163. The right to the best attainable state of health includes the right to health
facilities, goods and services which must be guaranteed
to all without
discrimination of any kind." The right to the best attainable state of health
refers to the availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality of health care,
services and conditions and it is an obligation for the State to respect, fulfil and
protect this right. As explained by the Commission in the Pretoria Declaration
on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Africa, health care, services and
conditions entail, among other things, access to health services for all, access to
the minimum essential food to prevent malnutrition, access to housing, safe
drinking water, reproductive health and protection against major infectious
diseases.50
164. The Commission also notes that there is a close link between the right to health
and the living environment of indigenous peoples.
Indeed, indigenous
peoples find in their living environment the resources necessary for their
growth and development in terms of physical and mental health.51 In its
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted on 13 September 2007,
the United Nations General Assembly revisited this point. lt stressed that
indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and the right
to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital
medicinal plants, animals and minerals.52 Thus, removing them from this
environment,
without
providing
them
with
a
similar,
if
not
identical,
environment, undeniably constitutes a violation of their right to health.
165. In this case, the Commission concurs with the Complainants that the KahuziBiega forest is the only source of medicinal plants necessary for the traditional
health practices of the Batwa and that these plants were part of the resources
available to them to treat various illnesses from which they suffer. This is based
on the various testimonies available to the Commission. For example, M.M.,
one of the Batwa expelled from the Kahuzi-Biega park, said: "I wnlch with dread
ns ourgrnudchildrvn 0llen dir' ofdisvnses tlmf could lmvz* been cured in Hu' PNKB using
"Communication 241/01 op. cit., para 80
50 See Pretoria Declaration on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Africa, 17 September 2004, para 7
" In this regard, for the BAKA populations of East and South Cameroon, "the forest is lours life" (Dieudonné
Tombombo), and "for the Baku, it is a supermarket, a hospital and a bank" (René Ndameyang). Interview by
Joslane Kouagheu, for Le Monde Afrique, for the article "Au Cameroon, lo cartographic participative, un
"puissant outlet" de reconnaissance des Pygmies" [In Cameroon, participatory mapping is a "powerful tool" for
recognising Pygmiesl, published on 24 Au ust 2021
52 Article 24 of the United Natio . .*§e¢l§¢R.°n the Rights of Indigenous peoples, adopted by the General
Assembly on 13 September 2op{,.,w"''
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