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Transcript
00:00 Making his way through the bushes of the Buezun forests,
00:04 Voodoo priest Gilbert Gakpo uses a silver bell
00:07 to summon and locate a spirit.
00:10 He finds a dwelling inside a sacred tree
00:13 where he performs a traditional ritual
00:15 to help cleanse his followers.
00:17 If you are being targeted by witchcraft or dark magic,
00:23 you can come here for rituals
00:24 and you'll never endure those hardships again.
00:28 To this day, Voodoo remains deeply anchored
00:31 in Beninese culture.
00:33 The religion, which is still practiced
00:35 by over 10% of the population,
00:37 is based on the belief that all things,
00:39 from trees to rocks to animals,
00:41 have a solar spirit,
00:43 and it considers forests as sacred places of worship.
00:47 But these spiritual havens are being wiped out
00:50 by deforestation amid widespread urbanization,
00:53 intensive agriculture,
00:55 and the use of wood for energy and fuel.
00:58 People are poor.
01:02 They can't afford to buy fertilizer or gas for energy.
01:06 From 2001 to 2012,
01:09 we noticed that 14% of the country's sacred forests
01:12 have disappeared.
01:14 Torn between demographic pressure
01:17 and environmental concerns,
01:19 Beninese government said it's doing what it can
01:22 to halt deforestation.
01:24 In 2019, it launched a joint project with the World Bank,
01:28 aiming to replant some 22,000 hectares of forests
01:32 and better protect these sacred spaces.
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