Abstract
The indigenous Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon depend mainly on environmental incomes for their livelihoods, usually hunting and gathering and the sustainable use of their ecological systems. They are at the verge of profound political, socioeconomic, and environmental transformations orchestrated by modern state laws regulating hunting and international development actors and agencies whose development vision expressed through conservation often underlie a contradiction with their way of life. This ethnographic study aims to document the dynamics of the institution of the great hunting expedition among the Baka. An interplay between the overexploitation of forestry resources, the creation of protected areas (fortress conservation), the full protection of certain classes of large mammals, the use of specific tools forbidden by existing forestry legislation and the ruthless behaviour of ‘eco-guards’ have led to changes in the organization of the great hunting expedition. To better address the socio-cultural aspects of biodiversity conservation and consequently strengthen the legislation regulating the wildlife sector in the country, conservation stakeholders must be conscious of the multiple entanglements between human and other life forms and the ecology of hunting. This suggests the need for a rights-based approach to conservation that recognizes the entanglement of ‘multispecies assemblages’ and respects indigenous land rights.
Highlights
Worldwide forest bearing communities are under huge political, economic, ecological and social pressures as they confront modern state laws and international development actors and agencies whose development paradigm often underlie a contradiction between their way of life–usually hunting and gathering and the sustainable use of their physical environment (Pyyhala 2012; Pemunta 2013; Ndameau 2001; Lueong 2017; Rupp 2003)
Today the Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon find themselves in a new socioeconomic and political environment characterized by the intrusion of State laws regulating hunting, development projects—hydroelectric and mining, sedentarization and conservation projects that prohibit access into the forest and confine them to particular spaces
The Baka Pygmies carry out their main activities in the forest located near the Boumba River to the southeast of the Boumba Bek National Park, as well as in the woods situated to the south of the Lobeke National Park (Ndameau 2001:222)
Summary
Worldwide forest bearing communities are under huge political, economic, ecological and social pressures as they confront modern state laws and international development actors and agencies whose development paradigm often underlie a contradiction between their way of life–usually hunting and gathering and the sustainable use of their physical environment (Pyyhala 2012; Pemunta 2013; Ndameau 2001; Lueong 2017; Rupp 2003). Emboldened by the recommendations of various international conferences including among others the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (1992) and the Fourth World Parks Congress (2003), Cameroon increased its number of protected areas to 21 (Pemunta and Mbu-Arrey 2013; Pemunta 2013) This expansion of the number of protected areas engendered the eviction, displacement, conflicts, and widespread multiple human rights violations from armed guards/forest protection force (locally called ‘eco-guards’) on the indigenous Baka people of southeast Cameroon (Pemunta 2014; Ndameau 2001:217) whose socioeconomic livelihood revolves mainly around hunting and gathering.
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