THE FOREST PEOPLE
For thousands of years the forests of Africa's Albertine Rift were inhabited by pygmy groups, such as the Batwa and the Mbuti. They were the area's original inhabitants. They lived in harmony with the forest, from which the derived all of their needs; their food, their medicine, their clothes, their spiritual wellbeing and their identity.
But as the area's population has grown, the forests have been decimated. The areas that remain have been declared national parks, and the pygmies have been banned from entering. Kicked off their land without any compensation, the pygmy groups have become a new class of landless squatters, facing constant abuse from local residents and locked into a brutal cycle of poverty and disease that has left them with a life expectancy of between 16.5 and 28 years.
Read more on the Batwa of Uganda here: The dark side of Uganda's gorilla tourism industry.
For thousands of years the forests of Africa's Albertine Rift were inhabited by pygmy groups, such as the Batwa and the Mbuti. They were the area's original inhabitants. They lived in harmony with the forest, from which the derived all of their needs; their food, their medicine, their clothes, their spiritual wellbeing and their identity.
But as the area's population has grown, the forests have been decimated. The areas that remain have been declared national parks, and the pygmies have been banned from entering. Kicked off their land without any compensation, the pygmy groups have become a new class of landless squatters, facing constant abuse from local residents and locked into a brutal cycle of poverty and disease that has left them with a life expectancy of between 16.5 and 28 years.
Read more on the Batwa of Uganda here: The dark side of Uganda's gorilla tourism industry.
