Forests of Belonging: Identities, Ethnicities, and Stereotypes in the Congo River Basin

1. Paradigms: The Forest and Its Peoples

19 T he western rim of the Congo River basin is a vast, forested region, covering southeastern Cameroon, northeastern Gabon, northwestern Congo, and southwestern Central African Republic. In many ways this area of dense, tropical forest is more comprehensible as an interrelated region than as discrete provinces of several distinct nations, whose capitals are geographically, socially, and politically far removed from the forest areas. Southeastern Cameroon is marginalized from the rest of the nation in terms of socioeconomic development and political integration, even as the forests of this region are of central importance to the nation’s economic wellbeing (Ango 1982; Akolea 1994; Karsenty 1999). As a result of the richness of the forest and the contrasting poverty of forest communities, struggles over access to forest resources have emerged since the mid-1990s. Questions of chapter one Paradigms the forest and its peoples map 1.1 Cameroon and the Lobéké Forest region, southeastern Cameroon paradigms 21 belonging have been central to these debates: to whom does the forest rightfully belong, and who rightfully belongs to—or in—the forest? Contemporary contexts of commercial forest exploitation and conservation of forest resources allow individuals and institutions to mobilize stereotyped identities such as “indigenous people,” “pygmies,” and “huntergatherers ” to achieve their aims. These paradigms conveniently coalesce and condense social variables of identity that are deemed to be significant by institutions engaged in forest exploitation, forest conservation, and programs for the socioeconomic development of forest peoples; in the process these paradigms generate rigid stereotypes that individuals resist or embrace as evidence of their social and natural belonging within the forest. The forests of southeastern Cameroon are described, analyzed, and managed with reference to boundaries: national parks and protected areas; buffer zones and community forests; timber and safari hunting concessions; “people of the forest” and “people of the village”; “indigenous people” and “immigrants.” Whose boundaries are these, and what do the boundaries purport to contain? What underlying values are reflected in the outlines and distinctions that the boundaries establish? This ethnography demonstrates that despite the pervasiveness of boundaries that denote natural, spatial, and social differences, there is as much that joins people together in the Lobéké region of southeastern Cameroon as divides them. The Forest Environment Heading east from Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, toward the East Province, the paved road peters out after 140 kilometers. From the town of Bertoua to Batouri, the road becomes increasingly rutted and bridges progressively more rickety; drivers align the wheels of their vehicles with thick planks or split logs that serve as pontoons for crossing ravines and gullies. The road narrows as it turns southward and passes through Yokadouma, the last town with reliable electricity and markets. Trees tower over the road, and undergrowth crowds toward the open light. Entering Cameroon’s Boumba-Ngoko district, small clusters of houses appear from time to time along the road, with long stretches of forest in between. The marginalization of this far southeastern corner of Cameroon is evident through absences. Vehicles are few and far between; markets are sparse and inconsistent. The limited network of unpaved roads is maintained by international timber companies, to the extent that the roads are passable by 22 chapter one large timber trucks. Moloundou is a town of approximately 5,000 inhabitants on the Ngoko River, offering the only public services available—even haltingly —in the region. In the forest villages surrounding Moloundou, schools are limited to the primary grades, are sporadically open, and offer inadequate preparation for any kind of formal employment. National medical services are limited to Moloundou and, even there, procedures are expensive, often ineffective, and occasionally downright dangerous. The public availability of electricity in Moloundou is recent, rare, and irregular. A municipal generator was installed in Moloundou in 2000 and provides spotty power for several hours each day, offering the only public source of electricity for more than two hundred kilometers, until one reaches Yokadouma. The national postal system barely reaches this corner of Cameroon; rather than sending mail through the dysfunctional post office in Moloundou, residents of southeastern Cameroon send messages and letters via travelers on logging trucks and small passenger buses that negotiate the tortuous road that tenuously connects this region to the rest of the nation. In contrast to the political isolation of the region, the forest of the Boumba-Ngoko district is a verdant tangle of resources that are central to the national economy...