Interviews from the 15th Forum Conference: Serena Heckler and Jannie Lasimbang

Serena Heckler and Jannie Lasimbang talks about The 15th annual Forum Conference. The conference of 2014, entitled Education, Learning and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: What knowledge, skills and languages for sustainable livelihoods? was held at UiT The Arctic University of Tromsø in April 2014.

Serena Heckler

Serena Heckler has been a programme specialist with UNESCO’s Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) Programme since 2010. She received a Ph.D. in Ethnobotany from Cornell University for her research on changing use, knowledge and perceptions of plants amongst the PiaroaPeople of Ecuador. She subsequently lectured and carried out research with Kent University’s Ethnobiology Programme and Durham University’s Anthropology in Development Research Group.

From 2007 until 2010, she carried out an action research project related to the role of indigenous knowledge in contemporary indigenous societies with the Shuar people of Ecuador and in partnership with Amawtay-Wasi, the Indigenous University of Ecuador. Aside from journal articles on the social and cultural dynamics of indigenous knowledge, Dr. Heckler is editor of the book, Landscape, Process and Power: Re-evaluating traditional environmental knowledge.

Jannie Lasimbang

Jannie Lasimbang was the keynote speaker at the conference. She is a Kadazan from Sabah, Malaysia. She has been a member of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) established under the UN Human Rights Council for six years (2008 – 2014). Lasimbang was a Commissioner with the Malaysian Human Rights Commission of Malaysia from 2010 – 2013, where she headed a committee to conduct National Inquiry into the Land Rights of Indigenous Peoples. She now sits in a government task force to look into the implementation of the recommendations from the National Inquiry. Lasimbang currently works as the Secretariat Director of the Jaringan Orang Asal Se-Malaysia (JOAS) or Indigenous Peoples Network of Malaysia but has previously held the position of Secretary General of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (2000 – 2008) and trainer and programme coordinator for the Partners of Community Organisations, Sabah (PACOS Trust) from 1984 – 2000.

Both Interviews by Shadi Manasrah.