Paper short abstract:

The paper represents an attempt to bring to light some crucial aspects which should be considered when thinking about the links connecting climate-change, eco- and sociological impoverishment and HG societies, starting from an anthropological linguistic perspective.

Paper long abstract:

The Ogiek of Kenya are a group of (ex) hunters and gatherers living mainly in the area of the Mau forest. During the last century, the colonial government first and the democratic government of Kenya afterwards repeatedly tried to evict them from their ancestral lands for their profit. The 2017 sentence of the African Court, which declared that the government of Kenya violated the rights of the Ogiek tribe, was welcomed as a milestone in the protection of the Ogiek people, and of their territories. In this battle for their rights, the Ogiek were supported by a number of NGOs that made them aware of their role as conservationists of their entire ecosystem. This paper focuses on the role that linguistic anthropology can have in helping in this process and aims to demonstrate:

- how much the discussion of folk taxonomies with the local people in a “grassroots” approach can make them realise that the impoverishment of the natural habitat during the last two generations has gone faster than the impoverishment of their language;

- how much facilitating a discussion on the above mentioned taxonomies, underlining the lack of correspondence with surviving species can trigger a positive effect, pushing local people to take action for the protection of the environment;

- how much, climate change can accelerate the process of abandonment of the traditional HGs' way of life and their shifting towards new models, better suited to the new climatic, eco- and sociological conditions.