for decades was the country's major foreign exchange earner, are also dwindling given the low world prices for the crop and the coffee wilt disease that has affected millions of trees. Furthermore, security concerns, both internal and external, have also affected the country's tourism sector, which in the past earned the country considerable foreign exchange. Uganda's external debt, which in the 1980s was about $2.5 billion, has grown to $3.6 billion, while unemployment has shot up. According to official figures, forest and woodland cover shrunk from an estimated 45 per cent of total land area in 1900 to only 7.7 per cent by 1995. The government seems to have no immediate solutions to these problems.

For the advocates of a "development" scheme based on the export of natural resources --the role left in the global economy for impoverished but resource-rich countries-- the solution seems to be at hand: Uganda may soon start exporting significant quantities of oil.

However, they forget that most countries where oil deposits have been found are either embroiled in civil wars --which more than "civil" are corporate wars waged over access and ownership of oil-- or suffering the social and environmental impacts resulting from oil operations in their territories (see "Oil and Violence in Africa", http://www.wrm.org.uy/countries/Africa/CapeTown.html#statement). Will Uganda avoid such a fate? Or will it join the group of African countries --such as Angola, Sudan and Nigeria-- where war and violence have come hand-in-hand with oil exploitation?

The only thing that is clear is that in all cases the benefits from oil exploitation have accrued to the big companies and their local proxies, with just some tiny crumbles --if any-- leaking to the local people, who have had to bear all the impacts. If history repeats itself in Uganda, local people should consider the recent news as a curse and not as a blessing.

Article based on information from: "Oil: blessing or a curse?", The East African, 13 April 2003, received through Africa News Update, sent by The Norwegian Council for Africa, e-mail: update@afrika.no ; "Uganda goes for black gold", http://www.africaonline.com/site/Articles/1,3,48556.jsp ;
"Chapter Two: The State of the Environment. Africa. Forests", http://www.grida.no/geo2000/english/0054.htm

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