A report published by a UK-based campaigning group has accused WWF of funding anti-poaching patrols which have committed “widespread human rights abuses” when evicting tribes from ancestral lands in the Congo Basin.
Survival International, a UK-based campaigning group for indigenous groups, has said that global conservation charity WWF has been complicit in anti-poaching patrols committing “atrocities” on people of the Baka or Bayaka tribe in Cameroon, the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Its report, How Do We Survive?, said that it had documented more than 200 instances of abuse visited upon Baka or Bayaka people in the Congo Basin by wildlife guards “funded and equipped by WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) the parent charity of New York’s Bronx zoo”, since 1989.
But the WWF has strongly rejected claims it hires what it called “eco-guards”, and expressed shock and sadness at the violence being inflicted on the local Baka people.
Baka ‘illegally evicted from their ancestral homeland’
Survival International said its researchers spoke to many of the Baka and Bayaka people in Cameroon, Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, who claimed they were being “illegally evicted from their ancestral homelands in the name of conservation”.
Eye-witnesses and victims of abuse said that wildlife guards inflicted violence on the Baka, by “pouring hot wax onto exposed skin, beating, and maiming with red-hot machetes”. The report also said that guards “harass, beat, torture and kill” people of the Baka tribes, confiscate personal tools and even burn down camps and homes.
Survival said: “Big conservation organisations like WWF are partnering with industry and tourism and destroying the environment’s best allies”, and accusing indigenous people such as the Baka of “poaching because they hunt to feed their families and they face arrest and beatings, torture and death, while big game trophy hunters are encouraged”.
WWF rejects accusations
However WWF said it doesn’t employ “eco-guards”.
A WWF spokeswoman said: “We are shocked and saddened to hear of the violence and abuse of indigenous people. It is totally unacceptable. Protecting our planet is as much about respecting the rights of the people that depend on it as it is about protecting wildlife, and we do this by helping deliver access to education, healthcare and livelihoods to local communities through conservation projects.
“Contrary to reports, WWF does not employ eco-guards. In fact we have repeatedly asked Survival International to share information that could help us to push the authorities who employ those accused to act. Despite our many requests Survival International has refused to share this information.”
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