DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: GPS handsets are helping Pygmies living in the Congo Basin Forest mark out areas critical for the survival of their community and culture

Record ID: 454868

  • Title: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: GPS handsets are helping Pygmies living in the Congo Basin Forest mark out areas critical for the survival of their community and culture
  • Date: 12th October 2007
  • Summary: (AD1) POKOLA DISTRICT, REPUBLIC OF CONGO (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PYGMY WOMEN SITTING WITH THEIR CHILDREN
  • Embargoed: 27th October 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Industry,Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVAAYGD5Z08HXMB1I3SLXXUDA22G
  • Story Text: GPS handsets are helping Pygmies living in the Congo Basin Forest mark out areas critical for the survival of their community and culture. Certified logging companies are using the GPS information to steer clear of certain areas.
    When Congo Republic's northern pygmies go out into the forest these days, some will be carrying hand-held satellite tracking devices along with their traditional bows and spears.
    Using GPS handsets, the diminutive nomadic forest dwellers are literally putting themselves on the map to protect their woodland livelihoods and habitat against the chainsaws and bulldozers of commercial loggers.
    Through the scheme, northern Congo's Mbendjele Yaka pygmies and the central African country's largest logging company are working in an unusual alliance to ensure the trees and forest areas crucial to the pygmies' daily lives are left standing.
    Training and technology is provided by the Tropical Forest Trust, which works to conserve tropical forests around the world. The logging company Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), a unit of Denmark's DLH group, and other partners are also contributing to the project in which the Mbendjeles are using the GPS sets to mark out the areas of forest they wanted preserved.
    These include sacred sites and hunting areas.
    "The images you can see on the GPS are of the sacred tree of the spirit of the woman, the sacred city of men for Eteni culture, also the cemeteries are marked there. So the vehicles mustn't drive around these areas.
    There's also the Mengoulou, which indicates the location of hunting grounds and settlements," explains Juslin Independent, a pygmy who is involved in the GPS project.
    These maps were now being used by CIB to guide its logging activities on its concessions in the Congo Basin rainforest, the second largest in the world and which conservationists say is under serious threat from indiscriminate logging.
    The Danish-owned company is using the GPS scheme to extend certification of its concessions by the Forest Stewardship Council, which recognises responsible, sustainable logging that takes into account the rights of indigenous peoples.
    "I think the most important for us is to get recognition for all the efforts we do as a company, not only respecting the rights of the traditional people here but also with regards to conservation of the wildlife in these concessions, taking care of all the different elements of the bio-diversity as well," said Lucas Van der Walt, CIB's Environment Manager for Africa.
    CIB turned to anthropologist Jerome Lewis of the London School of Economics, who has studied the Mbendjele pygmies, to help design the pictorial icons that allow the forest dwellers to identify their important sites among the towering tropical hardwood trees of the forest.
    For example, a syringe represented an area of medicinal plants, a pygmy with an arrow a hunting area, while an image of a typical pygmy leaf and liana home indicated a housing area.
    Among the trees being marked out by the pygmies for preservation are the giant sapelli, many more than 40 metres high and more than two metres in diameter at the base, from which the Mbendjele gather caterpillars to eat.
    While the GPS mapping protects this key food source, the logging company can fell other hardwoods.
    "It's a win-win situation for both parties. The communities who live in these forests have the reassurance and the guarantee that their livelihoods will be protected and not be damaged by our operation and there's an independent group of people making sure that we adhere to this. On our side there's also benefit of having a good relation with these communities,"
    added Van der Walt.
    The project is also setting up a local community radio station, named Bisso na Bisso or "between us" in the local language, to help spread the word about pygmy issues among communities scattered across the vast forest.

    "It's very important there is access to this radio, to facilitate the access to information for the local communities living in the forests," said Paul Aboyo, a local journalist.
    The GPS mapping scheme has set a benchmark for conservation partnerships and the Tropical Forest Trust is working on a similar scheme in neighbouring Cameroon.
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