To mark World Indigenous Peoples Day: AWF sensitises Bagyeli, Baka populations on needs to protect, promote rights.

This was during the celebration of the World Indigenous Peoples Day on August 9, 2024, in the Bagyeli community.

The Day was celebrated under the theme: “Indigenous peoples, the right to citizenship and social inclusion”. 

It was commemorated to promote and protect the rights of indigenous people and also to address issues of environmental protection, citizenship, social and political inclusion.

The colourful ceremony saw the Bagyeli population display talents through dancing, presentation of various attires, exhibition of crops harvested during this period and their newly found medical plants gotten from the forest.

The day, celebrated every year by AWF, is to sensitise the population of the indigenous people on their rights in the society, and to educate them that they are being protected by the government.

Since the entering of AWF into these communities, the people have been taught about the modern ways of life, how to cultivate other crops for their consumption and for the market, and also how to sell their crops and herbs for money, instead of trade by batter they usually practice.

Speaking during the celebration, the Landscape Manager of AWF, Lesly Akenji, disclosed that most of the crops displaced by the population are as a result of what they taught the population to plant apart from their regular cassava. 

“When we came here the populations were just used to eating their normal meal, which is cassava and cassava leaves. So, we taught them how to plant corn, ‘egusi’, beans, groundnuts, plantain and so many other foodstuffs, to improve their livelihood,” he said. 

Noting that the introduction of these products to the Bagyeli was not solely for home consumption, Akenji added, that: “We made sure we provided buyers for them, gave them access to the market so they will be able to sell the crops harvested for money, instead of trade by batter”.

He went forward to state that the people were sometimes being cheated and exploited by outsiders who came in collected a part of their forest for a bottle of beer, make them work big portions of land for a bottle of beer. 

He said with AWF coming in to educate the Bagyelis on their rights, they now do better, get money and send their children to schools.

About World Indigenous People Day

World Indigenous People Day is celebrated every year all over the world to educate and remind the public of the importance of indigenous people in every society, create awareness on their rights and celebrate and reinforce their achievements so far.

The international day is focused on protecting the rights of these people in voluntary isolation and contact as they are considered protectors of the forest with their unique culture and ways of relating to the environment.

In order to raise awareness on the importance of these people, the United Nations, through its working group focused on indigenous people, held its first meeting on August 9, 1982 in Geneva and picked this day as one to raise awareness about these groups of people all over the world.

About Africa Wildlife Foundation

Africa Wildlife Foundation is a non-governmental organisation that supports the government in managing wildlife and wildlife habitats in some African countries including Cameroon.

Present in Cameroon since 2015, the foundation currently supports three protected areas; Faro National Park, Dja Faunal Reserve and the Campo Ma’an National Park.

In these areas, the foundation has carried out projects like addressing conflict over natural resources, developing park infrastructure, monitoring wildlife, creating alternative livelihood for the people, strengthening wildlife protection, providing technical support, enhancing cocoa-based agriculture and implementing other methods to reduce hunting of animals in the forest.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3198 of Tuesday August 13, 2024