Women
are often the most vulnerable to attack by aggressive herbivores like Cape
buffalo, elephants, and hippos. Hippos pose a risk in and around bodies of
water where women go to wash clothes or collect water for drinking, cooking, or
washing. The scarcity of safe water sources (such as bore hole wells)
contributes to many of the risks that the Masai face.
This woman said that she had been chased by a Cape buffalo just two days before we spoke to her.
If herders allow their livestock to cross the unfenced border into the park, they run the risk of having their herds seized by park rangers.
Through the Human Rights Clinic, I have worked with the
Kenya Human Rights Commission since 2003. KHRC is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, non-governmental
organization that promotes human rights in Kenya and lends its expertise to similar groups elsewhere in East
Africa. (Note that KHRC
shouldn’t be confused with the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission, an arm
of the government of Kenya. The National Human Rights Commission employs
many excellent advocates and has earned a reputation for independence, but KHRC
is entirely separate and not part of the government.)
Over the past several years, KHRC has evolved from a traditional human rights organization that developed initiatives in the capital and promoted them throughout the country to one that serves more of a coordinating role. Under KHRC’s new approach, it serves as the nexus of a network of community-based human rights groups from across Kenya. These local organizations play a large role in setting the advocacy agenda for KHRC’s national work.
My current work with KHRC grew out of a session that I
attended in July 2006, at which representatives of approximately 25 local
organizations met in Thika (outside Nairobi) to identify the issues that were
most important to local communities. Some of the issues were predictable:
- the labor movement must contend
with employers who don’t want unions and union leaders more interested in
lining their own pockets than in advocating on behalf of line workers;
- the communities directly affected by the new titanium mine that the company Tiomin and the government of Kenya are developing south of Mombasa are struggling to hold on to as much of their traditional farm land as possible; and,
- Muslims in the north of Kenya face regular searches by foreign soldiers who patrol the Kenya-Somalia border looking for terrorist suspects.
But I was surprised to hear from so many people about the
conflict between people and wildlife around Kenya’s national parks and wildlife
reserves. The problem is particularly
severe around the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Referred to locally as “the Mara,” this vast area is home to scores of
species of wildlife and is one of the main tourist attractions in East Africa.
In January 2007, I decided to return to Kenya, at the
invitation of KHRC, to look into human-wildlife conflict around the Mara. I had three goals. First, and most basic, was to learn more
about the situation. The second was to
determine whether there were legal or policy issues with which the Human Rights
Clinic could assist. Finally, I invited
Nancy Benson and Abigail Rhodes along to document both the problem and our work
there as part of our new Globalization on the Ground project.
When most Americans think of Kenya, the first thing that comes to mind is the exotic wildlife. This wildlife is a great national resource for Kenya (and the world), but it can also be a burden for the local people who live in and near the parks. As part of an ongoing project to document the effects of globalization, Nancy Benson, Abigail Rhodes, and I are heading to Kenya to find out what happens when people and animals need to share the land. We plan to meet with members of communities affected by animals - including people whose loved ones have been killed by animals and those whose crops have been trampled - and those who benefit from the parks.
Globalization on the Ground is a project of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Nancy Benson, from the UIUC College of Communications, and Patrick Keenan, from the UIUC College of Law, created the project. The project's work is supported by the Human Rights Clinic of the College of Law, the College of Communications, the Center for African Studies, and the Center for Global Studies.
The goal of the project is to document the many ways that
globalization affects the lives of ordinary communities around the
world. To do this, we try to let people tell their stories in their own voices.
