Indigenous Peoples' Climate Change Portal

The Mainyoito Pastoralists Integrated Development (MPIDO) serves as Tebtebba’s country partner for the implementation of the climate change capacity building project in Kenya, together with the Loita Development Foundation (LDF), the Council of Elders, the Oloiboni and the members of the Loita community at the local level.

The demonstration area is the Loita community in the Narok District, South of Kenya where the Loita Naimina Enkiyo Forest is situated. Loita Forest is located between the Mara and Serengeti plains and the forests of the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley. The forest is one of the few unclassified  and largely undisturbed indigenous forests in Kenya. It is one of the traditionally-managed forests by the Maasai indigenous communities whose well-conserved state is attributable to their strong and vibrant traditional practices.

By Marissa Maguide

CADPI serves as the lead partner of Tebtebba for the project in Nicaragua, in cooperation with local territorial and communal assemblies and directive boards, as well as the regional university (URACCAN). The selected demonstration project site is the Territory of Tasba Pri that is part of the Municipality of Puerto Cabezas or Bilwi under the Regional Autonomo Atlantica Norte (RAAN). The regional autonomous government has achieved legal autonomous political status for the past 15 years. It has developed its legal framework and is working for the demarcation and titling of the whole regional territory that includes the 29 communities of Tasba Pri Territory.

Tasba Pri territory is characterized as an area with multi-ethnic and multi-cultural population, where the indigenous Miskitus live with the mestizo ethnic group. It has its own territorial organization led by the Union of Tasba Pri (UCOTAP) as the territorial assembly. The UCOTAP elects the Territorial Development Directive Board that coordinates activities at the territory and plans the comprehensive development of all the communities. Each of the communities has a Communal Assembly, the highest decision-making authority in these communities, and a Communal Directive Board. However, there is insufficient representation of women in these assemblies. Eight of the 29 communities of Tasba Pri form part of the demonstration area. These communities have a total population of 8,484, majority of whom are the Miskitu indigenous peoples. The minority mestizos, who are migrants from the Pacific area, on the other hand now live in four of the communities.

By Marissa Maguide

Last November 21-28, 2009, Tebtebba’s Climate Team undertook a community visit to the project demonstration area in Indonesia. The visit commenced with a partners' meeting and workshop with ID and AMAN to discuss and firm up their implementation plan. This gave the team the opportunity to gain more insights on how our partners work and the depth of their work towards the revitalization and restitution of the Dayak cultural heritage especially in these two villages. They have been working in these communities for more than 10 years now.

The team was able to visit only one of the demo areas, which is the village of Tanjung, due to time constraints and geographical factors. To reach the village of Tanjung, one has to traverse a long distance through rough road from Ketapang City, West Kalimantan Province in the island of Borneo. The team was on the road longer than the regular four-hour drive due to rainy that made the road much harder to traverse.