Tribal people’s rights campaigners accused the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) yesterday of “doing nothing” to stop the suffering of the Baka people in Cameroon.

Survival International launched a scathing attack on the WWF on Monday, accusing it of being “complicit” in the abuse of the Baka “Pygmies” in south-east Cameroon.

The group alleged that the Baka are being “illegally forced from their ancestral homelands” by anti-poaching squads supported and funded by the WWF.

It claimed that rather than targeting the powerful individuals behind organised poaching, wildlife officers and soldiers were going after Baka who engage only in subsistance hunting.

Baka have told Survival that many have died from the beatings handed down by the anti-poaching squads.

One said: “The forest used to be for the Baka but not anymore. We would walk in the forest according to the seasons but now we’re afraid.

“How can they forbid us from going into the forest? We don’t know how to live otherwise. They beat us, kill us and force us to flee to Congo.”

Survival director Stephen Corry pointed to tribal peoples as “the best guardians of the natural world.”

He called for a “major change in thinking about conservation,” urging WWF to work with, not against, tribal peoples.

WWF said it was “very disturbed” by the abuse allegations, saying it had been helping Survival investigate the claims since March.

The environmental body had swung behind Survival’s push for a human rights inquiry, WWF said in a statement.

“WWF remains committed to assisting (Survival) to get to the truth of the allegations,” it added.

But Survival accused WWF of dragging its feet yesterday.

“The Baka have been suffering these abuses for more than a decade, and it has been publicly documented since at least 2004,” it said in a statement.

“WWF has known this for at least three years, and almost certainly much longer. It has done nothing, and the abuses have continued.

“Many Baka have now asked us to publicise their plight as widely as possible, and to tell WWF’s supporters so that they can take action.

For more information on the plight of central Africa’s “Pygmy” people visit www.survivalinternational.org