Communities are just as badly affected whether they lose their land to conservation projects, or other “developments” such as mines and dams. The enforcers of colonial conservation have beaten and murdered dozens of innocent people, including children and people with disabilities. To us it was tame.’. We had our own system of medicine, of education. The tragic irony is that mass tourism, trophy hunting and ‘sustainable’ logging, mining or other resource extraction are often welcomed in areas where the original inhabitants have been evicted and forbidden from using the land themselves. Survival International is calling for a new approach to conservation that respects tribal peoples’ rights. If our land is taken, it is like taking our lives. Already the Baka are being forced to abandon their age-old tradition of “molongo” – going deep into the forest for e… Find out more about Tribal conservationists in India’s tiger reserves.

In a leaked report revealed to The Guardian in February, an investigation by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that armed eco-guards, partly-funded by the WWF to protect wildlife in the Republic of Congo, subjected Baka tribespeople to violent abuse and human rights violations. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur. Evidence proves indigenous people understand and manage their environment better than anyone else.
One letter, signed by Baka people in Mbaye village, said: ‘They ban us from going to the forest. It is all being lost.”. The lives of tribal people across India are being destroyed in the name of tiger conservation. Agents supported by world-renowned nature groups, national governments and international bodies have tortured and murdered dozens of innocent and vulnerable people. These rangers, funded and supported by WWF, have stolen the Baka’s possessions, burnt their camps, beaten and tortured them. According to a recent report: Indigenous peoples have long stewarded and protected the world’s forests. • WWF Funds Guards Who Have Tortured And Killed People Many Pygmy people in central Africa have suffered enormously as a result of being moved from their forests. Many evictions have been brutal, with little or no warning. Its proponents view the original custodians of the land as a “nuisance” to be “dealt with", instead of as experts in local biodiversity and key partners in conservation. Colonial Conservation is based on racism, violence and intimidation. Tapal Bandialetto, a Wanniyala-Aetto man, said, "If the next generation waits here, they will learn drinking, smoking and gambling. The definition of ‘sustainable’ here is conveniently bent to permit logging concessions and industrial mining on ‘protected’ land. They select their cases based on a criterion the organisation has established, which depends on a wide range of factors, such as the reliability and continuity of the information, the gravity of the situation the tribe in question is facing, the degree to which they believe their work can ma… In many cases, the indigenous inhabitants only find out what’s happening when they are being evicted, or when armed rangers appear in their communities. It should be no surprise then, that tribal communities that have been evicted from their lands go from being “the original conservationists” to “enemies of conservation” – as Maasai leader Martin Saning’o told a shocked group of conservationists. But in Africa and Asia, governments and NGOs are stealing vast areas of land from tribal people and local communities under the false claim that this is necessary for conservation. When “Bushmen” were kicked off their lands in the name of conservation, Survival fought back alongside them.
UNDP investigators found that the Baka were not consulted about the project and suffered extreme violence at the hands of eco-guards, who also exclude them from the forests they depend on for food and medicines to survive. An Internal Report Says Some Fear Forest Ranger “Repression.” Once self-sufficient and independent, conservation refugees typically find themselves dependent on hand-outs. Baka “Pygmies” have been evicted from the forest, and the rangers get bonuses for arresting them. Big conservation groups like WWF, WCS and African Parks are complicit in all this.

Suddenly, the resources that the tribe has depended on are out of bounds. Survival International claims that WWF supports conservation zones on Baka land, to which the Baka are denied access, as well as the anti-poaching squads that have violently abused Baka men and women, and other rainforest tribes, for well over a decade. Vast areas of land have been stolen from tribal people and local communities under the false claim that this is necessary for conservation. Every 24 hours, Conservation International receives $290,000, the IUCN pulls in over $320,000, WWF $2 million, and The Nature Conservancy $2.6 million: there is hardly a shortage of resources. But the indigenous people have been living there all this time: these territories are important conservation zones today precisely because the original inhabitants have looked after their land and wildlife so well. • Victims of the WWF- Zembla Our amazing network of supporters and activists have played a pivotal role in everything we’ve achieved over the past 50 years. According to international law, the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of local communities is required before any projects can take place on their land, but the big conservation organizations have never properly sought this consent. Then suddenly one of them forced the door of our house and started shouting that we had to leave immediately because the park is not our land. Indigenous people out: Tourists, trophy hunters and loggers welcome. Offices in Berlin, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris and San Francisco, A man from a village near the proposed Messok Dja national park shows scars from a beating he received at the hands of ecoguards supported and funded by, investigation by the United Nations Development Programme, playing a vital part in these ecosystems and possessed deep understanding of them. A statement from the Indigenous peoples’ Forum at an international conference in 2004 summed this up: ‘First we were dispossessed in the name of kings and emperors, later in the name of state development, and now in the name of conservation.’. WWF has been working in the Congo Basin for over 20 years – supporting squads who have committed violent abuse against tribal people.© WWF, First created in the United States in the 19th century, national parks were predicated on the notion that nature is ‘untouched wilderness’ until white people ‘discovered’ it. Well known conservation groups like WWF, WCS, and African Parks have been aware of these atrocities for many years but they continue to fund and support colonial conservation. We are already finished off with the lack of forest medicines. After our campaign, launched alongside local people who bravely denounced the atrocities, the number of killings fell to six in 2016-2017, and 1 in 2018-2019. • WWF is complicit in human rights abuses and illegal land theft The stolen land is then called a ‘protected area’ or ‘national park’, and the original inhabitants are kept out; sometimes with the kind of violence that has been inflicted on the Baka. Maasai at the cultural ‘manyatta’ of Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya. The Mursi of the Omo River valley in Ethiopia narrowly escaped a similar fate. In India alone hundreds of thousands of people have been evicted from parks and over three million live within parks, with the constant threat of being removed. But when indigenous people have secure rights over their own land, they achieve at least equal if not better conservation results at a fraction of the cost. ‘We were made the same as the sand’ – A photo-essay on the Bushmen’s forced eviction from their ancestral homeland in 2006. Indigenous peoples… are achieving at least equal conservation results with a fraction of the budget of protected areas, making investment in indigenous peoples themselves the most efficient means of protecting forests.’. In 2014-2015, forty-five people were shot and killed by park rangers in Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. Alienating communities from their lands in the name of conservation breeds poverty, resentment and anger – all of which undermine conservation. If they hunt in the park they are “poaching”. They then call the stolen land a “Protected Area” or “National Park” and keep out the original inhabitants, sometimes with a shocking level of violence. We need your help to hold the conservation industry to account and make sure their crimes don’t go unpunished. • Why conservation needs to change: an FAQ about Survival’s campaign. The draft report adds, ‘The violence and threats are leading to trauma and suffering in the Baka communities. • An Open Letter from the Chenchu tribe of Amrabad tiger Reserve In 2019, colonial conservation hit the mainstream media. Some conservation projects compensate with “alternative livelihood schemes”, but too often these are insensitive to the needs and values of the tribe, reach too few families and are “too little, too late”. For over 30 years, Survival has been campaigning against the atrocities committed in the name of “conservation.” Join us now to #DecolonizeConservation and champion a new approach that puts tribal peoples at its heart. The idea that indigenous peoples don’t understand how to care for their environment stems from cultural imperialism.