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Earlier this month, Leonardo DiCaprio won a new name for a tropical tree in Cameroon. The first plant species named Kew by the Royal Botanic Garden of the United Kingdom in 2022 is called “Uvariopsis dicaprio” as a result of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Effort to Care for His Home in the Precious Forest of Ebo”.
He used social media to “help cancel the forest felling concession in 2020,” but while no effort should be underestimated, the real heroes of the forest rescue campaign were the local Ban communities.
Cameroon’s Ebo Forest is a fully-fledged forest ecosystem with an area of over 2,000 km2 (772 square miles), larger than the size of London in the UK. It is a site of great biodiversity, home to forest elephants, drillers, gorillas and the nesting of Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees, tools that stick nuts to rocks and fish for food, and the rarest subspecies in Africa.
Like any jungle, Ebo is an important carbon sink. It contains approximately 35 million tonnes of carbon, which is three times the annual emissions of passenger cars in London.
The forest is also home to more than 40 Ban communities. These communities have campaigned for the right to return to the forest, which was relocated in 1963, in a dirty war against the freedom fighters who had just liberated the country from colonialism by the French regime. For the people of Ban, the forest of Ebo is the sacred land of their ancestors, where they bury the dead.
In early 2020, the Cameroonian government told local communities that it had decided to open the Ebo forest for industrial felling. Timber has never advanced the economy of Central Africa, but instead has enriched a small circle of elites and impoverished local communities.
The government moved forward, despite the rejection of Ban’s community plans, a violation of local forest law and the right of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to be granted by the internationally recognized local and indigenous communities.
Banen’s leaders were at the forefront of the political struggle for the Ebo Forest from the first day in August 2020, six months later, until the cutting plans were finally suspended. He did so with Cameroonian researchers like Dr. Ekwoge Abwe, who has given his life’s support. The Ebo forest, its biodiversity and the rights of its communities.
The decommissioning decree also violated the Cameroonian government’s 2006 commitment to turn the Ebo forest into a national park, and the community also opposed the plan, which is not surprising given the disastrous reputation of high-budget conservation in the region. Scientists in the United Kingdom named the Ebro tree DiCaprio.
A country with a record of land and human rights violations that include sexual assault by woodcutters and agribusinesses, where wildlife conservation has taken precedence over indigenous peoples, ranking 134th out of 180 countries in the 2020 World Press Freedom World. Index, resistance requires real courage. In addition to posting rights from Cameroon on Instagram or Twitter, it needs other features from Cameroon.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s overall commitment goes beyond keyboard activism, and many environmental activists would accept that he deserves an Oscar for Best Actor for his role in Netflix’s production of Don’t Look Up.
However, it is important not to confuse the categories. Ebo Forest drama has never been an American production. In fact, many well-meaning individuals and organizations outside of Cameroon were involved, but at best, there have been additions, including DiCaprio. The best category for their award would be perhaps “best foreign actors.”
British scientists pay homage to an American actor It could have been an anecdote about saving a Central African forest through social media posts, but it is symptomatic of what is wrong.
Ecofascism, neocolonialism, white-saver syndromes, and the failure of the “fortress conservation” model are worth doing a Google search here. If we take the agency away from local communities, they can relocate and destroy their forest as a result of a faulty, extinct or poorly managed conservation scheme there or elsewhere.
The jungle is a blessing to communities and the world. Anyone is welcome to confront the multinationals who benefit from the destruction of the forest and those who benefit from the destruction of the forest. However, let us know our place.
Hundreds of thousands of people have signed petitions, liked and shared messages, and protested to save the Ebo forest. However, only the homes of local communities were directly threatened. Only the local Ban communities put their lives at risk.
And if the Cameroonian authorities dare to expropriate this forest in the future, it will be the local communities that will not accept it again with its destruction, including its Uvariopsis dicaprio trees.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazeera.
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