“Before the project, the Bagyeli and Bakola pygmy people of the Ocean Division of the South Region were generally marginalised by their Bantu neighbours and had no voice neither at the local nor national levels,” revealed Charles Majoka, a representative of the community at the workshop. Thanks to the project, he acknowledged, the people were able to develop the criteria on which they elected their representatives. The representatives have been defending the interests of their people satisfactorily, he said. The project has strengthened understanding amongst pygmy communities and between them and their Bantu neighbours. Bantus and local authorities now pay more attention to our concerns, another pygmy representative from Ocean Division, Marcelline Louanga, said.
“We have worked with local and indigenous people in Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo on participation and representation in bodies that defend their interests by lobbying for favourable legislation,” explained Anne-Gael Javelle of the World Resources Institute, WRI. Through the network of organisations put in place, the problems of tropical forest landscape people have been assessed as being those of land tenure, access and benefits, sensitisation on national laws and benefits in return for conservation efforts. These problems are being presented to provincial and national parliaments by liaising with parliamentarians, a representative of indigenous people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Itongwa explained.
