East African Indigenous Community are pushing for their respective governments to consult them in the management and use of communal lands which has disadvantaged many pastoralists and port makers
Speaking on Wednesday 23rd November, representatives attending Community Land Summit in Nanyuki, maintained that governments has been passing lands legislation that do not factor their plights as indigenous people
“Government officials and other investors have owned huge chunks of land from indigenous communities as ranches and farm productions, without considering the interests of the local people surrounding the lands.
We have our interests as indigenous people which should be factored into when these investors put up their ranches and conservancies sitting in our communal lands, the reason as to why we have conflicts is because we need our voice to be heard,’’ Congolese representative from Butwaa community underscored.
The representatives drawn from majorly nomadic communities lauded the establishments of county governments that has given birth to their self-independence since the colonial reign
However, those from Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and Democratic Republic of Congo are still decrying foul about how their respective governments have overlooked them in the matters to do with land ownership and self-expression
They argued that the conservationists have continued to exploitatively use their ancestral lands in order to benefit themselves and earn proceeds from the related sponsors and international organizations whereas the natives continue suffering with their livestock on their communal land