Africa

Throughout Central Africa this traditional way of life is disappearing as forests are logged, cleared for agriculture or turned into exclusive wildlife conservation areas, and as Pygmy groups become settled in villages and increasingly dependent on the cash economy. Pygmy peoples are now facing unprecedented pressures on their lands, forest resources and societies. As these pressures intensify, Pygmy peoples are suffering increasing poverty, racial discrimination, violence and cultural collapse. They are becoming outcasts on the edge of dominant society, unable to enjoy the rights accorded to other citizens and marginalised in policies and decision-making. Their incomparable knowledge of the forest is being lost. Click here for a detailed review of the current situation of Pygmy peoples.

In Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Forest Peoples Project works with indigenous Batwa people who have been completely dispossessed of their forest lands through clearance of forest for agriculture, development projects and conservation areas and can no longer practice forest-based livelihoods. The majority are landless and desperately poor. We are supporting Batwa organisations and communities to secure land and regain access to forest resources. We are providing information and training to inform them of their rights and relevant laws, and helping them to engage with government and donors to improve policies and laws and uphold their rights as citizens. In the course of this work with destitute people who face a daily struggle for survival, we have discovered that our work on rights must be accompanied by improvements in peoples' livelihoods. This gives families and communities the incentives and wherewithal to assert and claim their rights. We are therefore also helping Batwa communities to educate their children and increase adult literacy, and develop new ways of earning money so that they can pay for health care, schooling and housing, and build up reserves of money and livestock to provide a cushion against hard times.

In other parts of the region, including Cameroon, Gabon and Republic of Congo, the indigenous Bagyeli, Baka, BaAka and Bambendjele still have access to forest, although this is decreasing every year. In these countries Forest Peoples Project is supporting indigenous communities and organisations to secure their lands and increase their access to forest through dialogue with neighbouring Bantu farming communities, and with conservation agencies, governments and regional forest planners. We are helping indigenous peoples document and formally map their customary land use to support their land claims, and are providing legal advice on how to secure their land rights. By providing information and facilitating community meetings we are helping isolated Pygmy groups to meet and develop new forms of representation that will enable them engage more effectively with outside agencies to defend their rights. We are also supporting communities to develop and implement small-scale income generating activities.

For details of our current projects click here.

Forest Peoples Project's work in Central Africa builds on work started by our sister organisation, the Forest Peoples Programme in 1992. The continuity of our presence in the region, in contrast to the rapid turnover of many agencies and individuals, and our commitment to a process-based approach in which how things are done are as important as the end result, has helped us develop long-term relationships with our partner organisations based on mutual trust and respect. Over the years we have built up a comprehensive record of the plight of African forest peoples, political developments and policy changes in the region and the work being done by forest peoples' organisations to claim their rights and improve their situation. We help forest peoples produce their own testimonies and analysis by funding them to carry out case studies and field research with their communities. See our reports and publications, in the Forest Peoples Programme section of this site.

Our work could not be achieved without the support of our funders. Comic Relief, which has supported the work in Central Africa for over a decade, the UK's BIG Lottery Fund, and the UK Department for International Development have provided the backbone of our funding, with important additional contributions from many other British and European donors. These include the Finnish Department for International Development, Grassroots Foundation, Onaway Charitable Trust, Rainforest Foundation UK, Rowan Charitable Trust, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation and UK charitable trusts, as well as private donors and benefactors. Much of our work is also supported by donors providing direct in-country funding to our partner organisations.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

Current Projects

Batwa pottery: income-generation through Fair Trade
This project, also carried out in collaboration with COPORWA, is improving Batwa people's living conditions, by commercialising their traditional craft of pottery and developing a small business enterprise, "Dancing Pots", based on Fair Trade principles, that will eventually be run by Batwa. The project works in an integrated way on all aspects of pottery development including product quality, marketing, and business training, and strengthening potter groups' organisational capacity. As well as increasing potters' incomes from pottery, the project is also promoting Batwa culture and dance, and is fostering links between Batwa communities and tourism in Rwanda. The main donor is the BIG Lottery Fund with additional funding from ArtVenture, Norwegian Church Aid and Christian Aid in Rwanda. See the 'Dancing Pots' Activity Report and visit their website: http://www.catgen.com/caurwa/EN/index.html.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

Supporting Ugandan Batwa and UOBDU
Since 1999 Forest Peoples Project has supported the Batwa in South West Uganda to help them resolve their problem of lack of land and develop sustainable alternative livelihoods. The Batwa's landlessness and acute poverty results from their expulsion from the Bwindi and Mgahinga forests and highly restricted access to forest resources when the forests were gazetted as national parks in 1991. FPP helped the Ugandan Batwa set up a community-based organisation UOBDU (United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda) to represent Batwa interests. With funding from the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, Comic Relief, Minority Rights Group and Netherlands Centre for Indigenous People, FPP is helping UOBDU build its capacity, obtain land outside the parks and begin dialogue with conservation agencies about access to park resources. We supported UOBDU to consult with the Batwa communities to identify their main problems and areas where they need support, and present the resulting agenda for Batwa development to donors and national agencies.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

Promoting Bagyeli Land Rights and Sustainable Livelihoods in Cameroon
In Cameroon Forest Peoples Project is working with the marginalised Bagyeli people of south-west Cameroon. The project originated as a result of the Bagyeli's request to FPP to help them deal with the World Bank-endorsed Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, which crossed their lands and was implemented without proper consultation with Bagyeli. The few compensation measures agreed for those communities affected by the pipeline were delivered in a way that further marginalised the Bagyeli in their dealings with their Bantu farming neighbours, and the Bagyeli have yet to benefit from the local and regional development initiatives associated with the pipeline.

Our project is helping Bagyeli reduce their social marginalisation by enabling them to obtain information and develop their knowledge and skills to engage with civil society and policy makers and defend their rights, including their rights over their traditional lands. The project is supporting Bagyeli communities to meet and explore new ways of representing themselves in dialogues with Bantu communities, government and agencies responsible for the implementation of local development and conservation projects to mitigate the impacts of the oil pipeline. These are key steps to enable Bagyeli to reduce their poverty and secure sustainable livelihoods in the long term. The project is being implemented in collaboration with two local NGOs, CED (Centre pour l' Environnement et le Développement) and Planet Survey, and is funded by Comic Relief and DfID.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas in Africa: from Principles to Practice
Extensive areas of land traditionally occupied by African indigenous peoples have been given protected area status for nature conservation. In many cases this has involved expelling local communities and drastically restricting their access to plants and game resources within the protected area. Since 2000, with funding from the Community Fund and Comic Relief, Forest Peoples Project has worked with indigenous communities in Africa to analyse the impact of these conservation areas on their livelihoods and their rights, and to help them engage in dialogue with conservation agencies. The indigenous peoples involved are the Batwa of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo; Ogiek in Kenya; Maasai in Tanzania, ‡Khomani San in South Africa, Baka in Cameroon and Gabon, Bagyeli in Cameroon and Bambendjele in Republic of Congo. A key focus of the work is to examine the obstacles preventing the implementation of new, internationally agreed conservation principles that uphold indigenous peoples' rights to land and control over their resources. The project funds indigenous peoples' own initiatives to find ways of working with conservation agencies to overcome these obstacles. Lessons learned from the project's assessment of conservation impacts fed into the World Parks Congress, a highly influential gathering of conservation agencies, governments, international donors and civil society held every 10 years, which took place in Durban in September 2003.

Click here for documentation relating to this project.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

Africa Legal and Human Rights Programme
Throughout Central Africa forest peoples experience persistent discrimination and are denied rights to lands and livelihoods, to organise and to represent themselves. Many suffer severe repression or other violations of their basic rights, when they call for reforms or resist imposed development schemes. The human rights violations they face include ethnic discrimination, state-sanctioned expropriation of lands and resources by logging, mining, agri-business and conservation projects, and physical violence including forced labour, abduction, torture, rape, murder, massacres and, in Democratic Republic of Congo, probably even cannibalism. While the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples in international law are now recognised in the laws and policies of South American and some Asian countries, on the African continent the indigenous peoples' movement is still at an embryonic stage.

Our Africa Legal and Human Rights Programme, funded by the European Community and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, aims to introduce a new dimension into the human rights debate in Africa, by building the capacity of indigenous organisations to use national and international legal processes to claim and defend their rights. This programme supports all our other projects in Africa too. By providing information, training and legal advice to indigenous peoples we help them identify the key issues needing legal support, and develop strategies for claiming the rights appropriate to their local and national context.

For information on progress and achievements see our annual reports: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.