African Voices for Africa's Forests - African Climate Reality Project (FULL FILM)

WATCH OFFICIAL FILM HERE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5hj9Hq__ss&t=1s

African Climate Reality Project and ReWild Africa, with funding from The Climate Reality Project, have produced a short film titled African Voices for Africa’s Forests that explores climate justice and land rights issues, along with nature based solutions in Cameroon.

In the face of the climate crisis, Western development and growth models, and capitalist profit seeking have disconnected us from nature. In this system, nature is exploited and seen simply as a site of profit generation, with extraction of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the dispossession of resources and land, wreaking havoc on communities.

All across Africa, communities are pushing back against extractive industries and corporations grabbing their resources and land, by honouring Indigenous methods of preserving nature and biodiversity using natural solutions to solve the challenges they are facing.

Set in Cameroon, African Voices for Africa’s Forests explores land ownership issues, women and Indigenous rights and participation in forest protection. For the local communities, the relationship with the forest and the land has always been one of respect and care. These communities have been affected by deforestation because land is owned by the government, who in turn sells it to big corporations, making it privatised and inaccessible.

Ewi Stephanie Lamma, the main character of the film, is a trained Climate Reality Leader and Coordinator at Forests, Resources and People, in Limbe, Cameroon. She works with local communities, women, and youth, encouraging them to use their voices and take part in local decision-making processes to protect and restore their local forests. Ewi works with these communities not only to address deforestation, but also to reframe how we think about governance of the commons (e.g land, water, soil, etc.) and issues of rights, ownership, and identity. They are amplifying the call for local people to be involved in decision making processes, and consulted before development projects take place through free, prior, and informed consent processes.

What can you do? 💪🏽

Share the film, and help amplify the message using these hashtags:

Primary:
#Forests4People
#SaveCongoBasin

Additional:
#AfricaWeWant
#NatureBasedSolutions
#ClimateActionNow