The Pygmies

For the first time, a comprehensive survey is offering a measured estimate of the Pygmy population in Central Africa. In addition to tallying the number of Pygmies, the study plots the geographic range of Pygmy communities and highlights the natural resources most vital to their existence.

The study puts the Pygmy population at approximately 920,000. Their range is spread across 440 million acres of tropical forest in Central Africa, an area encompassing nine countries.

Pygmies are the largest group of active hunter-gatherers on Earth. But the Pygmies are also a tiny minority.

"At the end of the day, 900,000 people living in small groups in such a vast area can very easily be ignored, leading to their cultural extinction," study co-author John Fa, a researcher at the Manchester Metropolitan University in England, said. "Given the extraordinary role they have played in the human story since well before antiquity, we don't want that."

"This is a very underprivileged and neglected group of people many of whom have already lost their forest land, livelihoods and whose rich cultural traditions are seriously threatened in many regions," explained study co-author Jerome Lewis, an anthropologist at the University College London. "Information on their locations and population numbers are crucial for developing appropriate human rights, cultural and land security safeguards for them, as for other indigenous peoples."