Indigenous People in Africa: Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights

3. The Impact of Dominant Environment Policies on Indigenous Peoples in Africa

45 Indigenous People in Africa: Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights 3 The Impact of Dominant Environment Policies on Indigenous Peoples in Africa Melakou Tegegn1 INTRODUCTION The issue of the rights of indigenous peoples is closely related to environmental conservation because indigenous peoples’ livelihoods largely depend on the conservation of their habitat. That is indeed why the discourse on alternative paradigms of development that places the environmental movement at the disjuncture of corporate globalisation should inevitably deal with the plight of indigenous peoples as well. This understanding constitutes one more compelling reason why macro-economic planning, and planning for social change, cannot evade the inclusion of addressing the plight of indigenous communities. ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES THAT AFRICA’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLES FACE Nature and the environment are crucial to Africans. This is because the overwhelming majority of them live in rural areas and are engaged in traditional ways of life that depend on natural resources. Farmers work the land to raise crops; pastoralists raise livestock, and hunter-gatherers travel widely to find their sustenance. In all, this relationship with nature and the environment is a defining characteristic of African life, and its vital expression can be found in the collection of wood for fire, materials to construct shelter, plants for medicine, and so on. It is therefore essential that Africans understand and relate to nature and the environment. Because, as indicated elsewhere: The state of nature, such as the climate, determines the availability of natural resources upon which rural people depend for their livelihood. The state of the climate determines the availability of rain, which in turn determines availability of water.2 46 Africa Institute for South Africa The Impact of Dominant Environment Policies on Indigenous Peoples in Africa | Melakou Tegegn In effect, nature and the environment support and sustain life, and serve as the physical domain for traditional livelihood systems. For all rural peoples, including the indigenous, upsetting or abusing the balance of the relationship with nature and the environment would inevitably lead to disastrous life-altering consequences. For this reason it is critically important that the conservation of nature and the preservation of the environment occupy a central place in indigenous peoples’ knowledge systems. Although indigenous peoples are guardians of the environment due to their close relationship with it, they still face serious environmental challenges that can turn out to be debilitating to their very existence as communities. In The state of the world’s indigenous peoples, the United Nations (UN) notes: The environmental challenges faced by indigenous peoples today are manifold. The dispossession of lands and natural resources and the impact of large-scale development projects are issues that indigenous peoples have confronted for decades, if not for centuries. In addition, there is a range of new challenges that have to do with science-based technology and development in general, such as genetic resources, bio-piracy and intellectual property rights, as well as the environmental problems faced by the increasing number of indigenous peoples living in urban areas.3 Climate change as a result of the increasing process of global warming poses perhaps the direst environmental challenge to indigenous communities worldwide. The effect of climate change is reflected in increasingly erratic and uncertain weather, resulting in extreme conditions involving heavy rains that cause massive flooding or incessant droughts that damage crops and decimate livestock. Indigenous pastoral communities who live in arid and semi-arid areas regularly face the extreme weather conditions caused by drought and flooding too. In either case, pastoral livelihoods are adversely affected as properties are damaged and livestock perish. In the 1992 drought in Ethiopia, the Borana pastoral community lost close to 90 per cent of its livestock. The outcome was indeed dire and the Borana were left without enough breeding livestock to restock their herds. Incessant drought patterns in Kenya in recent years have also seen pastoralists losing animals in their thousands. In the 1973 Sahel drought, millions of livestock and people fell victim and died. In particular regions of the continent such as the Horn of Africa which encompasses eight countries, droughts and floods have become very frequent events and the consequences have brought similar devastation to human and animal lives. A central and worrying issue that is often glossed over in attempts to combat climate change is the fact that whereas indigenous peoples have little or no part in the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, they nonetheless bear the disproportionate and debilitating impact of the resultant floods, droughts...