Friday, May 23, 2014

A three-way dialogue on climate change

The peasant, the decision-maker, the researcher and Participatory 3d Modelling

In the numerous bus stations in N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, all passengers, arriving from other parts of the country, with their bag of worries, know where to find a sympathetic ear. Aladji Ibrahim’s steps lead him to Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the coordinator of AFPAT, an organisation which defends the rights of Bororos pastoralists. This is the start of a story of people, animals, space and human rights with, at centre stage, an outstanding “character”: a three-dimensional model. This tool, displayed within an administrative office in Baïbokoum, almost 600 km from N’Djamena, is proving to be an unexpected medium for promoting the dialogue between peasants, local authorities, scientists and national public authorities, all concerned about climate change, reducing conflicts between faming and herding communities, territorial development, the promotion of human rights, ...


Three-way dialogue on climate change

This documentary completes a trilogy of films, produced in phases.

November 2011: IPACC and AFPAT co-organised, with the support of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), a workshop on pastoralism, traditional knowledge, meteorology and the development of policies for adapting to climate change. Climate governance was the focus of the debates, with around the table indigenous herders from South Africa, Kenya, Namibia and Niger, meteorologists, ministers and representatives of international organisations. This workshop culminated in the so-called N’djamena Declaration , which emphasised the urgent need to involve vulnerable groups in the development of policies to mitigate climate change. It recommended the use of participatory approaches and visualisation tools to represent the available space at community level.


Climate Governance: A matter of survival for nomadic pastoralists

July–August 2012. The Baïbokoum workshop on Participatory three-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM), with as its theme the prevention and management of conflicts between farming and herding communities, implemented the N’djamena recommendations. The combination of the knowledge of indigenous communities and the skills of experienced facilitators resulted in the production of a physical three-dimensional model depicting in detail an area of 720 sq km at a 1:10,000 scale.


Dangers in the bush, map of good faith

One year on, what has become of the model, the result of the multi-stakeholder dialogue? The third documentary answers this question. It narrates the journey undertaken by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim to Baïbokoum. At her destination, she meets pastoralists and edgy authorities. They would like to popularise the model with farmers, traditional community leaders and in local development programmes. But they lack the necessary technical and financial resources. Their cry from the heart is conveyed to N’Djamena by the tireless advocate of the cause of Bororos herdsman: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim.

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