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By Joel Mugabi
The Batwa have welcomed a ruling by the Constitutional Court requiring Government to take responsibility for illegally evicting one of Uganda’s indigenous groups under the pretext of conservation.
About a decade ago, United Organisation for Batwa Development in Uganda (UOBU), an organization of the Batwa people, and 11 others filed a petition in the Constitutional Court challenging their eviction from Bwindi, Mgahinga and Echuya forests where the National Forestry Authority (NFA) and Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) labelled them encroachers.
On August 19, 2021, Justices Fredrick Egonda-Ntende, Elizabeth Musoke, Cheborion Barishaki, Muzamiru Kibeedi and Irene Mulyagonja ruled in favor of UOBU and 11 others who were represented by Onyango and Company Advocates.
According to the landmark ruling, which was written by Justice Musoke and adopted by the other justices, Government has been ordered to take responsibility for its illegal evictions of the Batwa. In her lead judgment, Musoke made it clear that the continued exclusion of the Batwa from their ancestral land stemmed from Government’s ‘illegal eviction’ of members of this indigenous group of people about three decades ago as authorities sought to conserve forests and the local populations of mountain gorillas in Bwindi, Mgahinga and Echuya Forests.
The Batwa number only a few thousand individuals living mostly in the Kanungu, Kisoro and Kabale districts of south-eastern Uganda, as close as possible to their ancestral forests. The petitioners averred that attempts by UWA and NFA officers to evict and exclude Batwa have caused landlessness, destitution, bonded labour conditions, and heightened the risks of sexual violence for Mutwa women and girls.
They went on to argue that, sometimes, these attempts by NFA and UWA officers resulted in loss of lives. For example, one witness told court that Ruzabarande Mateke, a Mutwa elder, had succumbed to injuries sustained when NFA officers beat him into unconsciousness in the Echuya Forest Reserve.
The Constitutional Court bench agreed with the petitioners that the approach pursued by Government despite the fact that there was no proof that the Batwa, the original inhabitants and custodians of these forests, were a threat to the forest, the gorillas and other endangered wildlife, was unfair and illegal.
Available studies offer great recommendations on how conservation must change to achieve a win-win between environmental protection and local communities’ rights should resonate strongly across Uganda where local communities are at the forefront of both the impacts of conservation and the increasing effects of climate change.
Dr Helga Rainer, an expert on environmental conservation and policy with a focus on great ape conservation, gave expert testimony in the case. “The Batwa are a small community and the socio-economic and cultural costs of displacing them cannot be justified because they were not the threat to the forest in the first place,” said Dr Rainer. “In fact, it was their forest home that was getting smaller and smaller, as a result of encroachment by other communities seeking land for farming.”
Dr Rainer further submitted that modern conservation practise has acknowledged that indigenous people often manage nature in ways that robustly support its protection. “This was recently reinforced by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ 2019 global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Indigenous people, such as the Batwa in this case, should therefore no longer be excluded from their ancestral lands,” he added.
One of the petitioners, Jovanis Nyiragasigwa, a Batwa elder, had submitted, thus: “We can live in harmony with the forest, as our fathers, grandfathers and ancestors used to. We would share [the forest] with the animals as our parents did.”
The Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of the Batwa and ordered Government to pay the Petitioners’ legal costs. The Constitutional Court also tasked the High Court to determine the “measures needed to be taken in favour of the Batwa people to ameliorate the appalling situation in which they find themselves.”
“No adequate compensation was paid to the Batwa people by the Government for loss of their land, which left the Batwa unable to acquire alternative land for settlement, and has rendered them landless, destitute people living as squatters on land adjoining the relevant protected areas. This has not only affected the Batwa’s livelihoods but has also destroyed their self-esteem, and their identity as a people,” further reads the ruling in part.
The judgement has thrown members of the Batwa Community into celebration, with most of them terming the decision “the most important stage yet in their long struggle for recognition of their constitutional rights” and “spelling a beginning of the end to their community’s immense suffering and loss that has threatened the very survival of their culture.”
Reacting on the ruling in Kisoro, UOBDU Chairperson Yeremiah Dusabe said: “I dearly hope this case serves as a wake-up call for the Government of Uganda to finally recognise that the Batwa are their best friends and allies in the continued conservation of Bwindi, Mgahinga and Echuya forests.”
Dusabe added that it was high time government partnered with the Batwa “to uphold the court’s judgement, and allow the Batwa home to their ancestral forests, and see that there is a win-win to be found that can protect those forest ecosystems and ensure the survival of the Batwa as a people and a culture, before it is too late.”
For his part, Onyango Owor from Onyango and Company Advocates said he was optimistic the Batwa would soon have their rights respected despite UWA seeking to overturn the ruling through a court appeal.
“While disappointed at UWA’s decision to appeal the judgment, we are confident that the Batwa’s Constitutional rights will prevail. While we were happy that the decision of the Constitutional Court was in our favour, it has always been the Petitioners’ hope that the Government would change its approach and engage constructively with them in order to find a lasting solution that both protects the forest and guarantees a sustainable future for the Batwa,” noted Owor. “We would appeal to the Government to see that a win-win solution is still within its grasp, which would save valuable time, costs, and avoid further suffering.”(For comments on this story, call, text or whatsapp us on 0705579994, 0779411734, 0200900416 or email us at mulengera2040@gmail.com).