Forest Peoples in the Central African Rain Forest: Focus on the Pygmies

Abstract

"This article describes the life of the central African pygmy people and highlights their relationship with neighbouring farmers as being valuable for the economic, social and sustainable use of the rain forests. It points out that the nomadic lifestyle of the indigenous peoples is potentially compatible with the sustainable exploitation of the forest, often more so than are 'sedentarization' programmes. The authors affirm that biological al diversity exists in central Africa because of human habitation and that excluding human beings from large areas of forest will not conserve the present biological al diversity."