From 27th - 31st January 2005, pastoralist groups from the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia gathered in a pastoralist area of Turmi, Ethiopia in East Africa. About 120 people attended, the majority of whom were pastoralists who wished to meet other pastoralists, and who are interested to find and exchange new ways of negotiating an improved deal for pastoralists.

WAMIP Activities at the Global Pastoral Gathering

Further information on the Global Pastoralist Gathering

Members of the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples organised a workshop titled "Mobility Livelihoods and Conservation" on Friday November 19 at the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress in Bangkok. 

Presentations highlighted the conservation benefits of mobility and the environmental and cultural impacts of forced sedentarisation.  Common themes of the presentations by mobile indigenous peoples included:

• Traditional ways of life are healthier and better for the land than regimes imposed on them in recent decades by national governments, and are spiritually and culturally rewarding; 

• These traditional ways of life have come under threat, leading to unsustainable land use and decreasing health and resulting also in loss of culture;

• Inappropriate government educational and land use regimes are part of the problem. Restoration of traditional land use systems or customary rights may be part of the solutions;

• Mobile indigenous peoples should be free to decide for themselves how they will adapt and change, and their ways of life should be respected and protected.

Main conclusions of the workshop:

• There are many myths about the destructive impacts of mobile indigenous peoples on the health of the land, that ignore the root causes of problems that were not caused by these people but with which they have to live;

• In many environments on the planet, mobility enhances conservation, it enhances culture, and it enhances livelihoods;

• MIPs around the world want at any point in their history to make their own choices, to have their culture evolve in the way that they choose. 

Main Recommendations of the Workshop:

• Encourage respect for and learning from traditional forms of natural resource management and biodiversity conservation practiced by mobile indigenous peoples;

• Recognize the rights of indigenous peoples to make their own choices about how to live and how to adapt to change in the world;

• Reform land use regimes that undermine traditional resource management practices and that encourage open access situations.

Quote:

“Peruvian forest peoples (in voluntary isolation) share the common objective with the state of protecting biological and cultural diversity, but think it is better to offer to the forest people official recognition of their rights to manage the land as they have been doing, and not place these lands within national parks.”                                 Gil Inoach Shawit, Peru

Workshop Documents:

Initial Concept note

Workshop Minutes

Press Release from the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC), University of Oxford, November 2004

IUCN Resolution on Mobile Indigenous Peoples and Conservation

Resolution CGR3.RES068 Mobile Indigenous Peoples and Conservation

was submitted to the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress and approved with several amendments.  This resolution endorses the Dana Declaration and highlights the value of the recently created World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP).  It seeks to build on progress made at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa in September 2003 and at the meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004 where a political commitment was made “ to ensure necessary participation and equitable sharing of the benefits of protected areas, particularly with indigenous and mobile peoples, as well as local communities.”

The Darrel Posey Fellowship Fund

WAMIP has received a 2004 small grant Darrell Posey Fellowship for Ethnoecology and Traditional Resource Rights. The small grant is in the amount of $5,000 per year for the next two years (total $10,000), and is intended to support building capacity within WAMIP, and the realization of its early program activities, including establishing a web site, creating background and support materials, and developing the network of participating groups and individuals.

About 3000 strong Maasai from the diaspora are at the site for the function to be presided by both traditional elders and mainstream Christian church leaders.  The same meeting will also be a requiem service for the murdered elder Ole Moiyare who was shot by the police in Laikipia.

This prayer meeting has not been taken well by the Minister of Lands and a local MP, Hon. Paul Muite.  The Minister, Hon. Amos Kimunya has issued a press statement and issued an attack on local NGOs, (we have reason to believe that MPIDO is a major target), asking them to cease their involvement in "inciting the Maasai community".  Hon. Muite claims that  Hon. William Ole Ntimama is behind this meeting and that he is inciting the community to engage in tribal clashes against other Kenyans. It is anticipated that this function might be disrupted by the police.  This shall however not dampen our spirit.

In a press statement to be issued today at the prayer venue, the Maasai community intends to challenge Hons.Muite and Kimunya to substantiate these claims and warn him to desist from insulting the dignity of the Maa and trivialising the real issue - our historical claim. We dismiss his hollow, pedestrian and simplistic statement with the contempt it deserves as we are addressing a much larger issue that has affected other communities with similar historical claims.

Meanwhile, the Maa Civil Society Forum is in the process of devising a long term strategy to facilitate the whole process of the struggle.  As we indicated in our previous communication, this shall require a lot of resource mobilisation, advice from both the historical and legal angles and of course moral support.  It is our hope that the Maasai community can count on you and your network for any of this kind of support.

Best Regards

Joseph Ole Simel

For more information on this issue please read:

• A brief outline of the situation facing this community

• Memorandum presented to the various offices in the country

Burmese Sea Nomads

To read interesting reports on the Moken, the "Sea Gypsies" of Burma, please log onto http://www.projectmaje.org/gypsies.htm