Indigenous Knowledge -

Indigenous Reconciliation and Relations

“We are living in an era of unprecedented and rapid climate change.
As the Arctic sea ice and glaciers melt, the impacts are felt worldwide from floods, fires and droughts.
It becomes clear that Indigenous wisdom is the medicine the world seeks in addressing sustainability issues…

It’s about building trusting allies and partnerships — across ways of knowing and across all of humanity — so that we advance reconciliation, human rights, and climate action as a shared goal with intention”
~Siila Watt-Cloutier (Inuit Climate Change Leader, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions)

Bunyonyi Food Forest Foundation is Committed to:

Acknowledgement of truth, building of trusting relationships, and cultural rejuvenation based on Batwa voices, decision-making, and responses to historic and current inequities
Transforming conservation, agriculture, and tourism opportunities to reconcile Indigenous displacement from cultural identity, land, and teachings
Respecting, acknowledging, and including Indigenous voice and wisdom when planning, implementing, and disseminating
Refraining from acting “for” or “in the best interests of” Indigenous communities

           “The songs of the “Pygmies” are the oldest to continually be sung, and their relationship to their forest represents
                                               the oldest and one of the very few truly sustainable societies on Earth….
                                                               We are the children of the forest… When it dies, we die”
                                                                           (Henley & Tumwesigye, Batwa: Exiles of the Impenetrable Forest, p. 139)

Kyevu (Batwa) – Kashekye – Relations

“According to anthropologists who’ve studied the dynamics between forest peoples and villagers,
a forest family will often establish a symbiotic relationship with a settled village family.
These relationships are based on mutual trust and commercial benefit and can persist for generations”
(Henley & Tumwesigye, Batwa: Exiles of the Impenetrable Forest, p. 67)

Through relationship building, cultural gatherings, Plant Knowledge sharing, meetings with the Chief and Kyevu (Batwa) community, Tyson Bunyonyi (BFFF director) stated that “pygmies have agreed to be part of us in every activity and they are very happy to find that they are also considered in BFFF”.

Video was taken as members of Kyevu (Batwa) community journey to BFFF site to share Plant Knowledge with Kashekye community (BFFF Cultural Gathering, March 2025)

Indigenous Plants – Medicinal Herb Garden & Cultural Teachings

I would like Batwa to be respected and to be the role models here in [BFFF] community,
because they have a lot of knowledge
– mostly in dealing with cultural herbs and other food forest crops –
which will help other community members to [learn and benefit from] the ideas from Batwa community people”
(Tyson, BFFF member, February, 2024)

“The plant medicines that we had in our Forest, are here on this land” (Batwa Elder during Cultural Gathering at BFFF – March, 2025)

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“…food forest dwellers are said to have more knowledge of …rainforest foods and medicines than any ethnobotanist or pharmacist in the world….
The rainforest supermarket offers daily specials depending on what is in season.
The Batwa say their favorite fresh fruits include:
wild guava, giant yellow mulberry, bananas, jack-fruit, gooseberries, and other wild berries, passion-fruit,
amatugu that look like small oblong potatoes, palm fruit, impatiens
and wild ginger fruit (Afromomum ngamikkenso) – a specie well known to the Batwa, but new to science.
Wild peanuts, yams and various mushrooms, black nightshade, Malabar spinach (Basella alaba), stinging nettle, and Sodom apple (Calotropis procera)…
It is important to note that most of these wild foods the Batwa feed on are also medicinal”
(Henley & Tumwesigye, 2022 – Batwa: Exiles of the Impenetrable Forest, pp. 47-48).

Guiding questions for BFFF programs include: What Batwa-informed food crops would help to prevent and/or heal increasingly prevalent health challenges in Kashekye community (i.e., malaria, malnutrition, diabetes, stomach flu, etc.)? How has lack of access to traditional food crops impacted current health and wellness? How has removal of Indigenous Peoples from their homeland(s) impacted related goals of “Conservation”, “Education”, & “Tourism”? How can future opportunities include Indigenous reconciliation, traditional knowledge, and respectful relations? What can be learned from other Nations who have experienced – and continue to experience – similar acts of displacement, marginalization, and loss of cultural identity, land, and teachings?

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With respectful acknowledgement of Indigenous Elders of Snuneymuxw First Nation, Quwut’sun Tribes, BFFF, and Nyaka School.