I have always wanted to help people. If there were someone in need and I had what was needed or knew how to get it, I did. Philanthropy and art are my passions, when I started putting the idea of ART and philanthropy together, I knew I was onto a somewhat unique idea that I could do myself or find another artist type to do it. This is how “philAnthRopisT” was born. I am working with non-profit organizations to tell their stories through ART, this is how I found my way to Uganda, Africa in August of 2010. It is in working with a new non-profit group called Gorillas, Villages & the Ugandan Spirit (GVUS) that I became acquainted with the Batwa Development Program (BDP), and two of the Batwa elders I wish to interview for the documentary in 2012.
Jeff Markley is the Director and founder of GVUS here in Fort Wayne, IN where he also teaches environmental studies at IPFW. The GVUS organization was just being formed in 2010 and it is during a conversation with Jeff that I was asked to go to Uganda to help build a hut for a Batwa family. The GVUS is working to help with specific needs within this region of Africa. Jeff and GVUS are working toward helping to keep the mountain gorillas from becoming extinct and to help the villages thrive around the forest where these last 750 mountain gorillas are living. GVUS is also working with the Batwa Development Program, a limited corporation under the government of Uganda formed to help the Batwa people survive. The BDP is totally managed and run by the Batwa. When I went to Uganda with Jeff, I met James and Mangerie (two Batwa elders) at the Batwa Cultural Center. It was here I learned the Batwa were hunters and gatherers for many centuries in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest was gazetted as a national park and world heritage site in 1992 to protect the 350 endangered mountain gorillas within its confines; in the process the Batwa were evicted from the park and having no title to land, were given no compensation. The Batwa became conservation refugees. Conservation refugees are people, frequently indigenous people, who are displaced from their lands to create conservation areas -- national parks or biodiversity reserves. Conservation refugees exist on every continent, except Antarctica. By some reports there are 14 million conservation refugees on the African continent alone. Conservation rivals resource extraction, as the greatest force displacing indigenous people. The issue of conservation refugees has been overshadowed by the rush to preserve biodiversity and the western publics' love of biodiversity conservation. However, biodiversity is now suffering from the loss of indigenous people, who have managed these lands for centuries or milennia.1
This project is about documenting the oral histories and traditions of the Batwa pygmies as told by the last generation of Batwa to live in this forest. Through cooperation of the BDP and GVUS, we are currently interviewing Batwa elders that are willing to answer my questions via email. James and Mangerie were unable to be contacted when I started this project so I will also be filling in my personal experiences from my trip in 2010 along with Jeff’s perspective on his involvement with the Batwa.
In 1992 the Batwa were removed from the forest to protect the endangered mountain gorillas. It was imperative that the last surviving mountain gorillas be protected from any human contact since they share 98% common DNA with humans and can contract the same illnesses as humans. Today the forest is under the protection of the Ugandan Wildlife Authority. It is against the law to enter the forest without an armed guard from the UWA and the proper permits. The Ugandan Wildlife Authority sells permits to tourists and professionals for about $500 American. Without these permits and watchful eyes you would not be allowed in the forest. The Batwa currently cannot afford these permits so they cannot return to the forest. There are some Batwa that have been hired as guides by the Ugandan Wildlife Authority for tourists who wish to trek gorillas. There are only a few of these Batwa guides. As I looked back at my journal from 2010 and the photos taken while in Uganda, I wrote this recollection and began the writing for the video project we will be doing in 2012.
“I watched and listened as James and Mangerie explained this “removal” from the forest. The sadness with which they recalled that time in their lives made me look at the bigger picture they were painting. There was still some anger in their voices that I understood though their language made no sense to me, their voice inflection, hand gestures and facial expressions said a wealth of things, that this was unnecessary, undeserved and painful”. 2
Our trip up the mountainside to the Batwa cultural experience began innocently enough, western tourist types hiking up to be introduced to the history of the Batwa pygmies of the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. I thought the cultural center was just down the path, a place where tourists could get tickets and see the people in their cultural garb and speaking in their native language. What I thought would be a short stroll to a cultural center was in fact a 1 hour hike through the mountainous hillside. As I reported back to my friends here in the U.S. when I was there in Uganda. . . “I bet it was hysterical watching a fat-ass white woman huffin' and puffin' straight up the mountainside”. 1. Pulled from: http://conservationrefugees.org/wacr
2. Pulled from Lynn Berry journal entry August 7, 2010
