As someone who strongly supports environmental conservation, I applaud most efforts a country takes to protect its environmental assets.  Thus, various countries in Central Africa, in establishing national parks to preserve their many natural treasures (including the famous gorillas), appear to be moving in the right direction. However, as is so often the case, if one steps back to look at the larger context (and consequences) of a thing, the picture becomes more complicated. Protecting the environment is extremely important, yes.  But if the environment we are protecting has indigenous people living sustainably within it, might we have a responsibility to protect them too?  If they are not destroying the land but are, in fact, the best stewards of it, could we, in fact, consider them to be an integral part of the natural asset we are trying to preserve?

I ask this because just the opposite has happened for pygmies living in certain forests in Central Africa.  The establishment of national parks has resulted in the eviction of pygmies from the forests they rely on for their lives.* When this happens, entire communities are destroyed, and devastation in the form of severe poverty, discrimination, contemporary slavery, and sexual exploitation, is often what awaits them.

It should be noted that pygmies have lived in the forests since antiquity. One of the defining characteristics of all pygmy communities in general (though there are distinctions between them) is their powerful relationship with the natural world.  Pygmies are said to be the original inhabitants of Africa, and they have lived sustainably in the forests for the entirety of their existence, which is quite incredible really.  It makes them part and parcel of the forests they live in. As one very excellent IRIN report I have been reading puts it: “Pygmies enjoy – and depend on – a symbiotic relationship with the rainforest: it is their home, the source of their livelihood and their spiritual centre” (p. 7, scroll down to “Africa: Pygmy Rights and Continued Discrimination” link).  This seems to be a universal theme for indigenous people in general.  Their relationship with the land sustains them physically, culturally, and spiritually.

I also can’t help thinking how extraordinary it is that, as so many of our lives become increasingly filled with technology, there are still those who live in genuine partnership with the natural environment that surrounds them.  When we destroy pygmies’ lives, we forever lose this rare knowledge they have.  We erase part of our human story at the same time that we gravely violate their human rights.

So my question is, is it necessary to evict pygmy communities from the forests to conserve the forests?  To be fair, I can see how booting humans out of the natural places we want to protect, given our collective track record of environmental misdeeds, seems a logical first step.  Evicting the pygmies from the forests speaks to the notion that humans and the natural environment cannot live in harmony, under any circumstances.  But, in fact, the pygmies have lived in harmony with nature for centuries.  They may be some of the few remaining people who can show us how this is done.  Considering the pygmies’ history, and considering how they live their lives in harmony with nature, evicting them seems unnecessary at best, and utterly unethical at worst.  A closer look at who is being kicked out, and the greater ramifications of these evictions, is sorely needed.  There is also evidence that poverty promotes greater environmental degradation, so evicting the pygmies to preserve nature may, ironically, create environmental degradation where none existed before.

However, as much of an idealist as I may seem, I also have a strong realist streak.  I acknowledge that the situation may not be rectifiable in a way that allows all pygmy communities to remain in the forests.  There is much to this story that I am not aware of.  Politics, hierarchy, prejudice, ignorance, greed, even the inevitable fact that everything changes in the direction of the hegemonic trend called globalization, etc., all shape part of the picture. Pygmies are not politically represented, and so they lack a political voice.  Worse, the IRIN report says that some governments have actively denied pygmies the right to gain a political voice.  This lack of a political voice seems to guarantee exploitation.  The IRIN report states, “Most pygmies live in areas that are remote from commercial centres, and their skills are not considered very ‘marketable’ in modern society.  While they are well versed in natural medicine and the ecosystem of their forest environment, they are ill equipped to assert themselves in a society that rejects them because they are an ethnic minority.  This ethnic discrimination, combined with economic weakness, has isolated pygmies politically as well” (p. 11).

I know that WPIO is working on issues like the above, including how to teach displaced pygmies new skills to cope with life outside of the forests.  I am sure I will have much more to tell you about their efforts in this area as my work with them unfolds throughout the summer.

*Pygmies are also evicted from the forests due to logging, resource extraction, and development.  I may talk about these issues in later blogs.

Finally, because I still await the arrival of WPIO to Kampala, I have no work photos to share, so I will end this blog on a more positive note by including some photos of children who were very fun to photograph, and eager to be captured digitally.  Such naturals in front of the camera!  I’m also including a couple photos of this beautiful botanic garden I visited in Fort Portal, where I am presently.  It’s called  Tooro Botanical Gardens.  Finally, I get the “green” fix I’ve been looking for!

All smiles for the camera