Cherangany people and has been working to develop and implement its
community protocol for obtaining the Cherangany community's Free, Prior, and
Informed Consent (FPIC). The group is utilizing its established FPIC protocol to
address shortfalls in the 2005 Forest Act, 2010 Kenya Constitution, and to work
with the Kenya Water Towers Agency (KWTA) on its current conservation project
plans. Until recently, the KWTA has deliberately ignored the Cherangany people
while developing its own plans for the resources contained in the Cherangany
Ancestral Domain. This community, along with many others, have endured
ongoing violence and forced evictions from their own territories by various entities.
A small grant from Keepers of the Earth Fund
(https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/cs.org/koef) is enabling CHEMUDEP to continue
its FPIC implementation activities through the Cherangany Indigenous Peoples
Community Engagement & Negotiation Project. The project aims to stop the
ongoing exclusion of Cherangany people by the KWTA activities and other
conservation efforts like it. The Cherangany are asserting their rights, at the very
least, to be involved in the management, development, use and utilization of their
land and resources within their Ancestral Domain, but more preferably to be in
control.
The KWTA developed its own plan without seeking the Cherangany people's
participation. By enforcing its own plan, the KWTA is deliberately ignoring the
Cherangany and circumventing the Cherangany’s right to deny the agency
entrance or extraction of resources. By acceding to the Cherangany Indigenous
Peoples’ FPIC Protocol, the KWTA could give voice and fulfill international
Indigenous rights obligations. The Cherangany are demanding that KWTA initiate
the mandatory FPIC process in the implementation and operation of its plans,
programs, projects and activities in Cherangany Ancestral Domain and give due
regard not only to the physical environment but the total environment, including
the Cherangany identity, cultural dignity, and spiritual and cultural bonds.
For the Cherangany people, FPIC actualizes and strengthens the exercise of their
rights to Ancestral Domains, social justice, human rights, self-determination, selfgovernance, and cultural integrity.