Dear Jack,

The UK’s Mail on Sunday has today published an in-depth investigation into reports of appalling atrocities being committed against Indigenous Baka people in the Congo rainforest.

The details are horrific.

Stories like Ella Ene’s, who was brutally raped by a park ranger while holding her young baby.

And it is shocking - but not at all surprising - that this is happening in the name of conservation.

Like so many other Indigenous people in Africa and Asia, the Baka have been evicted from their forest after it was turned into a national park - in this case, the Odzala-Kokoua National Park.

And now their land - the park - is patrolled by rangers, with orders to keep the Baka out. They enforce this with a reign of terror - beatings, assault, and rape are all detailed in the report.

The Baka’s precious rainforest - carefully guarded and cared for by them for millennia - is now ‘managed’ by the multi-million dollar organization African Parks. Mining permits have been sold off INSIDE the park by the government, while logging concessions surround it.

Meanwhile the forest’s rightful owners are cast aside, left to live in miserable conditions by the side of logging roads when they escape the brutalities of the rangers.

One Baka man, Eyaya, says: “If a Baka enters the forest and comes across eco-guards, they will torture him to death.”

No wonder the Baka say: “The forest is ours, but now it’s under the control of others.”

The Baka urgently need your backing to fight these abuses. Please tell African Parks’ funders that they should withdraw their funding until the Baka are allowed to return to the park and live there as they wish.