DEVELOPMENT DESTROYS Thekill HEALTH of TRIBAL PEOPLES
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LAND AND LIFE Progress can HOW IMPOSED DEVELOPMENT DESTROYS THEkill HEALTH OF TRIBAL PEOPLES a Survival International publication ‘OUTSIDERS WHO COME HERE ALWAYS CLAIM THEY ARE BRINGING PROGRESS. BUT ALL THEY BRING ARE EMPTY PROMISES. WHAT WE’RE REALLY STRUGGLING FOR IS OUR LAND. ABOVE ALL ELSE THIS IS WHAT WE NEED.’ ARAU, PENAN MAN, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA, 2007 contents * 1 INTRODUCTION: LAND AND LIFE 1 2 LONG-TERM IMPACTS OF SETTLEMENT ON HEALTH 10 3 IDENTITY, FREEDOM AND MENTAL HEALTH 22 4 MATERNAL AND SEXUAL HEALTH 28 5 HEALTHCARE 33 6 CONCLUSION: HEALTH AND FUTURE 42 Introduction: Land and Life Across the world, from the poorest to ‘We are not poor or primitive. * the richest countries, indigenous peoples We Yanomami are very rich. Rich today experience chronic ill health. They in our culture, our language and endure the worst of the diseases that our land. We don’t need money accompany poverty and, simultaneously, or possessions. What we need many suffer from ‘diseases of affluence’ is respect: respect for our culture – such as cancers and obesity – despite and respect for our land rights.’ often receiving few of the benefits of Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Brazil 1995. ‘development’. Diabetes alone threatens the very survival of many indigenous Tribal peoples who have suffered communities in rich countries.3 Indigenous colonisation, forced settlement, peoples also experience serious mental assimilation policies and other ‘You napëpë [whites] talk about health problems and have high levels forms of marginalisation and removal what you call “development” and of substance abuse and suicide. The from ancestral lands almost always tell us to become the same as you. Pikangikum Indians of Ontario, for experience a dramatic decline in health But we know that this brings only example, have a suicide rate nearly and wellbeing. Dislocation from their land is almost always coupled with rising disease and death. The forest 40 times the national Canadian average. illness.6 ‘In general, the most devastating is our life and we need it to fish, But indigenous peoples have not always contact situations seem to have been grow food, hunt, sing and dance been so unwell, and those who live associated with dispossession from and have feasts. It gives life independent lives on their own lands, the land’ (Kunitz 1994:178). for all. Without forest, there eating traditional foods, continue to be This report explores the reasons why is only sickness.’ healthy and strong.4 These groups may landless and ‘assimilated’ tribal peoples Davi Kopenawa Yanomami, Brazil, 2007 1 be poor in monetary terms, but are rich today suffer such high levels of physical in many other ways. They typically and mental illness. There are many factors ‘I say what kind of development have many of the characteristics that have that can tip a group from an independent, been found to raise happiness, including is it when the people live shorter healthy life to dependency and early strong social relationships, stable political lives than before? They catch death, but underlying them all is a loss systems, high levels of trust and support, HIV/AIDS. Our children are beaten in of rights over their ancestral land and and religious or spiritual beliefs, which school and won’t go. Some become poverty created by the loss of an give their lives meaning. A study prostitutes. They are not allowed independent livelihood. exploring happiness and ‘life satisfaction’ to hunt. They fight because they found a high score among a traditional Improving indigenous peoples’ health are bored and get drunk. They are group of Maasai who had resisted colonial cannot be achieved through clinics starting to commit suicide. We attempts to change their way of life and and medications alone: the major never saw that before. Is this who had largely avoided the market factors causing their poor heath are 7 “development”?’ economy. The Maasai had a similar life social, economic, political and legal. Roy Sesana, Gana satisfaction rating to those on the Forbes International, national and local action Bushman, Botswana, 20052 list of the 400 richest Americans.5 is urgently needed to enable indigenous 1 LAND AND LIFE peoples to reconnect with their lands, racism towards tribal communities that suddenly have health statistics comparable rebuild their shattered lives and gain sees them as ‘backward’ and in need of to Western averages. ‘Although life control over their futures. being ‘brought into the modern world’. expectancies of hunter-gatherers are Changing these stereotypes and racist low by modern European or American This report examines the situation of attitudes is essential for the long-term standards, they compare favourably indigenous and tribal peoples at very health and survival of tribal peoples. with expectancies for displaced different levels of contact. This ranges Whatever the factors that cause tribal hunter-gatherers, many subsistence from the recently contacted Jarawa peoples to be removed from their agriculturalists, and impoverished tribe of India’s Andaman Islands, ancestral lands, the physical impacts urbanized peoples of the tropics today.’ whose isolation makes even minor are often similar: short-term shock (Dunn 1977:102). contact with outsiders potentially fatal, and exposure to disease and long- to Australian Aborigines who have had term suffering from chronic mental Typically, life expectancies decrease when contact with outsiders since their lands and physical illnesses. hunter-gatherers are settled, not increase. were first invaded more than 200 years Their life expectancies are thought to be ago. The threats to and needs of these lower now than they would have been at peoples vary enormously. However, WERE THEY REALLY the turn of the 20th century because of the the importance of land, and the need SO HEALTHY BEFORE? negative impacts of outsiders, such as the to make their own decisions about stealing of land, the depleting of food their own way of life and futures, There is, understandably, a lack of data stocks and the spreading of diseases.10 is fundamental to all tribal people. on the health of uncontacted tribal groups, The major factor contributing to low life but clear patterns can be seen all over the expectancies is commonly a high infant world: independent, mobile peoples who mortality rate. This means that those who WHY DO INDIGENOUS live mostly by hunting and gathering are PEOPLE LOSE THEIR LAND? usually healthier than their settled survive infancy can expect to live longer neighbours who live in crowded, urban than might seem apparent from a statistic In many countries indigenous peoples environments, eat a ‘Western’ diet and of life expectancy at birth. have become a minority with little exercise less.8 No indigenous group is Looking specifically at infant mortality, influence over policies that affect their free of disease, but isolated tribal peoples there is great variation in rates among lives. Their lands may be taken ‘in the are largely well adapted to the parasites different tribal peoples. Where population national interest’ for dams, mines, and germs to which they have historically densities are low, contact with external conservation projects, and other schemes been exposed.9 ‘Past foragers had a societies and their diseases is minimal and which promise ‘development’ but leave healthy way of life, a good diet and food is abundant, rates of child mortality the land’s true owners marginalised. physical exercise, virtually no salt, are relatively low. Where there has been Without a strong voice in political alcohol or tobacco, no pollution, high exposure to external diseases, processes or recognition of their fewer cancers and a life span and child vaccination programmes are necessary inalienable legal rights to their lands, mortality rate not so different to what was to protect against epidemics. Among many it can be difficult – if not impossible – observed in Europe a few centuries ago.’ tribal peoples, child mortality increases for tribal communities to influence these (Froment 2001:259) when they are settled, especially when projects and protect their independence. Child survival rates and life expectancies highly mobile peoples are moved to In other cases, indigenous peoples are vary greatly, but are often lower for tribal crowded, unsanitary camps or shanty removed from their land, often forcibly, groups than for rich, Western populations. towns, as is common. For example, the in order to integrate them into national However, they are typically higher for Onge of Little Andaman Island, who were society and bring them ‘development’. tribal communities than for their non- settled by the government in 1976, This often happens when there are tribal, poor neighbours. It is important experienced a doubling of infant mortality valuable resources on or under the land. to make realistic comparisons; when rates in the seven years between 1978 and These policies are frequently born of a they are settled, tribal peoples do not 1985. This was largely due to malnutrition 2 LAND AND LIFE following the change from a varied diet It is important to note that most of today’s because of their diet, levels of exercise of meat, fish, fruits and honey to a diet tribal peoples are living in very marginal and genetic adaptations. Similarly, there of government rations, and due to environments, from the Arctic circle to were some common diseases among the exposure to diarrhoeal diseases.11 the Kalahari desert, some having been Amazonian Yanomami before waves of pushed to these extremes by more miners invaded their land. There was Colonial explorers visiting isolated numerous, powerful populations. The tetanus in the soil and viral infections peoples regularly reported how strong availability of resources has decreased like herpes and yellow fever, but those and healthy the people were, recording for even the most isolated people due diseases were at a low level and were 16 ‘fine teeth’, ‘excellent skin’ and ‘muscular to loss of land and freedoms.