3 Baka Darwin Initiative project: Poverty in Baka Pygmies

1. Enabling Baka attain food security, improved health and sustain biodiversity Lecture 3: Poverty in Baka Pygmies Guillermo Ros Brull, Eva Ávila Martin, Robert Okale, François Fouda, Julia E. Faand Stephan M. Funk (submitted)

2. Introduction

3. The Baka • The future of many Pygmy People has been threatened by regional armed encounters, disagreements with conservation areas, and by the persistent erosion of their lands by mining and forestry (Olivero et al., 2016) • Baka are affected by poverty, suffer structural discrimination and in some cases even severe social marginalization (Egbe, 2012; Pemunta, 2019) • Their health is precarious

4. Health Life expectancy at birth of indigenous People versus their neighbours by World Bank income level (Anderson et al. 2016) • Baka life expectancy is 22 years less than their non-Pygmy neighbours (Anderson et al., 2016) • Aka in CAR and the Twa in Uganda have infant mortality rates 1.5-4 times higher than the neighbouring non-Pygmy populations (Jackson, 2006)

5. Wealth and Heath • Baka also face health challenges due to their limited access to and discrimination in public health centres • in general, Baka do not have the funds for modern health care • Baka are more likely not to use modern health care in comparison to their non-Pygmy neighbours (Carson et al., 2019) • Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data confirm that Pygmy populations are the poorest within any country in which they have surveyed, making modern health care cost prohibitive to them (lecture 4). From Funk et al. 2020

6. What level of poverty? • Poverty can be assessed using an asset-based approach in which a poverty or wealth index is calculated to compare between individuals and populations in the same study (Morris et al., 2000) • e.g. the DHS wealth index • But what does that mean in concrete terms? • For the “western” reader it is difficult to envisage the level of abject poverty the Baka are facing • Poverty can also have different meanings for different cultures • Indigenous hunter-gatherers might judge poverty, material possessions, livelihoods and self-sovereignty very different from “westernised” people • This might depend on Indigenous People´s exposure to market economies, especially after living a former nomadic lifestyle

7. Aims • Qualify and quantify poverty in the Baka in Cameroon. • compare the DHS wealth index for Baka Pygmies with all other ethnicities in this country. • quantify the level of poverty by conducting household surveys to ascertain the socio-economic status and ownership of material goods • record the motivations of Baka to hunt, this group’s most important activity for their food security, to compare monetary versus non-monetary motivations

8. Materials & Methods

9. Demographic and Health Surveys DHS • Published DHS data • uses standardised and representative sampling and objective information on population, health and nutrition in over 90 low-income countries • Five surveys undertaken in Cameroon (1991, 1998, 2004, 2011 and 2018) • only the 2004 and 2018 surveys quantified the wealth index, distinguishing Pygmies (but not the specific Pygmy group) from 47 and 172 named ethnicities within the country, in 2004 and 2018

10. Structured and open-ended interviews I • Building trust: ZyL has been working in the study area since 2002 • Structures interviews • all livelihood activities engaged in each household • access to water, use of lighting • list of material possessions • land ownership • any additional information • income from agriculture over the last year • earnings from all other activities over the past month • Open-ended questions • why do hunters hunt, in particular whether hunting was for own consumption of the meat or whether they killed animals to sell • allowed us to infer to which extent the motivation for hunting was monetary or non-monetary

11. Structured and open-ended interviews II • We followed the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) • prior interviews • all potential interviewees were fully informed • on the aims of the study • that any information given is anonymous • Interviews between 24 Oct. 2018 – 24 Nov. 2019 • Photo: Darwin Initiative Project

12. Structured and open-ended interviews III • Structures interviews • 103 Baka hunters (93 males and 10 females) belonging to 80 households • for households with several hunters, data were pooled • Open-ended interviews • 36 randomly selected hunters • Analysis • open-source statistical software package “R” • Photo: Darwin Initiative Project

13. Results

14. DHS wealth index • graph shows for Pygmy • it was at the lower end of all other Cameroonian ethnicities • 2004 (Pygmies: n = 22; non-Pygmies: n = 10226, Wilcoxon rank sum test, p < 0.0001) • 2018 (Pygmies: n = 24; non-Pygmies: n = 14075; Wilcoxon rank sum test, W = p < 0.0001) • For Pygmies: a significant decline 2004 to 2018 • exact Wilcoxon rank sum test with ties: p = 0.011 Non-Pygmy Pygmy 2018 2018 2004 2004

15. Structured interviews • 103 Baka hunters • 1 hunter: 59 households (74%) • 2 hunters: 19 households (24%) • 3 hunters: 2 households (2%) • 80 households • corresponds to about half (47%) of the total number of 172 households censused in the ten study villages • Photo: Darwin Initiative Project

16. Livelihoods • The majority of the 80 interviewed households depended on • wild meat hunting (91%) • fishing (65%) • gathering of forest non-timber products (54%) • agriculture (88%) • small jobs with their Bantu neighbours (81%) • formal employment (3%)

17. House and land ownership • Most Baka owned their houses, mostly of one-room mud walls • None owned any land, • either the land on which their houses were built • or agricultural land and hunting areas. • Agricultural land was cultivated by 90% of households, using land of their Bantu neighbours.

18. Amenities • Not every household had access to bathrooms or built-in toilets, most used communal latrines. • Access to water was communal, from rivers, springs, wells or from communal water pumps.

19. Livestock and transport • Only chicken and dogs were owned • No goats, sheep, pigs or cattle • Almost 100% had no access to transport

20. Possession of material goods was very basic

21. Estimated daily household income • Between zero and 11.64 € (12.80 $) • Only two of the 80 households had no monetary income • Income was skewed to lower values • mean (2.87 €, 3.16 $) • median (2.05 €, 2.25 $) values • Using the mean of 4.33 members per household (Ávila Martin et al., 2020) • 91.25% persons lived on less than 1.9 $ per day (8.23 $ per household) • 78% persons lived on less 1.0 $ per day (4.33 $ per household)

22. Income sources • Salaries and irregular small jobs (known locally as “petit jobs”) contributed 30.3 % to the whole income • only two households had members with a steady salary • 65 households had members holding irregular small jobs • others included commerce, midwifery, sale of medical plants, traditional medicine and others • sale of agricultural products 2.5%

23. Hunting and poverty • 36 respondents, i.e. 21% of the 172 households censused in the 10 study villages • Age dependency for the main reason for hunting • 15 respondents over 40 years old • 53% hunger for meat • 27% family ceremonies • 20% Edjengui (spirit of the forest) ceremonies • 17 respondents between 22 and 39 years old • 59% money • 12% to feed their household • 24% ceremonies • 4 respondents between 18 and 21 years old • 50% money

24. Citations witness the age-related change of non-monetary versus monetary reasons I • Two >40-year olds stated • “When we were in the forest money was unknown, there was no question of money” • “In our time our parents did not know about marketing, they only knew about sharing, it was the fundamental rule in society”.

25. Citations witness the age-related change of non-monetary versus monetary reasons II • Comments by younger people included: • “First of all, in their time -talking about their parents- they did not know the value of money and we know money. • In their time they could exchange a giant pangolin that was too valuable for a machete or a loincloth. And now, if I own a giant pangolin, I won't accept an exchange, I'll go sell it myself and buy my things. • First, they did not know the clothes. The ancients first lived in the forest and did not see the traders passing by with the goods or in the shops. • Now the administration has settled us on the side of the roads and we are discovering what our parents did not know, we are living a new way of life in which money is the key. • To get what we want we have to sell game ‘our eyes have been opened’. We need radios, MP3s, mattresses, cooking utensils, cigarettes and drinks -everything is obtained with money”

26. Citations witness poverty • “What do you think are the reasons why men set the traps? Because of poverty” • “Life has become complicated. It is because of poverty. Because of “ozang” (hunger). We have needs, we may need sandals, clothes or schooling for children. All of this brings us to marketing.” • “When you want slippers what should you do? And the soap, the seasonings and the cleansing milk, the baby's layette. Before, the Baka did not have as many needs”.

27. Discussion & Conclusions

28. Caveats: DHS surveys I • small sample sizes for Pygmies (n=22 and n=24 in 2004 and 2018, respectively) compared with the very large non-Pygmy sample sizes (n=10226 and n=14075, respectively) • The specific Pygmy group was not recorded in the surveys • Thus, these DHS results are preliminary and we recommend that future DHS surveys include more people from the Cameroonian Pygmy groups and distinguish the specific groups • Despitesmallsamplesize, thetwoindependentsurveys placed Pygmiesat the lower end in Cameroon

29. Caveats: DHS surveys II • The significant reduction of the wealth index between 2004 and 2018 indicates that the Baka situation has worsened over the last decades and not improved as envisaged by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) • A limitation of the DHS data is the low sample size for Pygmies, but it is unlikely that the decline of the wealth index is an artifact of small sample size as it fits with the observed rise of severe or moderate food insecurity among Central and West African countries, from 45.3% in 2014 to 53.6% in 2019 (FAO et al., 2018)

30. Caveats: top-down versus bottom-up indices • We used a descriptive, top-down method by quantifying Baka´s material possessions and then making inferences about poverty • A bottom-up method of defining wealth or poverty is the Basic Necessities Survey (Wilkie et al., 2015) • relies on the communities’ themselves to define what goods and services are and are not basic necessities • Not implemented because of the prior dearth of data • we focussed on the quantitative and qualitative data • should be implemented in future studies

31. Caveats: what is poverty and wealth? I • It is important not to impose a westernised view of what constitutes poverty and wealth • Instead consider what Baka People feel themselves about their economic situation in the context of their own sociocultural traditions • Open-ended questions about the reasons of hunting • was the most important economic activity before and remains so after sedentarisation • reveals an age-dependent bias on economic and monetary activities

32. Caveats: what is poverty and wealth? II • Older people • lived nomadic, non-sedentarised lifestyles • never mentioned poverty or monetary issues • Most younger people, • those who grew up after sedentarisation • cited monetary values and also mentioned poverty • Thus, the world-view changed dramatically due to the lifestyle change • from nature-based livelihoods, self-sovereignty and other indigenous ways of living • towards a westernized, money-oriented approach • Thus, the westernized view of poverty with a lack of material possessions aligns with the new reality of Baka after sedentarisation

33. Extreme poverty: 91% • World Bank´s definition of extreme poverty is living on less than 1.9 $ per day per person • Baka: 91.25% • An estimated 78% of household members live with less than 1 € • similar to the 86% (30 of 35 surveyed Baka) reported by Egbe (2012) • Caveat: • focus on monetary values • Baka continue to exchange goods with their neighbours such as agricultural products for wild meat, but we could not quantify the value of this trade • The DHS wealth index extends the measurement from monetary values to living standards (DHS Program, 2020) • The DHS results places Pygmies at the lower end in Cameroon, this is consistent with the observed extreme poverty

34. Lack of land ownership and guaranteed tenure I • Despite the history as the earliest occupants of the African rainforest, Baka find themselves today in a very insecure and precarious situation • houses are built on communal land or land owned by their Bantu neighbours • agricultural fields: ditto • excluded from land property in their "own" villages (Bigombe Logo, 2007; Duda, 2017). • Baka settlements are officially under the administrative control of the neighbouring Bantu village and Baka are excluded from formal administrative and political power in these villages (Duda, 2017).

35. Lack of land ownership and guaranteed tenure II • Hunting grounds are on communal, state-owned land and on forestry concessions (Fa et al., 2021) • Article 26 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) stipulates the ”right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that [indigenous peoples] possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use” • In Cameroon, the implementation of the Declaration focusses largely on Pygmy’s “social, cultural, and civic rights while largely ignoring pressing issues regarding their rights to land and self-determination” (Pelican, 2013)

36. Lack of land ownership and guaranteed tenure III • Cameroonian administrators may “ think twice before entitling the Baka and Bagyeli (also known as Pygmies) to rights in forest and land, and thus cut off a source of income for themselves and the state (Pelican, 2013).” • “they [the Baka] can be kicked out at any time a Bantu needs the land” (Egbe, 2012) • Cameroonian land-tenure system is a mix between public, private and national lands with a vague legal status (Assembe-Mvondo et al., 2014) • Thus, legal reforms are needed to provide for land to indigenous communities including the Baka

37. Hunting and huntingbans I • Link between the COVID-19 pandemic, that originated as a zoonotic disease, and wet markets • Many organizations now call for the worldwide ban wild meat hunting and trade (Born Free Foundation, 2020) • This would affect the food security and livelihoods not only of the Baka but also of millions of the poorest people • Stopping access to wild meat hunting would be devastating for the Baka, who have no economic buffers to compensate for the loss of their protein resource

38. Hunting and huntingbans II • Case of the Twa Pygmies in Uganda • exclusion from their traditional land in the 1990’s caused severe poverty and hardship and high mortality rates amongst under-five year olds • after Twa families were given land and hunting rights, mortality rates dropped from 59% to 18%, demonstrating the crucial importance of land for survival (Jackson, 2006). • When developing strategies to reduce zoonotic risk, these socio-economic issues need to be considered so that we can protect the already precarious food security of vulnerable Indigenous People such as the Pygmies who rely on hunting and consumption of wild meat

39. Baka and health • Baka lack a social safety net as the difficulty and, often, impossibility to access health care so clearly demonstrates (Carson et al., 2019) • Lack of health care is a crucial issue as the dramatically low life expectancy of Baka testifies (Anderson et al., 2016) • Baka combat health issues with longstanding medical traditional knowledge but these traditions can be impeded by loss of access to the forest (Betti, 2013, 2004, 2002).

40. Solutions • Cameroon could start by assuring access rights to their traditional lands • they provide not only medicine but also wild meat (Fa et al., 2021) and edible plants (BillongFils et al., 2020) • these rights are increasingly under threat • due to logging (Hattori, 2014) • some conservation strategies such the land evictions of Baka due to the proposed National Parks (Survival International, 2019) • Poverty-induced diseases such as such as syphilis, malnutrition, gastritis, malaria, typhoid, pneumonia, diarrhoea, yellow fever, tuberculosis and intestinal infections can only be addressed by removing poverty (Egbe, 2012; Ohenjo et al., 2006) • making modern health care accessible to Baka by providing free service would cover those diseases and conditions that are not amenable to traditional medicine

41. Finally • Further strengthen Baka capacity to tackle their low life expectancy and health crisis • Active engagement • Inclusion • Education

42. Next: Wild meat hunting by sedentarised Baka Pygmies in southeastern Cameroon

43. On behalf of • the Baka • the Project team THANK YOU MERÇI BIEN Photo: Darwin Initiative Project