“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)

Kyevu (Batwa) - Kashekye - Relations

Kashekye Community at BFFF site

"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)

Batwa Community

Indigenous Plants - Medicinal Herb Garden & Cultural Teachings

Bunyonyi Food Forest Foundation (BFFF) member, Tyson, is committed to working with a nearby Batwa, Indigenous community (Kyevu), and BFF Women and Youth Groups to bring Medicinal Plants and Cultural Teachings to Bunyonyi Food Forest. His research and training will include plants that can prevent and/or heal local ailments (i.e., malaria, diabetes, stomach irritations, flu, etc.,).

After a near-death bodo-boda accident (the day before he met Judith Bakirya), BFFF member, Tyson, was convinced of Judith's medicinal herb healing.  

"...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).

Bunyonyi Food Forest Foundation is Committed to:

• Reconciling with "conservation" efforts that have removed and displaced Indigenous inhabitants who depended upon, and contributed to, the health of these very environments
• Respecting, acknowledging, and including Indigenous wisdom when planning, implementing, and disseminating

           "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)

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)

                After spending much time with Kyevu (Batwa) community                        
(traveling 62km by foot & canoe),
including meeting with the Chief, Tyson reported his “good news” 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” (May, 2024)

Possible Inquiry questions for Food Forest and Documentary/Photo Gallery could 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) - as part of "Conservation" efforts - impacted the goals and intent of Conservation?