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DISAPPEARING CULTURES

Big Development and the Pygmy, U'wa and Mirrar Peoples

It's an old hunting trick. Using powder made from the bark of the Moabi tree, the pygmies of the Cameroon forest make a camouflage potion to disguise themselves from their prey. They then disappear into the forest.

The Baka tribe's vast knowledge of the plant and animal life of the forest has sustained them for centuries. The continued exploitation of Cameroon's natural resources via the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline (see LINK 94), however, will bring an end to the indigenous people's symbiotic relationship with their environment. Deforestation, resettlement, pollution and overburdened resources will force these communities into a cultural and economic no-man's-land. In other words, they will become invisible.

What is the link between the environment and human rights? According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the environmental dimensions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be acknowledged. Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) recently stated “it is time to recognize that those who pollute or destroy the natural environment are not just committing a crime against nature but are violating human rights as well”. Mr. Toepfer added that human rights “cannot be secured in a degraded or polluted environment”.

The Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, as well as many other projects that are the focus of FoE campaigns, must be viewed not only as environmentally destructive but also as human rights abuses. People's right to life, health, adequate food, housing and traditional culture, as recognized by the Human Rights Declaration, is being severely undermined in many cases.

Disrupted Lifestyles in Cameroon
In Cameroon, the last fifteen years have been devastating for the 150,000 Baka pygmies that inhabit the southeast. Their troubles began when a drop in the prices of cocoa and coffee –important export crops for the country – during the mid-1980s brought about a sharp economic downturn. Desperate for foreign currency, the government looked towards its unexploited rainforests for a solution.

Traditionally, the Baka gathered fruit, nuts, and honey from the forest. Bush meat was provided by indigenous species such as antelope, porcupine, monkey and duiker. Trees supplied oils for cooking as well as for making cosmetics and medicine. But deforestation at a rate of more than 100,000 hectares per year has severely impacted upon the forest's ability to provide for its inhabitants. Whilst the forest was always able to sustain the Baka's subsistence use of local animals for food, the arrival of itinerant workers into the area presented a new threat to native species as demands for bush meat increased dramatically. The construction of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline will cut deeper into the rainforest, across major food producing areas, and damage livelihoods even further.

Cameroon's decision to allow the pipeline to be built has had major repercussions upon the relationship between the Baka and their neighbours, the Bantu. While the Baka survived thousands of years ago by hunting and gathering, travelling as nomads throughout the forest, most groups today live in permanent villages for some of the year and eat cultivated produce as well as forest foods. The cultivated foods, such as plantains and yams, are obtained from Bantu villages in exchange for meat or plantation work. The barter system also extends to tools, clothes and pots.

Since the deforestation of the land began, the gap between the Bantu and the Baka has widened. Because they own land and the Baka do not, the Bantu have negotiated some concessions with the logging companies, while the Baka have been ignored. Compensation payments for people affected by the pipeline went into effect earlier this year, and although insubstantial, the Bantu were satisfied with their payments. The Baka, whose livelihood depends on the forest, received nothing.

As the Baka's natural environment has disappeared, so too has their traditional clan organization. Their previous nomadic lifestyle has given way to a more sedentary way of life. Now, with the influx of people seeking construction work, public health issues, especially AIDS, are likely to increase as bars and prostitutes appear along the pipeline route.

The pipeline construction is likely to contaminate groundwater systems, and the likelihood of oil spills polluting rivers is also great. Forest areas near the construction site will need to be cleared so that people can grow food and hunt. Livelihoods will be lost along with fragile ecological systems. The environmental and cultural legacy will be enormous.

Fighting for Mother Earth
Another case of human rights abuse is represented by the struggle of the U'wa tribe against the Los Angeles-based oil company Occidental Petroleum (see LINK 91). Isolated in the rainforest of Columbia's northeast, the 5,000-member tribe has lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. Their belief that “the earth is alive and is our mother” has dictated the tribe's agricultural practices, hunting, fishing and rituals. The U'wa practice sustainable agriculture and take advantage of the diversity of food afforded by the land's varying climates. U'wa leader Roberto Cobario explains the process: “Over time the soil will give healthy food back to us, without poison and dangerous chemicals. This is how we live.” Feasts, traditional songs and dances all celebrate the U'wa's sense of spiritual responsibility towards their environment.

For the U'wa, oil is the blood of the Mother Earth. Its exploitation represents an assault not only against the spiritual beliefs of the indigenous population, but also against the entire system of biodiversity that supports it. The cultural identity of the tribe, which has resisted outside intrusion for centuries, is now under serious threat. In addition to environmental devastation, the social ramifications of oil exploitation in Columbia will be significant. The infrastructure required for exploration will place additional pressure on food resources and threaten water supplies. Immigration and relocation through increased economic activity will see the introduction of social problems such as crime and prostitution into previously isolated areas. Land clearing, leading to the desecration of the sacred burial grounds of U'wa ancestors, will sever a vital connection to the past.

So great is the concern of the U'wa people for the preservation of their culture and environment that they have made repeated threats to walk off a 1,400 feet cliff in a mass suicide to protect the land they say has belonged to them for thousands of years. This threat echoes a U'wa legend in which members of their tribe once hurled themselves off a cliff to avoid enslavement by the Spanish. According to sacred law, “If their nation was in great peril … by a God-given law they have the right to kill themselves”.

Human Landscape Vanishing in Kakadu
The link between human rights and the environment has been a key component of the campaign against the Jabiluka uranium mine in Australia's largest national park, Kakadu (see article this issue). The Mirrar people, traditional owners of the proposed Jabiluka mine and the existing Ranger mine, have expressed repeatedly that further desecration of their land will lead to a breakdown of their already deteriorating culture.

The Aboriginal culture, considered to be the oldest on earth, has origins dating back to at least 40,000 BC. The Mirrar culture is inextricably linked to the land: they have a tradition of hunting and gathering relying on bush foods such as plums, potato-like vegetables, fish, turtles, snakes, geese and goannas. Ceremonies, including dance, are vital spiritual and cultural activities.

The Mirrar land contains many sacred sites – existing within both the Ranger and Jabiluka mineral leases – that are of enormous cultural and spiritual significance to the tribe. "Dreaming tracks" link the sacred sites and tell the story of creation, linking events and important figures from the Mirrar history. The link between Mirrar land and culture is clearly described by heritage expert D.J. Mulvaney: “Their traditional world is a humanized landscape, which is indivisible and immutable, and every natural feature has a name and meaningful mythological association. Place and person are inseparable, while past and present form a unity of ongoing creation.”

Uranium mining has taken place on Mirrar land for twenty years, and it is critical to address the impact that continued mining will have on the traditions of these people. In May 2000 it was made public that there had been a leak from the existing Ranger mine into the surrounding Kakadu National Park. The leakage, of over two million litres of liquid, contained manganese, uranium and radium. Since mining activity commenced, there has also been a decline in Mirrar traditions in relation to food collection, ceremony, social interaction and socio-political systems.

Although the Ranger mine is on Mirrar land, the Mirrar no longer hunt or collect from the area adjacent to the mine. Some concerns have been voiced about the quality of water in the wetlands surrounding the mine and how this may have affected the fish, which tribe members claim “seem different”.

The socio-political system of the Mirrar people has also been adversely affected, according to the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation, the organization established, controlled and managed by the Mirrar people. Traditionally, senior law officials and site custodians have managed the sacred sites by consensus. Since mining began in the area, the structure has been torn apart. The Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation maintains that those with direct or indirect interest in mining, including members of government, have created divisions between Aboriginal people. Mining supporters have, in several instances, been elevated to positions of authority while mining opponents, such as the Mirrar, have been marginalized.

As the destruction of Mirrar land has taken place, the tribe has experienced a continued breakdown in its social fabric. In a 1998 submission to the World Heritage Committee Mission to Kakadu it was noted that “damage or restricted access to spiritual sites by … mining projects contributes to disempowerment and a general pessimism among bininj [Aboriginals] that a complete loss of culture is imminent.” Furthermore, tribal beliefs hold that damage to sacred sites will have catastrophic effects, including sickness and death.

Despair over the decline of cultural traditions is evidenced in the increase of social and economic problems including alcoholism, violence, diminishing interest in education and depression among the Mirrar. Jonathon Nadji, quoted in the Warradjan Cultural Centre research notes, describes how “before mining, people got on better, they ate more bush tucker and hunted more instead of going to Social Club to drink. When I was young, I went with my family to ceremony… Nowadays it doesn't happen. They are forgetting who they are. They are losing their culture.”

As human beings, we have the right to live and die where we wish, to sustain ourselves according to our traditions, to educate our children, to honour our ancestors and to express ourselves culturally as well as spiritually. Environment is inextricably linked to culture; our land anchors us to the past, the present and the future. Our guardianship of it is crucial.

Estelle Muller, freelance journalist for FoEI

With thanks for information to the Gundjemi Aboriginal Corporation, The Ecologist magazine and Environmental Defense.