Actualités: Urgent appeal to UNESCO and IUCN: human rights violations in Kahuzi-Biega National Park (DRC)
29 January, 2018
An urgent letter has been sent from six concerned organisations to the World Heritage Centre in UNESCO and the World Heritage Programme in IUCN to highlight human rights abuses in a World Heritage listed natural site in the Democratic Republic of Congo - the Kahuzi-Biega National Park.
The letter asks The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to ensure that the World Heritage Committee considers persistent human rights violations against the indigenous Batwa communities resident around the park in their consideration of the site in the up-coming Committee session in June/July this year (https://whc.unesco.org/en/sessions/42COM/).
The signatory organisations are: Centre d’Accompagnement des Autochtones Pygmées et Minoritaires Vulnérables / Centre of Assistance for Indigenous Pygmy Peoples and Vulnerable Minorities (CAMV), FPP, Minority Rights International, Rainforest Foundation Norway, Environnement Ressources Naturelles et Développement (ERND Institute) and the International Work Group on Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA).