A Batwa pygmy family in their forest home in Kalehe, the DRC 

Sabiti Kado, 45, walks slowly towards a group of fellow pygmies enjoying a local brew in a bar located on the outskirts of Aru, town in the eastern province of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

He has just come from the Ituri forest where his family and other pygmies live, being among the few remaining pygmies who live in the forest, but come out occasionally to trade or do casual work in a bid to earn some money. 

“I deal in clothes and items like sugar, salt and domestic utensils. I buy them here [in Aru] and take them to sell to my people in the forest. I am a pygmy from the Mbuti Group, and am proud of being what I am because that is how God made me,” he said.  

The small-in-stature Mbuti, or Bambuti, are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and one of the oldest indigenous people of the Congo region of Africa, thought to have inhabited the Ituri forest for 2,000 years. 

Kado is one of thousands of pygmies in the DRC. They mostly live in Ituri forest in the eastern part of the country, although there are some living in the north. 

Kafupi Sabiti, one of Kado’s peers, who relocated from the forest 10 years ago to Aru Town, said that he did so to look for work and earn money to improve his life, and care for his family, who remain behind in the forest.  

“I help to offload the trucks that bring goods to the market stalls and get paid for my efforts. When I visit my family in the forest, I buy some needed items and take them back home,” he said. 

Over time, a support network has been built up around the forest dwellers. Robert Kilihosi, a forest officer in Ituri Province, said that the pygmies have perennially suffered from discrimination resulting in political, economic and social marginalisation. However, through social integration, some of them started to become assimilated into the modern world; but despite this, they continued maintaining most of their traditional ways of life. Kilihosi added that some organisations have set up schools in the forests, which pygmy children attend.  

Pastor Simon Longwa, from the local Aru Pentecostal Church, said apart from schools, they have established branches of the church in four pygmy communities in the forest. “A good number of pygmies have accepted Jesus and have become Christians,” he said.   

Conserving forests 

Renowned African environmentalist Fredrick Mugira, who is also a National Geographic storytelling explorer, a Pulitzer Centre grantee and a Bertha Challenge fellow, said that pygmies are traditionally nomadic, and move to new parts of the forest several times. They move in response to resource availability and this lifestyle allows the wildlife population that provides much of their protein to recover after a group has moved on. 

“Pygmies do not cut trees. When preparing a new place to live in, they clear undergrowth like small trees and saplings, leaving the tall trees intact. The tall trees protect them from the sun and maintain habitat for honey-producing bees and animals. When they leave trees intact, the area can quickly return to a healthy and productive forest after they leave. Their huts are made from grass and tree leaves,” he said. 

The pygmies collect honey in an environmentally friendly manner, by climbing up the trees to collect it, often as high as 8 metres. On reaching the beehive, they burn grass, directing smoke to the hive and the bees become inactive but are not harmed, enabling them to remove the honey. 

The conservation methods of pygmies are linked to traditional beliefs, such as prohibition of hunting in the places where animals reproduce and raise their young. They also do not hunt during mammals’ gestation season. 

Government protection for pygmies 

In 2022, the DRC took a big leap forward in recognising the customary rights of its indigenous population by adopting the Law on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of the Indigenous Pygmy Peoples. This historic law is the country’s first ever legislation to formally recognise and safeguard the rights of indigenous peoples, in particular, their land rights. It is expected to have a lasting effect on improving land tenure security and livelihoods for the indigenous pygmies, and also empower them to take a leading role in achieving the DRC’s climate and conservation goals. 

“That was the first time for the government to formally recognise and safeguard the rights of pygmies. It is a good law because it protects the pygmies in the forests,” said Ituri Province local government official Charles Mungaya. 

Meanwhile, Dorothée Lisenga, indigenous community leader and coordinator of the Coalition of Female Leaders for the Environment and Sustainable Development, said, “This law is a weapon of combat and liberation for the indigenous pygmy peoples of the DRC.” 

One of the local pygmy leaders Pius Kiri was equally pleased with the new law. “We appreciate the government for coming up with a law that recognises us and allows us to stay in the forest,” he said.  

Pygmies still face challenges 

Deforestation, forest degradation, expansion of logging roads and rising rural populations have greatly impacted the lives of the pygmy peoples. Logging is especially problematic because by cutting trees, settlements and roads open tracts of previously inaccessible forest to rapid colonisation. 

While pygmies have generally lived within the local forest ecosystem, the increasing commercialisation of the bushmeat trade is altering the sustainability of hunting practices. Bushmeat demand is rising in villages, urban centres, and even overseas markets.   

In some parts of the forests where pygmies live, they are threatened by destruction of their homelands, the influx of outsiders, and official government policies to disrupt their forest traditions through forced settlement. However, they are also adapting to change, such as no longer remaining half naked, and including sugar and salt among other new lifestyle adoptions. 

The new pygmy protection law will go a long way to address some of the challenges, as well as preserve cultural aspects of their lives.   

Who Exactly Are Pygmies? 

Some scientists claim that pygmies are a group of people thought to be endowed with the characteristics of small bodies due to environmental conditions. 

The tallest of the pygmies rarely exceed 5 feet (1.5 m). There are four major rainforest pygmy groups in Africa, namely the Mbuti in DRC forests, the Aka found in Central African Republic and north DRC, the Baka of south Cameroon, and the Batwa in the central Congo River basin and Uganda forests. 

Scientists have speculated that their stature is small due to natural selection pressure that allowed them to better adapt to dense tropical forests, where heat is oppressive and food is scarce.  

The pygmies have traditional knowledge and practices that make them key actors in the protection and preservation of forests’ rich biodiversity. 

In the DRC, the pygmy population is estimated to represent 600,000 to 1.5 million people, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a membership union that brings government and civil society organisations together with a global network of experts created in 1948. IUCN is now the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. 

IUCN said these communities have developed traditional knowledge and practices that make them key actors in the protection and preservation of the region’s rich biodiversity.