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THE LOST VOICES
The world is losing its indigenous cultures, and with them, an ancient understanding of nature
In southern Kenya, Maasai elders protect a precious forest. Off the coast of Malaysia, Bajau fishers keep watch over the coral reefs they rely on. On a mountain plateau in northern Sweden, Sámi reindeer herders preserve the vulnerable Arctic landscape.
These three indigenous groups come from different corners of the world. They speak different languages and live very different lives, yet they are bound together by a deep respect for nature.
Nell Lewis/CNN, Jack Moore/AFP/Getty Images, Malin Moberg/AP
They see themselves as caretakers of the natural world: protecting the land, respecting the wildlife, and preserving ecological knowledge that has been passed down through generations.
But increasingly the environments they depend on and the way of life they have maintained for centuries, are under threat. Development is encroaching on their lands, natural resources are being exploited, and climate change is affecting the health of the ecosystems they are part of.
The impact of this will be felt globally: indigenous populations look after more than a third of the world’s remaining natural lands and intact forest landscapes and are critical in safeguarding vulnerable plant and animal species.
As they defend the planet and fight for their own survival, it’s time for their voices to be heard.
A duty to protect
At dawn, sounds reverberate through the forest: the calls of birds in the canopies, the grunts and rustle of unseen animals in the undergrowth, and behind it all the rush of a stream and hiss of the wind through the trees.
Naimina Enkiyio, a remote forest in southern Kenya, is sacred to the indigenous Maasai people. Peter Achammer of Helicopter Charter EA Ltd
Note: Mara Elephant Project analyzed Hansen Global Forest Change data using a threshold of 60% canopy to focus on areas with substantial tree cover. Global Forest Watch
Note: Mara Elephant Project analyzed Hansen Global Forest Change data using a threshold of 60% canopy to focus on areas with substantial tree cover. Global Forest Watch
Stretching along the top of an escarpment on the western wall of the Rift Valley, Kenya, this is Naimina Enkiyio, or the “Forest of the Lost Child.”
While other forests in the country have been logged or developed, losing up to 60% of tree cover, Naimina Enkiyio has remained almost entirely untouched – losing just 2% of forest cover since 2000, according to analysis of Hansen Global Forest Change data by the Mara Elephant Project.
This is thought to be largely down to the indigenous Maasai people, of whom an estimated 25,000 live in and around it.
The legend of the forest
Parmuat Ntirua Koikai
Parmuat Ntirua Koikai, a Maasai elder, knows the plants like the back of his hand, pointing out leaves and shrubs that can be used to cure specific ailments or illnesses.
Two Maasai men wearing shukas (traditional cloth robes) walk through the forest. Nell Lewis/CNN
As climate change leads to more frequent severe droughts, the forest could provide a lifeline to the Maasai and the surrounding wildlife. A source of the Sand River, which flows into the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti, it is a critical watershed for the migratory animals on the plains below, and it offers a place for the Maasai to graze their cattle during dry periods. In previous years, when drought has wreaked havoc on pastoral communities across Kenya, the area around Naimina Enkiyio has stood out as a refuge, with fewer livestock losses.
Isaiah Ole Kuroo
Isaiah Ole Kuroo, 70, acknowledges how important the forest is to both the local community and the wider region, supplying water to the dry valley area around the town of Narok.
A Maasai man sits on a rock overlooking the Loita Hills. Nell Lewis/CNN
For many in the community, understanding the impact the natural world has on their own lives and livelihoods has translated into a duty to protect. They have defended the forest against deforestation and corporate interests that could displace them, and they have been careful not to overuse its resources. But still, new threats arise.
The government policy of land adjudication, intended to stimulate rural development and prevent boundary conflicts, has recently divided parts of the communal Maasai land into individual plots. Some fear that this – combined with pressures from a growing population, increased poverty and modernization – will lead to some individuals selling off parts of the forest for development or agriculture. Already, there are reports of people clearing the forest so that they can plant crops in the new year.
The Maasai's spiritual leaders perform a ritual of “stone throwing” where they predict the future. Nell Lewis/CNN
Concerned about the future, the laibon, the Maasai’s spiritual leaders, pray to their God, Enkai. They perform their age-old tradition of throwing the stones, where they ask a question, toss stones onto a cloth and find the answer in the way they fall.
“We ask the stones whether there are strangers who are coming to grab the forest, and we check whether it is going to rain today,” says Ntasikoi Oloimoeja, 30.
Ntasikoi Oloimoeja, 30, is one of the youngest of the community’s spiritual leaders. Credit: Nell Lewis/CNN
A FRAGILE BALANCE
While the Maasai have so far defended the boundaries of their sacred forest, some natural borders are less defined.
The ocean has no perimeter, no statehood, no permanent address. And neither do the people who call it home.
A Bajau village on Dinawan Island, Sabah, Malaysia. Mauricio Handler/National Geographic/Getty Images
The Bajau Laut have lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle on the ocean for centuries. Rebecca Cairns/CNN
The indigenous Bajau Laut people have sailed the waters of Southeast Asia for centuries, fishing and diving, and living on hand-built houseboats called lepas.
Their semi-nomadic lifestyle afforded them the freedom to follow fish migrations and move with the seasons, creating a natural cycle of recovery for the reefs they harvested.
Spirits of the sea
Jarmin Sabunglani
Jarmin Sabunglani, in his fifties, is one of a handful of Bajau Laut still living on a lepa in the waters around Semporna, in Malaysian Borneo. All the men in his family have different fishing skills: his son Hup Sengan is an expert with a net, while his younger son, Terence, is a strong diver who can lay traps on the seafloor for reef-dwelling marine life, like shrimp. But these sustainable fishing methods are a dying art.
Terence Sabunglani shows the mantis shrimp he caught using homemade traps. Rebecca Cairns/CNN
Since trawl fishing became widespread in the 1960s, aquatic life in some of Malaysia’s coastal waters has fallen by more than 80% and illegal and unregulated fishing is pushing fish stocks to the brink in parts of Southeast Asia. This is being exacerbated by climate change, causing phenomena like coral bleaching, rising sea levels, beach erosion, and extreme weather events that are putting pressure on the livelihoods of coastal communities like the Bajau Laut.
Some fisherfolk have even turned to cyanide or blast fishing, an illegal practice that uses poison or explosives to catch fish but causes huge damage to the reef.
Nurmasiha Kubangsiha
Nurmasiha Kubangsiha, a Bajau Laut grandmother in her sixties, has noticed its impact in the waters around Omadal Island, near Semporna.
Two Bajau women and a child steer their boat towards the water village on Omadal Island. Rebecca Cairns/CNN
The dwindling sea life is making life on the water impossible for many Bajau Laut, who are instead opting for a cheaper stilt house in coastal villages. But this is turning their traditionally low-impact lifestyle into an unsustainable one. They harvest the same over-exploited reefs as other coastal communities. In the past, any waste from the boat would go into the ocean, which wasn’t an issue when it was biodegradable. But the community now purchases more food in single-use plastic, and living in close quarters with thousands of others, sewage has become a major issue.
Closeup of garbage in the water in Kampung Bangau Bangau. Rebecca Cairns/CNN
“The rubbish has made it dirtier, so we cannot really swim that often, and we cannot fish from the house anymore because there's no real fish there,” says Jai Jericho Omar, an 18-year-old resident.
The trash is spilling out into the sea, too, washing up on the shores of islands tens of miles from Semporna and ending up among fishing catch. More and more of the community there are turning to land-based work to make ends meet, Omar says.
But the loss of their seafaring traditions could see generations of indigenous knowledge about the marine environment lost too, such as understanding of ocean currents, reef health and fish migrations.
It could also mean a loss of identity.
Kubangsiha recalls a Bajau folk tale about why they live on boats:
Low tide reveals trash in Kampung Air Hujung. Rebecca Cairns/CNN
After more than a decade of living in a stilt house in the shallow waters around Omadal Island, Kubangsiha is getting ready to return to the sea: her brother finally built the family a boat.
“We are trying our best to follow the tradition by going back out to sea,” she says. “Because even on a stilt house like this, we are not supposed to live like this.”
A voice for nature
As traditional livelihoods start to fade, so do ancient languages. Across the world, the UN estimates that one indigenous language dies every two weeks. These are not just methods of communication, but complex knowledge systems built over millennia that are often passed down orally between generations.
Sámi people in Skaule, Sweden, herd reindeer for the annual marking of the calves in July. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
Marja Skum
As a child, Marja Skum didn’t speak her native language, North Sámi. Her father was from the generations of Sámi reindeer herders in Sweden who were forcibly taken from their parents during the 19th and 20th centuries and sent to boarding schools where they were banned from speaking their mother tongue. He felt ashamed of his heritage, says Skum, now 47.
Marja Skum leads a 15-year-old semi-domesticated reindeer, Gabbahearji, who was orphaned and reared like a pet. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
Note: The area of the ancestral Sápmi homeland is approximate. Arctic Data Center
Reindeer traverse a band of snow on a mountainside in Skaule, Sweden, after being released from a pen during the annual marking of the calves. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
There are an estimated 80,000 Sámi people living across their ancestral homeland of Sápmi, which spans the northernmost parts of Scandinavia and Russia’s Kola peninsula.
Across the region, they have dealt with a long history of persecution that has led to the loss of native languages.
North Sámi is the most widely spoken of the 10 Sámi languages, but according to UNESCO, all are endangered. Some are spoken by as few as 50 individuals, most of whom are over the age of 60.
Much of the Sámi’s ancient knowledge of the environment is encoded in these languages. There are more than 300 words for snow, eight words for the different seasons, and countless words to describe a reindeer’s behavior, sex and age.
There are ways to describe Arctic weather patterns, and place names are derived from nature, helping Sámi people to navigate the harsh landscape.
With fewer people speaking the language, indigenous knowledge of the region and the reindeer herding tradition – already under threat from development and global warming – is at risk of being lost too.
This could have an impact on the landscape, which has been shaped by grazing over thousands of years. Scientific reports suggest the practice has helped to mitigate climate change by controlling the growth of vegetation, preventing it from absorbing heat and thawing permafrost, which releases carbon.
To preserve traditions, Skum, who took lessons in North Sámi as adult, and her husband Juhán Áslat Siri, who also speaks it, decided they would bring up their two children speaking it as a first language.
Marja Skum and her daughter, Risten Alida Siri Skum, lead a reindeer through the hilltop pen. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
The family traveled to the remote mountain plateau of Skaule (which means “seagull” in North Sámi), northern Sweden, along with a wider Sámi community, for a two-week period in July to mark the reindeer calves – a traditional activity where they cut patterns in the calves' ears to show ownership.
Risten Alida Siri Skum
Huddled inside their tent during a foggy morning, the two children sing a nursery rhyme about the northern lights. For Risten Alida Siri Skum, Skum’s daughter, this is one of her favorite times of the year. She treasures the opportunity to speak North Sámi to her friends as the rest of the year she’s in the minority, and she savors the mountain air and the crystal-clear water of the stream.
ÁnteJohanMáhtte Siri talks with his sister, Risten Alida Siri Skum, right, and their friend, Káre Áile Skogland, during the marking of the calves. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
Words of the wilderness
Among the younger generations, there has been a resurgence of pride in their Sámi identity, and a rising effort to preserve both language and traditions. Thirty-three-year-old Elena Lango did not speak Sámi as a child, but she has started learning it in recent years.
Elena Lango, right, and friends make coffee around a campfire, between reindeer-marking sessions. Sarah Tilotta/CNN
Skum believes this revival is a result of the young people not being afraid anymore. Gradually, Sámi people are gaining more political influence. The Swedish government officially recognized Sámi as a national minority language in 2000; in 2020 reindeer herders won a landmark case against the state, restoring land and hunting rights in the Sámi district of Girjas; and next year, the long-awaited Sámi truth commission will submit its findings to the Swedish government on the historical wrongdoing against Sámi people by the state.
These three distinct indigenous groups are united in their will to preserve ancient traditions. CNN
Both in Sweden, and globally, there is a growing acknowledgment of the role indigenous groups play in protecting the planet.
They safeguard some of the most biodiverse areas on Earth, their livelihoods depend on and support the natural world, and they have a deep understanding of ecosystems, plants and animals.
According to the Convention on Biological Diversity, this knowledge has long been undervalued and neglected in favor of scientific research, but it argues that the two can complement each other, and that indigenous knowledge could be key to informing the sustainable management of lands and climate policy – if it were given the opportunity.
Marja Skum's reading material. Nell Lewis/CNN
Skum says that increasingly, indigenous groups from around the world are communicating, sharing their knowledge and finding a united voice.
Marja Skum works alongside her daughter Risten Alida Siri Skum to spot, lasso, and mark their calves ears. Credit: Sarah Tilotta/CNN
