Le symptôme d’un plus grand malaise ? Le meurtre d’un jeune Batwa par un éco-garde en RDC

Le 26 août, le meurtre d’un jeune Batwa commis par un éco-garde est tragique en soi, mais représente également une tragédie beaucoup plus large et liée à la question de la conservation. Son père raconte comment son fils a été tué alors qu’ils allaient cueillir des plantes médicinales sur leurs terres ancestrales. Les Batwa ont été expulsés de ces terres depuis les années 1970 par la création du Parc National de Kahuzi-Biega (Kahuzi-Biega National Park - PNKB), création qui a entériné l’exclusion complète du peuple dont les droits de propriété collectifs devraient être la base de la conservation, et non pas être niés par les acteurs de la conservation.

Cette approche de la conservation est prévalente en Afrique, y compris quand on traverse la frontière avec l’Ouganda, où les Batwa ont également été expulsés de force de leurs terres ancestrales et, avec la création des parcs nationaux de Bwindi et de Mgahinga en 1991, dont on leur a également nié tout droit d’accès. Les Batwa là-bas ont été dispersés, ils vivent en majorité dans une grande pauvreté sur d’autres terres, et leur langue est également en train de disparaître. Ceux détenant la plus grande connaissance et les plus grandes compétences de conservation de la forêt continuent à être ignorés et leurs droits à leurs terres ancestrales continuent d’être niés.

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Caring for community lands – the case of the Mt Elgon Ogiek in Kenya

22 May, 2023

The Ogiek of Chepkitale, Mount Elgon, Kenya, protect and care for their community lands over the long term.

Published today in Oryx – the international journal of conservation – this open access article also highlights how this community control is under constant threat until and unless national law and practice recognizes the collective tenure rights of such communities.

Read the article here

The Ogiek of Chepkitale, Mount Elgon, Kenya, have worked extremely hard to regain their community land rights, and to reassert their collective care for their lands. Even though this rights are not officially recognised, they have been able to stop outside forces – including those who present themselves as coming in the name of conservation – from disrupting their lifeways, lifeways that are grounded in sustaining and being sustained by their lands.

n 2000, on advice from IUCN, the Kenyan government evicted the Ogiek from their last remaining ancestral lands at Chepkitale, but they returned despite the forceful nature of these evictions. Since then, they have remained and strengthened their presence, including through involving IUCN in assessing the situation through a Whakatane assessment.

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"We do not beg, we demand an end to colonial conservation” Indigenous peoples from East Africa call on IUCN to commit to “decolonise conservation” on the occasion of the IUCN Africa Protected Area Congress

19 July, 2022

Kigali, Rwanda

On the opening day of the Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Kigali, Indigenous Peoples from East Africa call on the IUCN to put their rights front and center in any conservation efforts being proposed, including an immediate end to illegal evictions from areas where people have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years.

“It’s the indigenous communities who have been taking care of our lands,” said a Maasai community representative from Tanzania.

“This is why our lands are so attractive for the ‘conservationists’ to come and evict us. They say we are destroying our land. If we have done that then why is our land attracting them?” she said.

Too often, efforts at conservation have come at huge cost to the peoples who have lived in the designated areas for millennia, and as a result, at a huge cost to the ecosystems and wildlife they’re expecting to protect. This is the case, for example, for thousands of Maasai who have been displaced, including those targeted in direct and brutal evictions last month in Loliondo, Tanzania, to make space for tourism and wildlife hunting. Most of the evicted Maasai are lacking basic needs, including food supplies, medical care and accommodation, and over 2,000 have now crossed into Kenya to avoid further harassment and detention by security forces. Judicial harrassment followed the shootings, with a case of the 27 people (including 9 ward councillors) charged with murder set for the 28 of July while the 72 Loliondo residents that were arrested for allegedly being “illegal” immigrants have been released on bail except for one person.

“The colonial governments gazetted our lands and trampled on our traditional ways of conservation”

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Indigenous rights key to conservation: IUCN listens to indigenous peoples as it sets new conservation policy and grapples with historic harms

1 October, 2021

Given the historic harmful legacy that some protected areas have had for indigenous peoples and local communities, there is a real need to re-think how the world’s protected and conserved areas are established and who governs and manages them. This was a key topic for discussion at this year’s World Conservation Congress.

The Congress, held by IUCN every four years, is the way the Union sets its own policy and through which it makes recommendations to other bodies. This year’s Congress was a tricky, hybrid affair which tried to combine virtual participation and in-person discussions, but for many present was the first opportunity to meet in person to discuss the climate and biodiversity crises since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.

“We come to international forums and speak your language, because otherwise we would not be heard.”

Marie-Josee Artist, Indigenous Community Leader, Suriname

Although some indigenous organisations have been IUCN members for many years, this year’s Congress in Marseille, France, was the first time that indigenous peoples’ organisations attended under their own category of membership. Their contributions to both the formal and informal business of the Congress was high-profile and impressive.

Indigenous and community representation at the Congress

The formal business of the Congress revolves mainly around the proposal of, and negotiation of, ‘motions’ which are member-proposed statements either about the policy of the IUCN itself (which become ‘Resolutions’ when adopted), or statements urging action by others (becoming ‘Recommendations’).

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