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CAMPAIGN: INDIGINOUS RIGHTS - OGIEK & GWITCH

© Linda Little

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS

When big business or powerful national governments seek to make use of scarce natural resources, it is often indigenous people who have most to loose. Although indigenous lifestyles are often more environmentally sustainable than those of many so-called 'civilised' people, their lack of access to high-tech communication puts them at considerable disadvantage in any propoganda war. And that is where we come in.As computer users with strong environmental convictions, we can take up their struggle, publicise their plight and protest to the appropriate people about the way they are being treated. We can also demonstrate to powerful business concerns that profit should not be their bottom line.

As you will see from the title, this is a campaign article. In this article I have given a brief description of the issues for two groups of indigenous people: the Ogiek of Kenya and the Gwitch'in of Alaska and Canada. This is only a tiny sample of the many indigenous people who are struggling to regain their rights, so, if you would like me to do further campaigns on the rights of other groups of indigenous people, do let me know.

If you want to make your protest felt, stand up for the rights of indigenous people and help protect the environment, do read further. At the end of each piece is an action you can take now!.

THE OGIEK, MAU FOREST, KENYA

The Ogiek are a peaceful group of indigenous people who live in the Mau Forest in Kenya. The Kenyan government want to evict them from their traditional homeland. Their excuse is that the Ogiek pose an "environmental threat" although they do not state what sort of threat this is. These people do not hunt endangered species and follow a sustainable lifestyle hunting and gathering honey. Some practice subsistence farming and livestock breeding, however these activities are not so extensively practiced that they pose any real threat to the forest.

Those most keen to see the Ogiek evicted apart from the Kenyan Governmnet, are powerful logging companies. The Mau Forest is a protected area in which there are many valuable trees. The Kenyan government has not only allowed logging in this area, it has also sold off some of the protected land, which is illegal.

The Ogiek feel so strongly about this issue that they took their case to the Kenyan High Court. It was dismissed in March 2000 and the devastation of their homeland continues. They need people like us to lobby the Kenyan officials to stop the logging in the Mau Forest and to pass legislation which will allow them to inhabit the forest and protect this area for the future.

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