Action Alert

What You Can Do

Please send the following letter to:

Rodolfo Stavenhagen UN special Rapporteur for Indigenous people
indigenous@ohchr.org
and copied to:
African Parks Foundation fkeyzer@africanparks-conservation.com
Nick Lapham of African Parks Foundation US nlapham@africanparksus.org
The Ethiopia bureau at USAID pwesner@usaid.gov
The Zambia bureau at USAID dgriffiths@usaid.gov
The Walton Family Foundation Fax: (479) 464-1580
Native Solutions to Conservation Refugees hurd@hailmail.net

Dear Rodolfo Stavenhagen,

I would like to express my concern for the 50,000 tribal people of the Suri,
Dizi, Mursi, Me'en and Nyangatom groups of southwest Ethiopia, who will soon
become illegal squatters on the land they have occupied for centuries. They
are in danger of being displaced from these lands. The process of legalizing
the boundaries of the Omo National Park has been done by persuading, and
sometimes forcing, tribal people to sign away their land rights on documents
they could not read, without compensation. This is illegal by article 17.3
of ILO convention 169. I ask that this be taken up with African Parks
Foundation of the Netherlands who has signed an agreement to manage the Omo
National Park. The Netherlands is a signature of the convention.

This threat is all the more imminent, for in 2004, more than 10,000 tribal
people were displaced from Nech Sar National Park, another park African
Parks Foundation signed on to manage, in Ethiopia.

I note that African Parks Foundation has received funding from the US
Department of State, through USAID, and is being considered for more funding
for its parks in Africa. They will most likely ask for funding for these
Ethiopian Parks in the future.

Most Sincerely,