response to "A Thorn in the foot"

A response to:
"A thorn in the foot": Report on a meeting between the African Parks Foundation (APF) and local elders in Mui, Omo Park HQ, Southern Ethiopia, on March 11, 2006

Felix has released two versions of his report. This is a response to his first version which claimed that "no local groups actually inhabit the park". This was removed in the second version.

Dear Felix Girke,

I think we met in Jinka, over injera, about a year ago. Best of luck with your research amongst the Kara.

I wish to correct the significant errors in your report "A thorn in the foot." Instead of responding to all the points, I shall stick to the most important ones. My response is out of concern for the welfare of the local people, including the Mursi whom I have lived among, on two separate occasions, for a total of four months, and who I communicate with in their language. They have asked me to help them stay on their land.

First, the most serious error you make, because of its possible impact on the livelihoods of local people, comes early in your report where you state:

"But, of course, the park is not used by animals alone. While, at this point in time, no local groups actually inhabit the park, they do utilize resources such as watering points and grazing areas for their livestock, and despite long-standing governmental prohibition occasionally hunt wildlife. Conditions in the Omo Park are very different to those in the Mago Park, within the borders of which several thousand people are settled."

This is dangerously misleading. Tens of thousands of people do in fact "inhabit" the Omo National Park. Jon Abbink, Professor of Anthropology at the African Studies Centre, Leiden University and at the free University of Amsterdam, who has a long history of research amongst the Suri and Me’en, has said (personal communication):

"Virtually the entire Omo National Park is either occupied or being used by local people. Me'en, Suri (Surma), Dizi, and Nyangatom for cultivation, bee-keeping, cattle herding, gathering and occasional hunting." (See a map of local groups' territories (1)) The Mursi also inhabit a geographically small, but economically extremely important area within the Omo National Park, along the Omo River.

As I am sure you are aware, for hundreds of years, colonial powers, outsiders and governments the world over, have often claimed indigenous peoples' lands to be uninhabited when they wanted to use these lands for their own purposes, displacing the people or worse. Three of the local groups (Suri, Mursi and Nyangatom) whose territories are encroached on by the Omo National Park and who live within the park boundaries, are semi-nomadic. This means they have houses in two or three, different places throughout the year, moving within and outside the boundaries of the Omo National Park. The fact that they do not live in one house all year long, like most westerners, should not prevent us from considering them as the inhabitants of a place, where they build houses, within villages, and own agricultural land in their terms.

Three to five thousand Mursi live in villages for half the year, inside the Omo National Park boundaries. The Nyangatom live in villages on the west bank of the Omo River within the boundaries of the Park. I lived among the Mursi between November 2004 and April 2005 (with short breaks) in many of these villages. During this time, I visited or saw across the river (in the territory of the Nyangatom) over 40 villages, with more than 1000 houses and a total population of several thousand Mursi and Nyangatom.

The Suri inhabit the largest area within the Omo National Park, including settlements south of Sai Mountain. The Me’en have settlements on the Shurum River (1) within the park boundaries, but I have no first hand experience with these groups.

Secondly, I wish to address a subsidiary set of errors:

You claim that three issues ‘considerably mar the worth of ..[my].. reports". In response, I note that I have tried hard to avoid providing information that could be questioned, in the interest of making my reports irrefutable. The odd part is that two of your claims can be easily corrected by anyone reading my widely accessible reports on the area:

1. "Some reports are heavily outdated, claiming that APF is still planning to take over Mago Park, although this plan was abandoned by African Parks precisely because of the many people living in Mago Park."

There is only one report where I claimed that APF may be taking over the Mago Park. This was the Cultural Survival report of April 29th, 2005. APF announced in May 2005 that they would not take the Mago Park and I have made no further claims to that affect since.

The Survival International report of August 7, 2005 mentions the Mago Park's boundaries being demarcated, but does not say the Mago Park will be taken by APF. It says, "This follows an agreement with African Parks Foundation, a private non-profit organization based in the Netherlands, which will assume management of the Omo National Park later this year."

2. "It is implied that local populations depend on the wildlife for sustenance; this is largely untrue, only in times of severe hunger is wildlife an important food reserve."

I agree with the statement that "only in times of severe hunger is wildlife an important food reserve." I have reread all of my reports and posted letters and none of them even mention hunting. Where did you find information of this nature? On the contrary, I have sought to promote the fact that wildlife is not an important part of their economy, as I think this will lessen the chances of displacements and/or denial of access.

3. "The number of “50,000 people in danger of being displaced is fictitious; now that Mago Park has been excluded from the APF plans, it is highly unclear how many people will be affected at all, let alone be in danger of displacement."

This statement is easier to question, because determining how many people could be displaced and/or denied access, is highly complicated. There are five groups whose territories are encroached on by the Omo National Park. The Suri (about 28,000, one of the groups labeled Surma), Dizi (about 25,000), Me'en (about 55,000, which includes Bodi), (Jon Abbink, 2) Mursi (under 10,000) (David Turton, 3) and Nyangatom (about 14,000) (Serge Tornay, 4) The total population of these tribes are 125-135,000. The Suri, Mursi and Nyangatom are semi-nomadic and the Me'en are shifting cultivators while the Dizi are cultivators.

With three of these groups being semi-nomadic (and the Me'en mobile) there is much movement in and out of the park. The question becomes, how many of these 125-135,000 live and/or use the subsistence resources that the park has bounded, within the year? (1). I made a rough, but I believe reasonable estimate. I would be really appreciative if anyone from the South Omo Research Center wanted to join in trying to understand what I believe is a highly complicated problem. This question underlines the need for an in-depth impact assessment of how the livelihoods of the groups within the Omo Park will be affected. There can be no doubt that, at the very least, tens of thousands of local people either live in and/or use the park for subsistence resources.

I find your report is generally insensitive to the needs and aspirations of local people, focusing more on the small gifts, payments and facilities provided for them at the meeting and APF’s need to employ local game guards. You have given less importance to how local people might be compensated for any loss of subsistence resources and to a discussion of their prior rights. The following shows a great lack of understanding of local peoples' needs:

"And what then? What will happen if the Mursi do not agree to give up certain fields, even if offered substitute sites elsewhere?"

There are no substitute riverbank cultivation sites. They would have been in use long ago. Giving up cultivation sites would lead to stress and hardship in an already extremely tenuous economy. A solution should be reached without giving up these sites.

"But what to do? If the Mursi refuse to give up their grazing areas what then? In many local cultures, to yield once to a demand will set somebody up as an easy mark, a push-over, for good. Trying to stand strong at a later point will be much more difficult."

The question of the Mursi giving up grazing areas is not a matter of pride; it is a matter of survival.

"It is not as if the rules APF want to set for the park territories are particularly new hunting has been prohibited for a long time, and people know that grazing is merely tolerated."

It is important to remember that the park is these local groups' land. They were there long before any park plans were ever in the works. Grazing and hunting is now occurring in the park. Cultivation and grazing rights are the primary issue, but if APF wants to extend the reach of the hunting prohibition it should agree to compensate people, in legally-binding agreements, especially, in times of hardship when hunting becomes a vital food reserve. Some hunting should be permitted. Grazing, on their own land, is again a matter of survival.

The only comments the Mursi had, that I received, about the meeting you reported on, was they asked APF not to disturb their cultivation sites on the Omo River and received no answer from them. They feel that APF is keeping something secret from them.

A correction on the Mursi and wildlife:

"Paul van Vlissingen had been told by Mursi elders that they would be happy to see Zebras again on their land"

Mursi have many zebra (dogun) on their land. I personally saw about three hundred, and the tracks litter the northern plains. Herds of zebra can be seen one hour walk outside of the largest Mursi village in the plains, Maganto. This is due to the Mursis' live and let live philosophy toward wildlife.

Finally, I must respond to the comments you make at the very beginning of your report.

“The purported news told of….an anthropologist claiming to speak for “the Mursi”…..[T]he anthropologist in question has been working in Mursi (Mun) country for several years, has been advised by more or less well-meaning colleagues to cease her involvement in the situation, or even accused her of “selling out”. But selling out what to whom?”