The NonProfit Press: Baka "Pygmies" report more abuse despite WWF assurances

15.11.15

The NonProfit Press: Baka "Pygmies" report more abuse despite WWF assurances: The Baka who lost their land in the new Ngoyla Wildlife Reserve are no longer able to access the food and sacred places that are vital to them. They and their neighbors are accused of "poaching" when hunting to feed their families and face arrest and beating, torture and even death at the hands of wildlife officers funded by WWF.

One Baka man reports, “When they came to my house my wife and I were sleeping. They hit me and cut me with machetes and my wife too.”

Another Baka said, “We are afraid to visit our gardens, the wild mangos fall in the forest. We are scared to look for them. Where do [the anti-poaching squads] want us to go? … We are people from the forest, we aren’t people from the village.”