Nature conservation projects marred by human rights violations (Congo Basin)

 

In recent years, the complaints of the Baka people have become louder and louder. 

The area where they live, the forests of Messok Dja in the Congo Basin, is being transformed into a national park under the direction of the WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature. 

 

This part of the Congo has been declared a priority territory for the protection of great apes and is considered to be Africa’s last elephant stronghold. The project is financed by European and German taxpayers. 

Bonus Payments for Arrests 

The project is hated by the local population. The Baka feel harassed by the gamekeepers in the future national park. They have lived in the forests of Messok Dja for generations. “I am Baka, my father is Baka, my mother is Baka. Our ancestors entrusted this forest to us. Our food comes from the forest. When we are sick, we go there and collect our medicine,” says a Baka woman. 

 

One day her children should also look for food in the forest. But now the forest is out of bounds, she says. The Baka people have been deprived of their habitat. 

According to Survival International, more and more indigenous communities in Africa are becoming victims of an unscrupulous conservation industry. 

 

In recent years, the organization has repeatedly published photos, videos and testimonies of serious human rights violations by WWF-funded gamekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. The accusations range from arbitrary arrests to torture and even targeted killings. 

The planned nature reserve Messok Dja is only one of many examples. One of the main accusations: gamekeepers or rangers receive a bonus for every poacher they arrest. This motivates the rangers to arrest as many people as possible – whether they are guilty or not. 

 

“With this system of premiums, more and more incentives are being created to arbitrarily arrest people and for violence to escalate further,” Linda Poppe from the Berlin office of Survival International said in an interview with DW. 

In the case of the Messok Dja area, the money for the premiums comes from the European Union, while the German government also finances so-called “performance-related payments” for rangers, which includes bonus payments, in the Salonga National Park in the Congo Basin, Poppe said. The WWF also pays bonuses to rangers there. 

Bonus Payments ‘Completely Normal’

That gamekeepers receive bonuses is a completely normal thing and occurs regularly in many African countries, WWF spokesman Immo Fischer told DW. 

 

Gamekeepers do an extremely dangerous and important job and should be rewarded when they are successful, he said. One  reason is to prevent corruption. “You must think that if a gamekeeper catches a poacher in the act, and this poacher is on his way with two elephant tusks, then the value of these tusks quickly exceeds the annual salary of the ranger.” The bonus payments for the rangers are intended to prevent poachers buying themselves free, Fischer said. 

Linda Poppe does not accept that argument. Corrupt gamekeepers are the wrong partners, she says. “You should rely on the indigenous people who live in these areas and who are often driven out to make way for nature reserves but who are actually the best allies of conservationists,” she said. They were the ones being punished.  In her view, the system contains the wrong incentives. 

Is the German Government Partly to Blame?

Human rights problems in protected areas in Africa which are co-financed by Germany have been the subject of several parliamentary initiatives in the Bundestag.  

Eva Schreiber of the Left party repeatedly emphasizes the joint responsibility of the German government and public institutions such as the Bank for Reconstruction (KfW) or the international cooperation organization Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).