On October 14, Emeritus Professor Dawn Chatty (Refugee Studies Centre, ODID) and Dr Ariell Ahearn (School of Geography and the Environment) held a special event, hosted by UNDP, at the United Nations in support of Mobile Peoples. The following day, the Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples released his report on Mobile Indigenous Peoples to the United Nations General Assembly. This report is a response to the Dana Declaration +20 Manifesto of 2022, the outcome of the Dana +20 Workshop which was organised by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) and the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE). The Manifesto called for the United Nations to take into account the special vulnerabilities and needs of the millions of Mobile Peoples around the world.

Professor Chatty said: “For far too long Mobile Peoples – herders, foragers, and shifting agriculturist – have been dislocated, displaced and disposed. The lands they have used sustainably for centuries have been regarded as empty (terra nullius). The RSC has worked for over two decades, and more recently with the participation of SoGE, to set these discriminatory concepts and practices right.”

The report is built on contributions from Mobile Indigenous Peoples worldwide, including (but not limited to) Sámi reindeer herders from Finland, Norway, the Russian Federation, and Sweden; Mongolian pastoralists; Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada; Maasai pastoralists from Tanzania and Kenya; Batwa hunter-gatherers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and Bedouin herders in Jordan. With a wealth of firsthand experiences and examples, the document serves as a vital resource for understanding the challenges and resilience of these communities.

Dawn Chatty chaired the Standing Committee of the Dana Declaration from 2002 until 2021 when Dr Ahearn joined her as co-Chair.

Read the University of Oxford press release.

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