The Baka — Forest Dwellers Under Siege

Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1 May 1990, Page 8

The Baka — Forest Dwellers Under Siege

LAST YEAR New Zealand TV audiences were shown the moving story of the Baka people of the Cameroon, on the west coast of Africa. The Baka are one of the few remaining African forest dwellers. Altogether it is estimated there are about 200,000 people of different tribes in central Africa whose lifestyle depends on the forests. The present generation of Baka may be the last of the tribe to live in the forest. Between them the World Bank and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have hatched the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) which will effectively put an end to the Baka people's way of life. In Cameroon, the plan calls for a 600 km highway to be driven through the heart of the remaining forest in the south-east of the country. This will open up 11 million ha of forest, which will be divided up into industrial exploitation, agriculture, settlement or conservation. At least 8 percent of the money involved in the project is earmarked for conservation, but the indigenous peoples will be banned from hunting, they will not be allowed to go into certain areas and they will be forcibly resettled. Unfortunately governments around the world are pouring massive resources into the TFAP, a scheme which has been criticised by conservation groups as being a front for continued large scale destruction of tropical forests. The UK Government recently pledged 100 million pounds towards "saving the rainforests’, with it all going to the TFAP. #&