The Baka

Land Theft and Human Rights Abuses in Messok Dja

Dede from the Baka tribe explains how WWF are violating the rights of the communities living in the Messok Dja area of Congo Rainforest.

• WWF are trying to establish a protected area for conservation on land that belongs to the Baka people in the Congo. The project is being funded by logging and palm oil corporations, among others.

• The Baka have an intimate connection to this land, where they’ve lived since time immemorial. They also rely on the forest for medicine, food, and shelter. They do not want this park on their land and have not given their consent to it.

• The Baka have their own sophisticated codes of conservation. The area is rich in biodiversity because they look after it well.

• Rangers who are funded and trained by WWF have assaulted, robbed and murdered Baka people in the name of “conservation.”

• Survival International first wrote to WWF warning them not to steal tribal lands to create national parks and protected areas nearly 30 years ago.

• WWF has covered up the abuse, supported the perpetrators, and continues to push for the creation of protected areas on tribal land.

What is happening at Messok Dja is Colonial Conservation – powerful global interests are seizing control of the land and resources of indigenous and tribal people and claiming they are doing it for the good of the planet.

What is happening at Messok Dja

Messok Dja is an area of Congo rainforest which is especially rich in biodiversity. WWF is trying to establish a conservation zone there, which means tighter controls on how the land can be used and who can go there, but it’s the ancestral land of many Baka people.

The Baka communities who live in Messok Dja rely on the forest for their livelihoods. Their relationship to the forest is central to their way of life and their identity as a people. They tell us they cannot survive without it.

International law says that any projects taking place on tribal land can only go ahead with the agreement of the people whose land it is. The Messok Dja project has broken this law: WWF did not secure the free, prior and informed consent of the local communities before they started the process of creating the park.

There are armed rangers patrolling the area even though the park is not yet established. They have committed violent atrocities against local people, like the Baka and their neighbors the Bakwele. WWF has been aware of this for many years but has done little to tackle the problem.

Send an email to the Director General of WWF, Marco Lambertini

Baka people who have been forced out of their forests often end up destitute; living permanently in roadside camps where they suffer from extreme poverty, high child mortality, disease, addiction, and exploitation.

The communities living in Messok Dja are already being prevented from using the forest even though the conservation zone has not yet been established. They are cut off from their food and medicine. They cannot practice their rituals or educate their children in the skills and expertise of previous generations.

Besides WWF, the park’s creation is being funded by logging and palm oil corporations. It is also receiving support from the UNDP, the European Commission (EC), the US and Congolese governments and the Global Environment Facility, though the EC support is currently suspended after a massive international campaign led by the Baka and Survival.

WWF claim to be doing what is best for the environment at Messok Dja, yet they are destroying the Baka people, who possess an intimate understanding of how to manage this precious ecosystem, and have a deeper connection to this land than anyone else.

80% of Earth’s biodiversity is in tribal territories. Evidence proves that the original custodians of the land know it and look after it better than anyone else.

We are fighting alongside the Baka to #StopMessokDja.

We’re campaigning against the atrocities committed in the name of “conservation.” Join us now to #DecolonizeConservation and champion a new approach that has tribal peoples and their rights at its heart.

Since the campaign launched in 2018:

• The US and German governments and the European Commission have launched investigations into human rights abuses in the name of conservation. In October 2021 an unprecedented hearing in the US Congress – prompted by Survival’s lobbying – lambasted WWF over abuses of tribal people in conservation areas;
• The UN Development Programme (UNDP) has released a report that found that agents supported by WWF beat up and intimidated hundreds of Baka in Messok Dja. Following this investigation, the UNDP has decided to scrap the project for violating Baka rights.
• The European Commission announced in May 2020 that it was suspending its funding of Messok Dja in an unprecedented victory for the campaign. Survival met with the European Commission team in charge of the Messok Dja project in February 2020, and stressed that it had never had the consent of local people – and it was therefore against EC commitments for the project to go ahead. The EC is currently working to set up a framework for human rights compliance in the conservation projects they fund.
• In November 2020, WWF released a report it commissioned on human rights abuses (including Messok Dja) that confirms that WWF knew about abuses by rangers but continued to support and collaborate with them.

YOU helped make this happen. Our supporters spoke out in solidarity with the Baka people and their neighbors the Bakwele to amplify their voices and change the world in their favor.

But WWF are still pushing ahead with the project, even though their own investigations have confirmed the Baka did not consent to it, and continue to gloss over human rights abuses carried out in their name.

Other resources

Messok Dja: Our Q&A

Forest peoples of Congo Basin
Why do we need to Decolonize Conservation?
A letter from Survival and Congolese CSOs on colonial conservation
Letters from Baka people to WWF

Press coverage
• WWF’s Secret War – Buzzfeed
• Armed ecoguards funded by WWF ‘beat up Congo tribespeople’ – The Guardian
• The violence of ‘conservation’ – New Internationalist

TV investigations
• Victims of the WWF – Zembla
• Forest of Fear – Channel 4 Unreported World

Survival’s essential reading
• Survival’s Director Stephen Corry has written a series of articles exposing how the conservation movement routinely violates tribal peoples’ rights.
• A Colonialist Land Grab Is Happening Right Now in Congo
• When WWF’s conservation looks like colonialism, it’s time for a new approach
• ‘The source of the danger is black people’ — Why is racism normalized in conservation?

News from the Baka

Atrocities prompt US authorities to halt funding to WWF, WCS in major blow to conservation industry

The US government has halted more than $12 million of funding to WWF.

EU suspends funding to WWF’s flagship African project after persistent abuses

The EU suspends its funding of controversial WWF project that aimed to create a protected area in the Congo Basin.

Damning UN investigation condemns WWF flagship project in Congo, reveals massive scale of abuses

A WWF project in central Africa has been responsible for abuses and rights violations on a shocking scale

“You have stolen our forest.” Baka “Pygmies”' heartfelt plea to European Commission

Baka “Pygmies” from the Congo have written to the European Commission regarding the controversial Messok Dja park on their land.

WWF hit by THIRD major exposé of ranger abuses

A new investigation has uncovered further revelations of WWF-linked abuses of local people in the name of conservation.

Revealed: rangers at centre of abuses storm get BONUSES for arresting people

Rangers supported by WWF will get bonuses for arresting people, providing an incentive to arrest as many people as possible.