Charles is asking for pressing motion to cease abuses in opposition to Indigenous individuals
Expensive Prince William and Prince Harry,
My identify is Charles.
I write to you from Cameroon, a rustic the place conservation has gone badly flawed. I need you to know, and I need the media to know, that harmless individuals are dying due to conservation and that you must assist them.
The forests that after have been the house of the Baka individuals have been become nationwide parks, logging concessions and safari searching zones with out their consent.
Eco-guards, I feel you name them “park-rangers”, torture Baka individuals right here and make their lives hell. They strip Baka bare and beat them, they humiliate them, forcing them to crawl on all fours and destroy their camps and possessions.
The Baka are accused of being poachers however they’re responsible of nothing besides making an attempt to reside and feed their households. They’re punished as a result of outsiders don’t perceive their methods of life, not as a result of they’ve performed something flawed.
Conservation is run by outsiders who know nothing concerning the communities that reside right here or our legal guidelines. Conservationists appear to assume that outsiders are the one individuals who wish to take care of nature and might do it successfully however this is senseless to me.
Your convention on the unlawful wildlife commerce this month will speak lots about cease poachers from killing elephants and different animals. Who needs to take care of nature greater than the individuals who name it residence and depend upon it for his or her survival?
Who understands look after nature greater than somebody who has walked via the forest daily of their lives and is aware of each plant, each tree, each creature?
Work with them, not in opposition to them!
The Baka are your pure allies in conservation if solely conservationists would take heed to them. Don’t exclude Baka individuals from conservation and don’t punish them for main their conventional methods of life.
And please keep in mind that no conservation tasks ought to occur on Indigenous land until the individuals agree. If this doesn’t occur, your efforts at conservation can by no means succeed.
Charles Jones Nsonkali
Okani
Baka individuals’s group group
