By Chris Lang When the Kahuzi-Biéga National Park was established in the 1970s in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, about 6,000 Indigenous Batwa people were evicted. For more than 40 years the Batwa have struggled to have their rights recognised. The Batwa communities around the park have no land, and find it difficult to earn…
Tag: Conservation-Watch
Tanawthari Landscape of Life: Indigenous communities in Myanmar propose alternative to top-down conservation
By Chris Lang The Ridge to Reef project is a massive, top-down conservation project in Tanintharyi Region in the south of Myanmar. It started in 2018 with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and was implemented by the UN Development Programme, toether with Myanmar’s Forestry Department and Department of Fisheries, the Smithsonian Institution, and…
UNDP investigation confirms that WWF-funded ecoguards beat up indigenous peoples in the Republic of Congo
By Chris Lang “In the past we knew no boundaries in the forest. A Baka knew that the forest belonged to him.” This is part of a statement from an indigenous Baka man explaining how the Baka live in and with the forest in the north of the Republic of Congo.
Half Earth: The conservation proposal that could directly affect more than one billion people
By Chris Lang In his 2016 book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, biologist E.O. Wilson argues that the only way to protect a large percentage of the earth’s biodiversity is to set aside half of the Earth.
In solidarity with the Sengwer: Extinction Rebellion Scotland block entrance to Kenyan High Commission in London
By Chris Lang Three weeks ago, about 150 Sengwer Indigenous People travelled to Nairobi to deliver a petition to President Uhuru Kenyatta. The petition was signed by 270,000 people and requests recognition of the Sengwer’s land rights in the Embobut forest. The President refused to meet with the Sengwer.