Read the full paper by Simon Hoyte and Felix Mangombe here.
Read the Plain Language Summary here.
The Baka of Cameroon are inseparably tied to their forest. A hunter-gatherer culture with blurred lines between humans and animals and founded upon initiation into forest spirit societies.
The Baka maintain that:
(1) An abundant forest has been provided by the creator god Komba. This perfect environment is bountiful with nourishment, medicine, materials, and enables ritual and spiritual culture;
(2) The abundance of the forest is celebrated through sharing food, hunting effort, spiritual engagement, and laughter properly with each other and with non-humans;
(3) Personal accumulation is not acceptable because Komba made everything to be shared. It is by freely sharing, rather than accumulating or reciprocating, that health, luck, and joy are guaranteed.
As the Baka regard the forest as part of themselves, achieving joy for people is achieving joy for the forest, and it is this that ensures an abundant forest. If forest managers take such Indigenous philosophy seriously, the forest landscape may once again become abundant to the benefit of all.
Relational Thinking 