Indigenous-led cultural mapping for rematriation: from Baka communities in Cameroon, to the world

Baka communities, Indigenous hunter-gatherers who live in and around the Dja Faunal Reserve (DFR), have been dependent on the forest for their identity, health, well-being, and subsistence for centuries. Their rich cultural systems have enabled a way of living well with the forest, and the forest is very significant in Baka culture and spiritual relations. However, the Baka’s way of life is severely threatened by commercial logging, mining, rampant poaching, the construction of roads, and climate change risks.

In March, UNESCO (2025) welcomed the involvement of local communities in consultation meetings, such as the Stakeholder Forum, to improve the effectiveness of the management of the DFR. The Baka have expressed a strong interest in mapping the tangible and intangible cultural assets in their local landscape (otherwise known as cultural mapping). Since the pilot community-based monitoring programs around the DFR between 2016 and 2022, Baka
Communities have participated in their own environmental monitoring programs through the Baka Monitoring Network established by Community-Based Biosynergy, a Cameroon nonprofit.

Little work has been undertaken involving Indigenous Peoples with limited or no literacy to lead cultural mapping. This project would trial a novel approach to actively decentre non-Indigenous perspectives and navigate the complex differences between Baka and external expert perspectives involved in mapping the DFR. Our project employs an innovative participatory application (Sapelli) designed to support anyone of any cultural and literate background to record geospatial data with an anti-colonial approach.

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