Mbuti girl Tunduoloki Harriet excitedly holds up a forest antelope caught by a male relative in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. The pygmies' traditional practice of hunting bushmeat has devolved into an all-out commercial endeavor - staged not for subsistence, but to feed growing regional markets. The result: the forests, those that remain, are growing emptier by the day.
After using smoke to subdue the bees, Mbuti pygmy Atibia Abdallah reaches into a hive to pull out honeycombs with his bare hands, in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. Smoking leaves, bundled with a burning ember, are pulled up on an adjacent vine, will be used to subdue the bees before reaching in to remove the honeycombs. The pygmies' traditional practice of hunting bushmeat has devolved into an all-out commercial endeavor - staged not for subsistence, but to feed growing regional markets. The result: the forests, those that remain, are growing emptier by the day
Mbuti pygmy hunter arrives at the morning ceremonial fire which starts each hunting day, in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. The pygmies' traditional practice of hunting bushmeat has devolved into an all-out commercial endeavor - staged not for subsistence, but to feed growing regional markets. The result: the forests, those that remain, are growing emptier by the day.
In this March 21, 2010 photo, pygmies divide up the meat of a red duiker amongst the men who helped to trap it, in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve outside the town of Epulu, Congo. The pygmies' traditional practice of hunting bushmeat has devolved into an all-out commercial endeavor - staged not for subsistence, but to feed growing regional markets. The result: the forests, those that remain, are growing emptier by the day.
The last Pigmies of Congo DRC
