Survival International: Convservation Efforts Complicit In Violence Against Indigenous Tribes

FILE - In this Sunday, March 21, 2010 file photo, shafts of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy strike smoke from fires burning outside family huts at an Mbuti pygmy hunting camp in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. Tree by tree, more than a dozen African governments pledged to restore the continent’s natural forests at the U.N. climate change talks in Paris on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015.
Shafts of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy strike smoke from fires burning outside family huts at an Mbuti pygmy hunting camp in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo
FILE - In this Sunday, March 21, 2010 file photo, shafts of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy strike smoke from fires burning outside family huts at an Mbuti pygmy hunting camp in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. Tree by tree, more than a dozen African governments pledged to restore the continent’s natural forests at the U.N. climate change talks in Paris on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015.
Shafts of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy strike smoke from fires burning outside family huts at an Mbuti pygmy hunting camp in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo

Survival International: Convservation Efforts Complicit In Violence Against Indigenous Tribes

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According to the indigenous rights group, Survival International, 19 Central African “Pygmy” communities have denounced conservation projects on their land. The tribes demand that conservation groups, like the World Wildlife Fund, stop funding anti-poaching squads that harass, displace and abuse them.

Survival International campaigner, Mike Hurran, joins us to discuss what he believes is the damage done by well-meaning environmentalists to indigenous tribes like the Baka of Cameroon.

The WWF declined to be interviewed, but directed us to its statements on working with indigenous communities and Survival International’s accusations.