Samuel Mugasi

Pastoralists are being harshly judged as being backward. On the contrary, pastoralism is a way of life recognised by international conventions on minority peoples and tribes.

Some sections of the public and the media have presented pastoralists as a bunch of unruly land-grabbers who move aimlessly, destroying the environment and wildlife. On the contrary, cultivators have wrecked more havoc to the environment by encroaching on forests and destroying wildlife almost to extinction.

Whereas pastoralist communities neighbouring conservation areas live with wild animals, the cultivating communities have hunted them down. There are many wild animals grazing in the areas occupied by pastoral communities neighbouring Lake Mburo National Park because of the friendly environment.

But there is not a single wild animal in the densely-settled and intensively-cultivated areas of Bushenyi District neighbouring Queen Elizabeth National Park. The periodic movement of the pastoralists allows the environment to regenerate and breaks the cycle of pests and diseases thereby ensuring sustainable resource use in dry savanna areas.

With the increase in population worldwide, the survival of pastoralists is under threat, not only because of pressure on land, but also because they are a voiceless minority. Recognising this threat, Article 14 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (1989) states that measures shall be taken to safeguard the rights of the peoples concerned to use lands not exclusively occupied by them, but to which they have traditionally had access for their subsistence.

It adds that particular attention shall be paid to the situation of nomadic peoples and shifting cultivators in this respect. In Uganda, for example, the pastoralists have traditionally accessed and used the â€œcattle corridorâ€ that stretches from south-west to north-east of the country for their survival.

With increasing pressure on land, the traditional movement routes across the corridor have gradually been closed. Given that their ancestral lands had earlier been converted into National Parks and government ranches, the pastoralists have found themselves landless and a subject of scorn.

Being a member of the United Nations, Uganda is bound by the ILO Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention and has an obligation to protect her nomadic pastoralists.

The writer is the chairman for the Foundation of the Development of Pastoralists

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