Tribes accuse WWF patrols
''We ask those who give money to the wildlife guards to come here to establish peace . . . otherwise we are lost."
Baka tribesman
AFRICA: Anti-poaching patrols funded by WWF, the global conservation organisation, have been accused of committing ‘‘atrocities’’ when evicting African rainforest tribes from their ancestral lands to ‘‘protect wildlife’’.
An investigation by Survival International, a UK-based campaign group for indigenous peoples, alleges that the WWF’s wildlife patrols ‘‘harass, beat, torture and kill’’ people of the Baka (or Bayaka) tribes. ’’The antipoaching squads that commit these atrocities are funded and equipped by some of the world’s largest conservation organisations, like the WWF [formerly the World Wildlife Fund for Nature],’’ a report by Survival will say this week.
WWF, whose co-founders in 1961 included the naturalist Sir Peter Scott, has rejected the allegations and said it aimed to ensure that ‘‘both people and nature can thrive’’.
Survival’s report is based on interviews with people living in the Cameroon, Central African Republic and the northern Congo basins, who have described how armed patrols evicted Baka from their forest camps, which were then burnt down.
’’Even if a woman is pregnant, they beat her. Even if she has a child with her, they beat her. God created lots of things in the forest that our parents left to us. Now they are forbidden to us,’’ a Baka man told researchers last year. Another said guards ‘‘searched my house . . . took my machete from under the bed and said, ‘We are going to slit your throat because you’re hiding poachers.’ They dragged me out and put me on the ground to kill me.’’
WWF’s involvement in the region goes back to 1991 when it pushed for new wildlife areas to protect fauna, including forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and leopards - leading to the creation of Lobeke national park in 1999, Boumba Bek and Nki national parks in 2005 and Ngoyla wildlife reserve in 2014.
Survival’s researchers found that Baka tribes, who had lived in the region for centuries, were then expelled from the parks. ‘‘Antipoaching squads supported by WWF routinely raze entire forest camps, both inside and outside national parks. The violence they visit upon the Baka and their neighbours knows no bounds: victims have included pregnant women, the elderly and infirm even small children. WWF has been aware of the persecution of the Baka by the guards it supports for over 15 years.’’
Frederick Kwame Kumah, director of WWF’s regional office in Africa, said: ‘‘Our priority is working with the Baka, for the Baka. For over two decades, we have been working . . . to find lasting solutions to protect forests and wildlife vital to indigenous people for their rights, lives and livelihoods. We are committed to do everything we can . . . to ensure that both people and nature can thrive.’’
Last year another Baka man said: ‘‘We will always bear the suffering of being beaten. But how will our children survive? The wildlife guards even beat a child. She died, along with an elderly man. We ask those who give money to the wildlife guards to come here to establish peace . . . otherwise we are lost.’’