Congo: The tribe under threat | Unreported World

[Music] northern Congo home to some of the world's most pristine rainforests it's teeming with wildlife some under serious threat from extinction like gorillas and forest elephants and it's been the hunting ground for tribes here for generations Adolphe but uh this is the town of whistle on the border of six of the rain forests national parks a busy trading post for meat that comes from the forest known as bush meat [Music] Wow do you know where they get the meat from there you go Forrest me kids get sick gazelles oh look it up kiss-kiss here excuse me kiss it kiss Sanj it's a monkey it's as popular the many people come to to buy the monkey for you three or four per day Wow I can't imagine eating monkey but the species on display here and all the other bush meat is perfectly legal but you know the real problem in this area is actually the poaching of the endangered species in the rainforest you know animals like the elephant and the gorillas their populations have been decimated and I guess that's why the government in the congo are trying to create more and more protected areas I'm heading to one of them it's an area the government has earmarked for a new National Park called message R and it's already patrolled by what are known as eco guards yeah we are well within the proximity of the park the protected area here so you know poachers obviously operate around there these eco wardens are here to protect the park from all of that this is a promotional video by the World Wildlife Fund the Eco guards work for the government but receives some finance from the WWF the video portrays the Eco guards as an unarmed force facing heavily armed poachers protecting the elephant is one of the WWF s main causes and it has a fire on its hands thanks to poaching gangs including Chinese syndicates the elephant population here has plummeted by 60% in the last 10 years it's not long before we see signs of them there it is big elephant poo loads of it I've never been so happy to see so much crap this perfectly tarmacked road is being built I'm told with the help of Chinese logging companies it's provided easy access for business and locals but also a speedy getaway for the poachers we're outside of the boundary for the new proposed park 1,400 square kilometers of forest that will be off-limits for 8,000 tribes people now I'm going to me a tribe of people called the backup and the backer have lived in these forests for generations and what I want to know is if their lives are gonna change once all of that happens mokou Z's from the backer one of the very few of his tribe to be educated he lives in a small town called sembei he's brought me here because he's worried [Music] Nkosi can you tell me about the issues that the Village People and the backer are facing in this area for narmucca monopoly but by doing a bangle vicuna Valona bongo kullaberg pachikuri Allatoona samba by chico fontina samba so how are they affected by these laws mikaze takes me to one of the villages on the edge of the forest clearing the path my dad had one of those solar neighbours had a fly mode and my dad just bought at this machete in East London Celeste is the village chief the urges that tried to tell me how the eco guards treat them as many of your people here had problems with the eco guards to free the poor yay eventually they begin to talk to me no matter I want to know the bunny hop mm I wanna be why are the eco guards attacking your people why they beating the men and women from your village [Music] console by mohammed salameh being a demon abusive the WWF in part funding eco guards leia told us that respect for human rights is at the core of their mission and they have stringent policies designed to ensure their partners are safeguarding the rights of indigenous people but the backer who prefer their tribal names are being called pygmies Phil they're being targeted by the e codes but why hunting for them isn't a sport it's their very survival they say nowadays they only hunt outside of the proposed Park site but that's made getting enough food even harder more desert Sequoia might be Black Widow who's oh my god is open to genomic way the backer admits some of their tribesman used to kill elephants before it was outlawed and some locals have quietly told me that others still work for poachers tracking endangered species for the Syndicates but these guys hunt animals that can be legally killed like antelope and some monkeys even though they're outside of the national park zone they say the eco guards don't care just carrying a rifle makes them a target now in a month you're gonna see me oh I see local and Regina bangle if we're not women on the forest may be teeming with wildlife but not the parts these guys now use and bushmeat is their main source of protein the group's nerium bathroom in my lobby circles we take a quarry and easily after five hours they've seen no animals [Music] all they found is a giant snail a tiny snack to show four hours of work trekking through thick humid jungle there's no local shop here if they fail to catch anything the whole village goes without meat for dinner tonight it's cassava leaves and bananas the next morning my cozy wants me to meet a family he says has been devastated after an encounter with the Eco guards we're heading to a village now where I've heard this woman who's had a very bad experience with eco guards this is Milan and her husband he told me they're both from the backer tribe to make a living they trap animals for a family from a more powerful tribe called the back whaling Milan is quiet and withdrawn and I soon learned why she recently buried her father she takes me to his grave as she explains how a year ago he was at home when the Eco guards came to arrest him he and three other men were convicted of killing an elephant the villagers say none of them even owned a rifle why do you think the Eco guards made this accusation he spent six months in prison where he was sexually assaulted by other inmates he died three days after his release I'm sorry I'm sorry have you made a complaint to anybody have you spoken to any of the authorities about what happened to your father I don't know if her father was guilty but I can see his death has left these people terrified of the Eco guards nobody deserves that and if this is all about protecting the rainforest then I don't know something has gone wrong here something has gone very very badly wrong [Music] the more I talk to the backer the more I realize there's is a very different world they don't have money they don't speak out for their rights they're seen as the lowest class of tribes in the area and they don't think their voice will be heard at Oh mayor Millan claimed the back way lay the more powerful tribe often boss them around in a bubble but you know me being as a lily and according to them many of the eco guards come from that tribe mikaze thinks it's time to fight back for the past month he's been urging Milan to go to the police to make a complaint against the eco guards for arresting her father and against the prison for not stopping the abuse what if they see it to me mikaze straddles the forest in the modern world he conceived the backer deserved better suited mechanical bunda causal to our belief dr. Google our resistance wanna have positive the next morning we decide to pay the eco guards a visit at their outpost in the town of sim Bay so we just arrived at the headquarters of their eco guards these guys are supposed to be here to protect the forest especially now it's going to be turned into a park but have been a lot of allegations about them about stuff that they've done that have affected the villagers and affected the back of people I'm going to put some questions to them now hopefully they're in we find just admin staff who tell us the eco guards are out on patrol parlez Anglais we call the commanding officers number but there's no answer I really need to speak to someone in charge because in the short space of time that we've been here there's been some serious allegations made about the eco guards which for me is extremely shocking especially as the Eco guards are supported by WWF who not only protect wildlife all over the world but they also claim that they protect the rights of indigenous people it's not until later that we catch a glimpse of how these guards operate they still won't talk to us as they prepare to go out and patrol but it's clear they're heavily armed I can see why the backer is so intimidated they look more like soldiers than the unarmed wardens featured in the WWF film on your I'd seen the tribesman come back from their hunt with nothing today it's the woman's turn and they're fishing back a style they dance sections of the river close to the village once the dams are built they sweep out the water it's hours of back-breaking work [Music] the fish seem pretty elusive but if they don't catch any it will be another hungry night for the villagers they managed to land some fish and find shrimp and crabs in the roofs of the trees it's not a huge catch but the villagers will need to know [Music] we leave the women and head closer to the proposed parks boundary I want to find out what other options they have if hunting's off-limits we are deep deep in the forest and we're heading to a village that is so remote the only way you can get to it is on this dusty muddy road there's no way my chair can navigate the dense forest but it's in there where I'll find the forest people's most reliable food source here goes I'm off to the bush oh my days this is proper forest these plantations harvest banana cassava and gokarna crops that help keep people here alive but even this is under threat and by the very animals that the Eco guards are protecting Jessica sir Wow so these are footprints of the elephants so the animals that they were talking about where elephants that come in and destroy their plantation this plot belongs to Joseph two acres of it have been destroyed don't wanna know good luck Sam you know you go buy a Bible Leah a Priscilla I'm starting to see that these guys have a totally different view of elephants than many of us in the West here there are pests and a danger Menem our okay bye local basketball Sally and protected pager number a limited to me it looks like the creation of these parks is all about the animals I'm sure the WWF's intentions are good but who's standing up for the people who are running out of options no our life here is just super tough but it just kind of makes me think now if I was here with her family and I had to feed them and there was no shops nearby to go to and you're surrounded by this forest I mean what do you do driving back we come across a hunter who's actually caught something and managed to give the eco guards the slip is this animal protected the digit but he says the eco guards will still take them off him even though they're not protected why would the guards take them off you by Jackie and will you sue Ellen's envelope and I woulda knocked on Zilla when shall we leave the hunter with his bush mate to take a breather at the nearest village and have a chat with the chief what's going to happen to your village if this whole forest becomes a protecting Park no theocritus dama to pull me desire mistletoe pundit and I warm up an hour to put a Samba then the atmosphere changes I soon learn why - I left the guy there is eco garden he's just come to listen and to what these guys are saying the Eco guard is out of uniform because he's off duty I don't want to make life difficult for the villagers so I changed the subject tell me about fishing and how you fish off camera he's telling the villages what to say so I tried to talk to him but he is he God he's not it doesn't he wonder Lika God's not keen to appear on camera see we're in this little catch-22 situation where and want to speak to the locals about the forest than the impacts that the national partners have no no but we got an eco guard who's watching these guys intimidating them and they're afraid to talk so there is left every time I start to talk to the villagers he comes back are you worried about talking or say let me think about the forest wild seas here yeah he's here he's here now also awkward I mean I'm none the wiser but the guys just behind us and he's continually just surveilling what we're doing yeah a-and it's making everything really really difficult here none of these guys will tell us anything whilst he's around this is the closest I've come to see them for myself how the eco guards behave looking at the villagers I get the sense that they've given up trying to fight back but it's hard to see how they can live like this for much longer mokou zi wants them to start speaking up for themselves he tries one more time to convince Milan to make a complaint about her father's death after six months in prison he's gutted that she doesn't have the nerve to speak out the woman would be a telepath give as I do represent the people it was a llama I was a normal assitive 101 it's heartbreaking to see a tribe that belongs in this rainforest under threat the WWF told us they've now launched an independent investigation into all allegations made against the eco guards in the Congo they say if they uncover any breach of their policies they'll take swift action before I leave the backer boys want to show me that the forest also has treats I've never done this before in a pickup truck full of Becker tribesmen on our way to collect some honey I pick up some milk and some bread on the way in ah never this tree okay we're getting the knock on the farm which means the honey's over here this side night to see [Applause] [Music] how important do you think the Becker people are to the rainforest Bacchus a blockage in a Samba but it's done by then again I'm a bimbo yeah vinegar [Music] [Applause] [Music] as the rainforest becomes more and more off-limits to the backup this is a moment of rare joy fresh honey thanks for watching click the logo to subscribe for more award-winning documentaries from the unreported world team we upload videos every Sunday keeping you up to date with content from all over the world [Music]

Channel: Unreported World

Views: 1,470,095

Rating: 4.7886496 out of 5

Keywords: Unreported world, unreported world documentary, congo, democratic republic of the congo, democratic republic of the congo documentary, drc congo, world wildlife fund, wwf, congo rainforest, congo rainforest documentary, congo tribe, congo rainforest tribes, congo baka tribe, endangered animals, endangered species, congo endangered species, world wildlife fund wwf, bush meat documentary, bushmeat hunting, bushmeat hunting in africa, indigenous tribes africa, ade adepitan

Id: TBDKiJrLits

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 02 2019