In Central Africa, over 20,000 hectares of virgin forest are disappearing every year due to logging, forcing the indigenous Baka pygmies out of the jungle they rely on for survival.
They’re often forced to try to make a living performing menial tasks for low pay by the roadside. As a result, increasing numbers of pygmies are falling into alcohol and substance abuse.
Across central Africa, forest peoples have lived by hunting and gathering for millennia. But in the past few decades, their homelands have been devastated by logging, war and encroachment from farmers.
Their fundamental problem is the lack of recognition of land rights for hunter-gatherers coupled with the denial of their ‘indigenous’ status in many African states.
The ‘Pygmy’ peoples’ intimate connection to the forests was once valued and respected by other societies, but is now derided.
Current estimates put the population of the ‘Pygmy’ peoples at about half a million.