Non-governmental organizations in conservation space together with indigenous community land rights activists have raised concerns over the growing gap in recognizing parcels designated as community land.
This comes despite data showing that in Kenya, 40 percent of those parcels are set aside for the indigenous people.
Yesterday, the organizations led by International Land Coalition called for long term investments to enhance participation of the local communities in biodiversity protection and food security. To ensure this, experts offers that Indigenous People (IP) and Local Communities (LC) must be at the center of it all, saying that conservation efforts will not work without involving them.
No conservation without Indigenous People
Eva Anyango International Land Coalition (ILC) Program Head in Africa reiterated that they will promote civic education on the land rights so that everyone is given a chance to know their rights.
“We advocate for people centered land governance which will help to democratize land rights in the grassroot level. It includes lands for farmers, pastoralists and other indigenous people. We have platforms for indigenous people that helps them secure their land right so that they can contribute to climate resilience,” Anyango said.
Audance Kubwimana, ILC Regional Coordinator in Africa concurs with Anyango adding that conservation cannot work without without local communities input, therefore local communities should not be evicted in the name of conservation efforts.
“Some people want to do conservation without local communities and that cannot work. We have to focus on people centered conservation,” he said.
Kenya is expected to offer a unique perspective given its solid legal framework recognizing Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ land rights. The country has been at the forefront of pilot initiatives involving communities in conservation practices and management. However, the gap between recognition and implementation of these rights persists, with some communities being dispossessed of their ancestral lands due to conservation practices.
While weighing in on wildlife-human conflict, Vincent Oluoch, Senior Program Officer at Kenya Wildlife Conservancies Association (KWCA) pointed out that indigenous people are not necessarily reducing the population of wildlife noting that even after demarcation of human and wildlife territories, the wildlife population continued going down.
“We have come to realize that Indigenous People were not necessarily reducing wildlife and therefore we champion for an organization that places IP and LC to be stewards of wildlife conservation. Some of the activities that we do includes sensitizing people by publishing and disseminating information to local communities,” Oluoch said.
Land rights and food security
Tunda Lepore, a councilor at Slow Foods International said that land rights and food security goes hand-in-hand as the two are inseparable. She offers that the advancement of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Kenya and Africa at large will help in ensuring them to grow their foods thus becoming food secure.
“We promote organic farming and support indigenous people to promote species that are endangered including endangered seeds. We endeavor to give a holistic approach to food systems and we want leaders to put policies that factors indigenous people and ensure continuity of cultures and that way, food ways is sustained. We encourage the indigenous community to grow crops that are indigenous hence fostering the biodiversity,” Tunda said.
She added, “We encourage seed saving and seed sharing and urge the government to allow farmers to share indigenous seeds. Our aim is to ensure that communities are able to feed themselves first and after that they can then commercialize food surplus because you cannot talk of money without food in the table.”
Land right and inequality
Inequality being one of the causes of poverty in Kenya and in Africa as a whole surfaced as one of the topics of concerns. Youth and women have been sidelined the most in lands right which limits their potential to be self reliant. This eventually fuel poverty in the continent. Audance Kubwimana said that climate actions cannot succeed without the input of women and youth.
Kubwimana further said that most unoccupied land or otherwise contested lands remains unprotected since people cannot plant trees in lands which has disputes.
“We seek to position land rights at the center of climate change. We believe we cannot succeed in climate mitigation without women and youth who depends on land for survival. If a land is in dispute, that land cannot be protected, no one wants to plant trees in land which has issues. Food systems are broken because of bad practices and most are land related. Another issue is deepening inequality and land is one of them because land is power,” Kubwimana said.
He also blamed land right woes on backsliding democracy saying that democracy is vital in establishing land rights. “Backsliding democracy is a challenge especially in West Africa. You cannot have land rights without good governance. Democracy is critical and by championing land rights we will improve on democracy,” he said
The meeting came at a backdrop of a planned five-day event set to begin on 2nd to 6th October 2023 bringing together stakeholders across the continent to discuss and coordinate action to that empower Indigenous People and Local Communities to secure their land and territorial rights.
The event will be hosted by the International Land Coalition (ILC), the Tenure Facility (TF), and Community Land Action Now! (CLAN!), will take place in Kenya. Among the countries that will have Delegates at the conference includes Burkina Faso, Mali, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Madagascar, Gabon, Cameroon, Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya (host country). The exchange will delve into effective strategies, approaches, and solutions for advancing rights within the context of conservation and restoration.
