15 Sep 2003 Indigenous People Tell Environmentalists to Stop Cultural Genocide

The era of evicting indigenous people from ancestral lands to make way for protected nature areas and parks will have to end, conservationists were told yesterday.

Pygmies, Bedouins and Bushmen, among others, said they would no longer accept being brushed aside by governments and environmentalists in the name of protecting world heritage sites.

Communities which feel betrayed by the conservation movement have mobilised to turn the 10-day world parks congress which opened in Durban yesterday into a platform for their grievances.

The conference is intended to focus on endangered species and the rise in trans-frontier parks, but 120 disgruntled indigenous groups are expected to seize much of the attention…

There’s more. Read about it in the Guardian.