In southeast Cameroon, Baka Indigenous Peoples and their neighbours continue to be illegally evicted in the name of conservation, most recently for a game reserve set up in 2015 with the support of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). A video made by Survival International shows the testimonies of Baka men and women revealing the violence they have suffered at the hands of anti-poaching militias backed by WWF. This debunks WWF’s claims that the situation seems to have improved. Other victims have written open letters to protest at their unfair treatment. “They beat us with machetes here in the village… We want those involved to stop this… The forest is all we know. We don’t want to be forced to stay in the village”.
See the video: http://www.survivalinternational.org/films/baka
Survival International has also denounced WWF for partnering with French logging company Rougier, which is destroying indigenous Baka’s forests
The company is an official partner of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) even though it has been denounced for its activities in Cameroon, which include illegal price-fixing of timber, illegal logging outside a concession, felling more trees than authorized, and illegally exporting rare timber. Under Cameroonian law, the Baka are often criminalized as “poachers” when they hunt to feed their families. In a map produced by Rougier, all Baka forest camps within one concession are labelled as “poachers’ camps.”
Read an article by Survival International denouncing the case at:
http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11276