Samuel Dieval
Samuel Dieval is Rainforest Foundation UK's Central African Republic Project Manager. He is heading up a new project which aims to tackle the destruction of rainforests in a country where communities have practically no rights to stop their homes being destroyed.
“Bonne arrivée à Bangui” - 01/05/2008
When you arrive in the Central African Republic the contrast smacks you in the face: at 5 am, the temperature is 24 degrees Celsius and the humidity is 80%. The airport consists of a few poorly maintained rooms. The only similarity with home is that the luggage takes an hour to come out.
The CAR is a country bigger than France, with a population of less than 4 million, 1 million of whom live in the sprawling capital Bangui.
The country ranks 173 out of 177 in the UN’s Human Development Index. Which is shorthand for saying it’s one of very poorest countries in the world.
The decrepit streets of Bangui are testament to the succession of political and military crises that have left the country with few functional state services. Formal employment is scarce and electricity is intermittent. There is no running water outside the city centre. Nothing has been built for years, except a new stadium funded by the Chinese Government. This sits next to a ramshackle older version where on the 4th of December 1976, the same day Napoleon chose, Bokassa famously crowned himself Emperor.
But with a bit ingenuity and a lot of enthusiasm Banguissois get on with life. When passing through what looks like a big village, I see children sitting on the ground being taught by the light of a candle. There are young boys pushing wooden carts loaded with hundreds of kilograms of meat from the abattoir to the market. Meanwhile men cart wood from the forest, 50km away, to the city centre to be used as fuel.
The CAR has some 5 million hectares of rainforests (8% of its national territory), mainly located in the south-west of the country. The forests are home to different communities, most notably Pygmies. The forests contain abundant and diverse plants and animal species, and also some of the most valuable timber in Central Africa.
Not surprisingly, the logging industry is very profitable and taxes from logging companies are now the prime source of government tax revenue. But the people who live in the forests have almost no formally recognized rights to own, access or control the forests. This means they are powerless stop the government handing over their land to the loggers.
We explain our objectives to the people we meet: the Rainforest Foundation UK wants to support forest communities and to strengthen the local civil society organizations to defend the right of forest people, especially Pygmies. Our work is welcomed and everyone encourages us. During the first week, we meet with public authorities, international organizations, and local NGOs to discuss forest issues.
We're not the only ones with big plans. At the hotel, where the air is thick with mosquitoes, we meet Olivia, a young British student who is going to spend two years with the BaAka, a Pygmy community who live largely through hunting and gathering and are also well known for their polyphonic music. Having spent time in the city studying the language she couldn’t wait to get into the rainforests and get to know the Pygmie communities.
