When forest-based hunter-gatherers become sedentary: consequences for diet and health

Abstract

This article examines the changes in diet and health that occur when nomadic forest dwellers settle. Examples are drawn from African Pygmy groups such as the Kola, Medjan and Baka of Cameroon, the Aka of the Central African Republic and the Efe and Mbuti of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and in Asia, the Punan, formerly nomadic forest dwellers of Borneo, in particular the Tubu Punan from the Tubu watershed of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. These formerly nomadic groups were all pushed to settle in permanent villages in the course of the twentieth century, but they still depend on hunting and gathering for their livelihoods and continue to migrate seasonally into the forest in search of forest resources.