School of Indigenous and Local Knowledge
Loss of TEK, shifting baseline syndrome
Over the last several decades, facing various threats, this rich Baka culture of knowledge and transmission has been tested. There is growing evidence of eroding intergenerational knowledge transmission (e.g. Cox, 2000; Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2013). Recent studies provide empirical evidence of the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ (Fernández- Llamazares et al., 2015) when older generations do not communicate their knowledge of the past, and changes remain unnoticed by. younger generations. As Baka elders become less mobile and die, this cultural tradition dies with them.
Baka cultural expressions form a vital part of their social fabric, and as these expressions are lost the social fabric is fraying.
Polyphonic yodelling is considered a particularly resilient cultural system present for several millennia, but the increasing availability of electronically generated music is replacing the polyphonic singing (and rituals), and the intricate link between the social and musical is being reshaped (Weig 2018).
Following various criteria established by UNESCO, Baka is an endangered language (obtaining low scores on all criteria e.g. intergenerational transmission, proportion of speakers with regard to total population). There is no government policy in place to preserve the language and it faces threats related to acculturalization, schooling in French, and perception of lower social status vis-a-vis the dominant Bantu languages.
The Baka have continually adapted to environmental changes and outside influences by adjusting their hunting and gathering techniques and engaging in trade. However, mining, logging, poaching, and sedentarisation policies have pushed the Baka into day labour in Bantu (non-Baka) farms, leaving many of their traditions behind them.
The disappearance of myths and community rites is also a handicap to the sustainable management of wildlife. The weaning and transformation of the various ceremonies entail the loss of vitality of ritual practices that negatively influences the educational, health and social systems. It further weakens economic production as well as traditional methods of maintaining ecological balance through taboos and myths that have a conservation outcome (Pemunta 2019 and references therein).
Sedentarization, encouraged by government policies and missionaries has increasingly alienated younger generations from the forest. As the youth show less interest in Baka traditional knowledge, the cultural rituals and ceremonies that transmit that knowledge and form the core of their cultural fabric are deteriorating. With the practices that help them re-establish health and. harmony within the community disappearing, uprootedness and alcohol abuse are plaguing many Baka villages (Pyhälä, 2012).