Written for World Environment Day 2022
Even as an educated man, Lucien did not lose his Batwa culture. Every morning, he wore garments of skin and leaves and patrolled the forest. What he brought home as a gatherer helped to feed and care for his wife, three children and elderly parents. He and other Indigenous Peoples (called Batwa or Bambuti, Babuluku or Batumba) live in the forests of Africa’s Great Lakes.
Indigenous Peoples, such as Lucien, in the Congo’s forests, have been marginalized for as long as they can remember. They had no land to call their own – with dire consequences – until 7 April 2021, when a new law was finally voted to protect their rights.
Lucien’s community has also been the target of recurrent killings.
On the morning of 14 January 2021, in the village of Masini, in Ituri Province, at least 46 Batwa men, women, children, and the elderly were reported to have been massacred in an attack denounced by the International Land Coalition. The ADF/NALU and other militia groups in the region claimed responsibility for the killings. According to sources on the ground—including survivors—approached by the International Land Coalition members, the massacres were an attempt by the militia groups to control the land and ancestral territory of the indigenous people of Central Africa.
“The situation resembles an ethnic cleansing or even a genocide,” ILC Africa members in DR Congo said. There have also been reports that the vulnerability of Indigenous Peoples is deliberately ignored. “Their diminishing number in the various areas where they live with other communities is of concern,” the members added.
Regreening initiatives address forest loss as seen in these budding plants cultivated by Lucien in Eastern Congo. Photo by UEFA-DRC.
Nevertheless, Lucien and the other ILC Africa members believe that Indigenous Peoples hold the key to protecting the environment.
Lucien and the members first began by seeking funding to help promote the indigenous knowledge of the Batwas, essential for protecting the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world. This tropical forest is sucking out about 1.5 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, or 4% of the world’s emissions every year, and provides a habitat to more than 10,000 plant and animal species.
To address the severe issue of forest loss, the members started raising awareness among Indigenous Peoples on the challenges facing the Congo’s forests without traditional knowledge. Since 2015, the Program for the Integration and Development of the Pygmy People, the Union for the Emancipation of Indigenous Women, the Council for the Defense of the Environment through Legality and Traceability, and Environment Resources Naturelles et Développement—all International Land Coalition members—came together for local advocacy.
“Our response to climate change is a good example of what we can achieve together,” Lucien said. “This contributes significantly to celebrating our Earth through collective action.”
They also took the case to the Congolese Parliament.
Intense pressure from the Indigenous Peoples and their supporters led to the adoption of the law on 7 April 2021. The law is significant to climate change justice as 91% of Indigenous Peoples, and local communities’ lands and territories are in good or moderate ecological condition, providing further evidence that their custodianship is consistent with the conservation and restoration of ecosystems.
Not long after DR Congo’s advocacy efforts in favour of Indigenous Peoples began, members in Kenya collaborated with the forestry agency leading to the adoption, rehabilitation, and protection of over 50,000 hectares of the Mau Forest. Indigenous peoples in Kenya became involved in climate financing preparation for the country under the REDD+ programme, led by UNDP. They documented indigenous communities’ indigenous knowledge in weather and climate monitoring.
“Our response to climate change is a good example of what we can achieve together,” Lucien said. “This contributes significantly to celebrating our Earth through collective action.”
Lucien is one of the several ILC Africa members fighting for our Earth. In addition to increasing tree planting and restoring degraded lands, ILC Africa members in Mali (through the Regreening Africa program) have restored more than 500,000 hectares of degraded land.
Echoes of “healing the planet” was also heard in West and Southern Africa.
In Niger, ICRAF and its partners contributed to a change of laws accepting farmers to manage naturally regenerated trees on their respective farms. A Farmers’ Managed Natural Regeneration decree was adopted, and village committees and traditional laws were enforced to protect the environment.
The Botswana Kwedom Council is working with Botswana Climate Change Network to stop the fracking set in Okavango Delta, a UNESCO protected area and where most people of San communities dwell. The Government of Botswana has contracted this process of extracting methane gas to one Canadian company currently exploring Namibia. This process is destructive to the environment, water and people.
These victories go a long way to demonstrate that we can still avoid the worst of the climate crisis and halt further biodiversity loss by working with Indigenous Peoples.