VOICES AND RIGHTS OF MOBLE PASTORALISTS AND MOBILE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Abstract (English)

Scholarship on mobile pastoralism has steadily explicated the forms of discrimination faced by mobile peoples globally. Representatives of Mobile Indigenous Peoples from around the world outlined ongoing rights violations and challenges they face during the 2022 Dana+20 meeting in Jordan. These include land fragmentation, exclusionary forms of development, forced sedentarization, involuntary resettlement and evictions, and cultural loss. These threats are exacerbated by the ongoing impacts of climate change on mobile livelihoods. The UN Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples represents the minimum standards for states to uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples. In many regions states are failing to implement the Declaration to ensure the physical and cultural survival, dignity and well-being of Mobile Indigenous Peoples. In recent decades, many have been prevented from practicing the forms of mobility upon which their livelihoods and social systems are based. In some cases, Mobile Indigenous Peoples have been criminalized for practicing their traditional mobile ways of life and face discrimination from government institutions and the wider society.
The Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations presented thematic report on the situation of Mobile Indigenous Peoples at the General Assembly in October 2024. We suggest that success of the International Year of Rangelands and pastoralism (IYRP in 2026) depends on a commitment to including pastoralists in high-level meetings organised as part of the IYRP, and an endorsing of the principles of UNDRIP as the minimum standards of rights for Mobile Indigenous Peoples, including a right to practice mobile life-ways and support for their cultural, social and political rights.
Next to international declarations and advocacy, it is important to (re)think how to guarantee that mobile pastoralists and mobile indigenous peoples are directly and fairly represented on different levels. This panel aims to discuss:
-how to support improvement of implementation of international legal support frames for the rights of mobile pastoralists and mobile indigenous peoples
-how to insure mobile pastoralists and mobile indigenous peoples are represented directly on different levels of decision making (form very local with all its diversity, to regional, state and international)
The panel will explore current activist scholarship and case studies focusing on the rights of mobile pastoralists and nomadic peoples by examining the opportunities and limitations of IYRP as well as other opportunities and constraints in (in)direct representing of mobile pastoralists.