Ota Benga and the WCS's Colonial Practices

In the 20th century, New York’s Bronx Zoo exhibited Ota Benga, an Indigenous Mbuti man from the Congo rainforest, as an animal and cannibal.

Survival supporters demonstrated outside the zoo to protest against fortress conservation, which @TheWCS (who manage Bronx Zoo) still use to this day. Fortress conservation involves stealing Indigenous peoples’ territories to turn them into Protected Areas, and it’s inevitably accompanied by violence and rights abuses against Indigenous and local people.

Filmed by Climate Media Initiative.