When Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim was growing up in Chad, she felt the impact of climate change firsthand — and still does today. A member of the Mbororo Indigenous people, Ms. Oumarou Ibrahim is part of a nomadic community that migrates throughout pastoral land.
Extreme heat with temperatures that reach more than 120 degrees Fahrenheit is the norm in Chad, she said, and climbing higher and lasting longer each year. “The weather because of climate change is paralyzing,” Ms. Oumarou Ibrahim, 41, said. “It has made water scarce and has other negative impacts on the Mbororo.”
Ms. Oumarou Ibrahim’s experience led her to establish the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples Organization of Chad (AFPAT) when she was 12; the group connects with Mbororo communities to ensure their rights to land and access to natural resources. Today, she’s an environmental activist and travels worldwide to advocate for the rights of the Mbororo people.
In November, for example, she attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Baku, Azerbaijan, and in December, she will participate in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ms. Oumarou Ibrahim is also the chairwoman of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She divides her time between Paris, Chad’s capital city, N’Djamena, and the country’s pastoral land.
The interview, conducted on video while Ms. Oumarou Ibrahim was in Baku for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, has been edited and condensed.
Tell me more about how climate change has impacted the Indigenous Mbororo people.
The effects have been devastating. Earlier this year, in March and April, the heat got so bad that many elders and baby Mbororo died. Over the long term, our biggest water body, Lake Chad, has dried up and is now 90 percent gone.
Right now, it’s the rainy season, and we have another extreme. The floods are so bad that more than two million people have been displaced and thousands are dead. Millions of acres of land are underwater, and the livestock, especially the cows that the Mbororo rely on for their livelihoods, have died. They use the milk and meat from these cows to feed themselves and sell the meat to support themselves.
You’ve helped implement a mapping system to support the Mbororo. Can you share more details about this initiative?
We use two- and three-dimensional participatory maps created by the Mbororo people based on technology, science and their knowledge of the land.
These maps identify water points such as streams and small lakes, forests with medicinal trees, and areas where there are plants that provide food.
What’s happened is that resources are so scarce that the Indigenous people are fighting with non-Indigenous people to survive. In fact, because of centuries-old traditions, they have rights to certain pockets of pastoral land.
These maps help create boundaries between agricultural and pastoral land. Since the Indigenous are nomadic, the different communities can help each other and collaborate to survive. The dung from our cows makes the land fertile and rich for the next community that settles there and the ones after that. We can also plant Indigenous trees to restore the land over the long term.
How does traveling the world for work help your cause?
Part of my goal is to raise awareness worldwide about what’s happening to the Indigenous people in Chad. But it’s also to help me change the decision-making process at an international level. During these conventions, officials will hopefully realize that we are living in an environmental crisis and experiencing its damage. We are not responsible for climate change and are asking for money to help repair its impacts.
Has your gender hindered or helped your cause?
Being a woman has been my biggest asset. Speaking globally about land rights and rights for women and Indigenous people has made people sit up and listen. Today, we have our own body under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where we participate in climate negotiations and sit with officials in climate change conventions as I do in Baku.
What are your goals for the Mbororo people in the years ahead?
I want them to have the land they have the right to so they can live in harmony with nature. They can manage the land’s sustainability and try to reverse the effects of climate change by restoring the ecosystems for the centuries ahead.
The post Helping Indigenous People Survive the Destruction of Their Land From Climate Change appeared first on New York Times.
