Local communities and indigenous peoples of Congo Brazzaville call for their involvement in the conservation and sustainable management of forests and their lands

Following the Baka leadership workshop , local communities and indigenous peoples from the districts of Sémbé, Souanké and Ngbala, along with those from Kabo and Pokola, are rallying around a workshop in Ouesso to make the case to the public authorities for their involvement in the conservation and sustainable management of their forests and lands.

As part of its efforts to raise awareness of community governance among indigenous populations, the Association pour la Protection des Ecosystèmes Tropicaux et le Développement de la Sangha (APETDS), in partnership with the Forest Peoples Programme and with financial support from the Rainforest Fund, is setting up a framework for the development of multi-stakeholder advocacy.

The workshop will bring together some sixty participants, including executives from government departments, forestry companies and civil society. They have come from Brazzaville and the Ouesso area to listen to the concerns of representatives of the indigenous populations and local communities living near the Messok-Dja forest massif and the Pokola and Kabo forest concessions.

Three issues are on the agenda: the role of communities in forest management, securing customary land rights for communities and community conservation.

Beforehand, the community representatives will review the legislation governing these issues. At the same time, they are exploring the opportunities offered by the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. This review is being carried out by Dalton Aweleka, Erick Nkodia and Bernadin Yassine Ngoumba respectively.

Once the three themes have been mastered, the discussions with third parties begin.

The community representatives took it in turns to build their case based on testimonies about the challenges that undermine their rights.

Taking the floor, Gilbert POUPE, indigenous representative, called for greater community involvement in decision-making bodies. He said:

 

‘We are generally not consulted before activities begin. We have very little involvement in drawing up the specifications. The government should ensure that we are involved’.

 

Collecte PAMBA denounced the discrimination against indigenous people in the Kabo area and the sabotage of their sacred sites, which contain their entire cultural heritage.

 

‘We have little access to land. In particular, I am the victim of a land dispute with a Bantu who sold our forest to another person. As I'm an indigenous person, this Bantu tells me that I can't do anything to him. We need the government to help us secure our land’, added Lucie Mbenda from the village of Pokola.

 

Following these testimonies, the Directorate General for the Promotion of Indigenous Populations then proceeded to obtain the communities' consent to the draft decree on securing indigenous lands.

At the end of the workshop, the community representatives made the following recommendations to the administrative authorities, extractive companies and civil society organisations:

• The government should ensure that it obtains the consent of communities prior to activities;
• That the government and extractive companies guarantee our involvement in drawing up specific specifications, in this case those of the mining companies;
• That the government and civil society actors develop awareness-raising actions on law 05-2011 on the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples;
• The government should create a special fund and decentralise the compensation procedure for the devastation of fields to the local level;
• Civil society actors should call for the compensation scale for destroyed fields to be raised.

In the end, the satisfaction of the communities remains unspoken. We're leaving here very satisfied,’ said Djouboué Hypolite, one of the community representatives. ’The workshop was a time for free exchange, which enabled us to pass on our grievances to the relevant authorities.