Park guardians or destroyers? Study dissects 2 narratives of DRC’s Indigenous Batwa

Park guardians or destroyers? Study dissects 2 narratives of DRC’s Indigenous Batwa

Long celebrated by some NGOs and Indigenous rights activists as the guardians of the forest, the Batwa of South Kivu had lived inside what is now Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) until the 20th century, when they were expelled by the Congolese government, at that time MPR (Popular Movement of Revolution), which demanded the creation of the park. As the park expanded into the mid-1970s, Batwa people were…