Although humans have lived as nomads for far longer than they have lived in settled communities, surprisingly, there is no institution dedicated exclusively to raising awareness of these cultures as a whole, let alone to helping them in their desire to preserve their way of life. At best, there are departments within international organisations (FAO, IUCN) that support groups of communities, particularly pastoralist communities.

Nomadic ways of life are showcased in numerous museums around the world, but always in a partial manner and frequently portraying an earlier stage of human existence that ‘has been surpassed’, as if everything were designed from the outset to produce nations and urban communities as the supreme achievement of human evolution – save for the detail that this evolution is leading us into a climate crisis due to the damage caused to ecosystems and the atmosphere itself.

We urgently need to restore a certain balance, and, to this end, environmental education is a priority today. And who better to teach us than the Nomadic Peoples, the only humans who have known how to live in the world without transforming its essence.

A pioneering initiative designed to raise awareness in Europe

Concept

The Centre for Nomadic Cultures for Environmental Education is a unique initiative on a global scale, involving the creation of the first environmental education centre dedicated to communities with nomadic traditions and the ecosystems that have shaped their existence.

Areas of Activity

The EDUNOMAD Centre’s operational plan is defined by three areas of activity:

1. The permanent area of environmental education, which takes place at the Museum of Nomadic Cultures

2. The area of Research and Cooperation, which links the Centre with relevant external institutions

3. The area of Cultural Interaction, which includes activities both within and outside the Centre aimed at promoting cultures with a nomadic tradition

Background

The Centre for Nomadic Cultures for Environmental Education represents the ultimate goal of the EDUNOMAD project, which has been running since 2022. The project focuses on visiting a wide variety of nomadic communities—still active today—across the globe, and discovering how they interact with their own natural ecosystems, as well as those who settled, or were forced to do so, but which retain some of the traditions characteristic of their culture.

Museum of Nomadic Cultures

Area of Research and Cooperation

Area of Cultural Interaction