Nomadic science

One woman is mixing modern and traditional methods to help save her community

Bridging the divide between indigenous and modern was a personal challenge for Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, pictured. She is a member of Chad’s nomadic and semi-nomadic Mbororo community, but she moved into a town as a child because her mother was determined to see her children educated. Not only was Ibrahim teased by the urban children for her Mbororo heritage, she also encountered some hostility when she later returned to her rural homeland.

“When I went back to the community it was: ‘oh, the Western girl. You must know more than we do’,” she says. Nevertheless, she was intent on using her education to help the Mbororo. She says climate change is threatening their ways of life. This, in turn, is jeopardising the Mbororo’s knowledge of the environment – including, for instance, how observing the behaviour of animals allows predictions to be made about the quantity of rain to expect in the season ahead.

In 2013 she helped her community formally document their understanding of their environment using modern mapping technology. The project made it easier for local authorities to respect the Mbororo’s knowledge. This is helping ensure that their voices are heard when initiatives to adapt to climate change are being planned, which is the best way to make sure their way of life doesn’t become lost.

Ibrahim is now publicising the plight of the Mbororo people and their knowledge on the international stage. She is a member of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee, and she spoke at the Paris Climate Change Agreement signing ceremony in 2016. “I have a duty to play in this world in order to save my people,” Ibrahim says. “Otherwise I have no identity.”