In 1992 Odzala became one of six moist-forest ECOFAC projects in Africa funded by the EU. The project’s terms of reference were to establish a highly devolved administration of the Odzala National Park and the surrounding forest areas – which included a hunting block – for the benefit and considerable responsibility of the customary residents, the Pygmy, and the local Bantu, both living along the main road where they had been settled by the French. It did not take me long to discover that there was no provision for a legal consultant to map out the customary commons’ ownership issues, surely the most essential part of such a project. I then employed facilitators and set to work on the future structures needed to manage the area, and then got down to practical issues: 1) with the US Peace Corps constructing two stream-fed fish ponds; 2) mobilizing a riverine anti-elephant-poaching force drawn from the Pygmy and the Bantu - my two sons accompanying them as often as possible; 3) constructing a small tourist lodge; 4) introducing a hunting-safari operator and building him a camp; and 5), creating a furniture-making co-operative. This was the start of income generation for the guardians of the land. After 18 months, I was told by the Congolese that they had no intention of fully empowering customary people and that they would only ‘consult' them. When I told the director of ECOFAC, the Belgian consultants and the EU representative about this, they told me not to bother about it. I immediately called the community together in a meeting, and told them that they had been duped. I then handed in my notice. ECOFAC in Congo carried on – a front for a Belgian University to have an African research area encompassing alternate fingers of moist forest and grassland savanna, cutting roads into the forest, something I had not allowed, which immediately opened it up to plunder. It took until 2010 for a management plan to be produced. As revealed in Redd-Monitor.org, this plan supposedly ensured (sic) that local communities would benefit from the conservation of the national park. A report in 2016 - with African Parks in charge since 2010 - reveals the mounting plunder of the area, with Bantu and Pygmy marginalized, despite legislation being in place to empower them.<http://blog.mappingforrights.org/wp-content/uploads/38342-Rainforest-Foundation-Conservation-Study-Web-ready.pdf> Neocolonial conservation delivers subjugation, poverty, imprisonment, spiritual destruction, and death. In Zambia, the Bangweulu Command with its massive wetlands, large game populations, remnant Pygmy, Bushmen and Bantu groups and three national parks, which I established in 1973 and ran for three years, 6,000 km2 taken over by African Parks since 2008. The impact on the villagers has been horrendous. A villager imprisoned for seven years for having some game meat in his possession, in prisons unfit for chickens, let alon humans - the impact on his family of ten or so women and children for those 7 years a most terrible nightmare.
That “30 by 30” campaign is such a crock! To protect 30% of the planet from what? The goal should be to protect ALL of the planet from “settler” civilization, instead of TAKING the remaining natural areas FROM Indigenous peoples and setting them aside for the Enjoyment of bored fat cats! The settler civilization surpassed the Indigenous population in numbers by about 1820, and the planet has been going downhill ever since. Look at the Keeling curve: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ Over 421 ppm and going up. The settlers ran across the Americas wiping out the Indigenous peoples, now apparently Africa is the “New Frontier” in the latest wave of genocide, and with it, the final killing of Earth itself. For shame.
In 1992 Odzala became one of six moist-forest ECOFAC projects in Africa funded by the EU. The project’s terms of reference were to establish a highly devolved administration of the Odzala National Park and the surrounding forest areas – which included a hunting block – for the benefit and considerable responsibility of the customary residents, the Pygmy, and the local Bantu, both living along the main road where they had been settled by the French. It did not take me long to discover that there was no provision for a legal consultant to map out the customary commons’ ownership issues, surely the most essential part of such a project. I then employed facilitators and set to work on the future structures needed to manage the area, and then got down to practical issues: 1) with the US Peace Corps constructing two stream-fed fish ponds; 2) mobilizing a riverine anti-elephant-poaching force drawn from the Pygmy and the Bantu - my two sons accompanying them as often as possible; 3) constructing a small tourist lodge; 4) introducing a hunting-safari operator and building him a camp; and 5), creating a furniture-making co-operative. This was the start of income generation for the guardians of the land. After 18 months, I was told by the Congolese that they had no intention of fully empowering customary people and that they would only ‘consult' them. When I told the director of ECOFAC, the Belgian consultants and the EU representative about this, they told me not to bother about it. I immediately called the community together in a meeting, and told them that they had been duped. I then handed in my notice. ECOFAC in Congo carried on – a front for a Belgian University to have an African research area encompassing alternate fingers of moist forest and grassland savanna, cutting roads into the forest, something I had not allowed, which immediately opened it up to plunder. It took until 2010 for a management plan to be produced. As revealed in Redd-Monitor.org, this plan supposedly ensured (sic) that local communities would benefit from the conservation of the national park. A report in 2016 - with African Parks in charge since 2010 - reveals the mounting plunder of the area, with Bantu and Pygmy marginalized, despite legislation being in place to empower them.<http://blog.mappingforrights.org/wp-content/uploads/38342-Rainforest-Foundation-Conservation-Study-Web-ready.pdf> Neocolonial conservation delivers subjugation, poverty, imprisonment, spiritual destruction, and death. In Zambia, the Bangweulu Command with its massive wetlands, large game populations, remnant Pygmy, Bushmen and Bantu groups and three national parks, which I established in 1973 and ran for three years, 6,000 km2 taken over by African Parks since 2008. The impact on the villagers has been horrendous. A villager imprisoned for seven years for having some game meat in his possession, in prisons unfit for chickens, let alon humans - the impact on his family of ten or so women and children for those 7 years a most terrible nightmare.
Just brutal, Chris. The human capacity for violence and cruelty seems boundless. Thank you for reporting on things most wouldn't touch.
That “30 by 30” campaign is such a crock! To protect 30% of the planet from what? The goal should be to protect ALL of the planet from “settler” civilization, instead of TAKING the remaining natural areas FROM Indigenous peoples and setting them aside for the Enjoyment of bored fat cats! The settler civilization surpassed the Indigenous population in numbers by about 1820, and the planet has been going downhill ever since. Look at the Keeling curve: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/ Over 421 ppm and going up. The settlers ran across the Americas wiping out the Indigenous peoples, now apparently Africa is the “New Frontier” in the latest wave of genocide, and with it, the final killing of Earth itself. For shame.