Forest peoples seek compensation

Forest dwellers from seven African countries this week appealed for compensation for livelihoods compromised by government activities, and for vindication of their human rights, AFP news agency reported. Meeting in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, from 3-6 September, representatives of the Twa of Rwanda, the DRC and Uganda; the Ogieks of Kenya, the Maasai of Tanzania; the Bushmen of South Africa; and the Baka Bagyeli of Cameroon, paid particular attention to the plight of indigenous peoples living in, or displaced from, protected areas in their countries.

“We were chased, without control and with no sort of compensation, from the forest of Ngorongoro [west of Arusha in Northern Uganda], AFP news agency quoted Margaret Kaisoe, a representative of the Tanzanian Maasai, as saying. Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), which covers 8,000 square kilometres on the southeastern margins of the Serengeti National Park, has a particularly high concentration of wildlife and is a major tourist attraction in northern Tanzania. Pastoralism has been practised in Ngorongoro for at least 7,000 years and the Maasai have lived there for two centuries. Today, there are over 40,000 residents with 150,000 cattle, sheep and goats, which move between dry and wet season grazing areas. In addition to the Maasai, small populations of Tatoga pastoralists and Hadza hunter-gatherers live east of Lake Eyasi in the south of the NCA. “The state could promote tourism without hurting us,” Kaisoe said in Kigali, adding that the Maasai demanded compensation with interest for their displacement from the crater.

“Since 1991, we have no longer had the right to step foot in our natural surroundings, Bwindi Impenetrable National Park [in southwestern Uganda] where we used to hunt for wild meats and fruit, and where we used to hold rites to worship our ancestors,” said Penninhah Zaninka, a delegate for the Ugandan Twa people (or pygmies). “Even if our children go to school these days, no member of our community has a paid job and most of us live in poverty,” AFP quoted her as saying.

The Kigali - organised to coincide with the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, taking place this week - was co-sponsored by the Community of Rwandan Aborigines and a British NGO, the Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) established to promote and protect the rights of forest people in their struggle to survive.

[for additional information on forest peoples issues, go to:
http://www.fern.org/Library/Briefs/eightcountry.htm or http://www.gn.apc.org/forestpeoples/briefings.htm]