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THE COMMUNITY APPROACH: SOME RELEVANT ISSUES
Community Forest Management: A feasible and necessary alternative Ten years after the Earth Summit, deforestation continues to advance in most of the countries of the world, and in particular in tropical regions. In our successive bulletins we have abundantly recorded cases and processes of destruction, behind which in one way or another, it is possible to perceive the hand of the North. Although this is the predominant model, advancing with all the force of globalisation and the power mechanisms it has at its disposal (namely multilateral financial institutions, the World Trade Organisation, credit conditionalities etc.), there is also another model or other different models. These are the systems that indigenous peoples and local forest-dependent communities have developed over hundreds or thousands of years. These societies have a rich tradition in forest management on the basis of totally different parameters from those of the predominant model, based on the community and with the objective of conservation. They have been ancestral custodians of this ecosystem as it is an intrinsic part of their way of life and undoubtedly, they have become an obstacle to the economic forces which, following their profit-making equation are attempting to destroy it. For this reason, these forces have tried to silence these traditions and to make them invisible. For many years, forest policy has been based on the notion that local forest users were ignorant and destructive. The State authorities in capital cities, responsible for policy-making, looked down on the knowledge and capacities of the indigenous peoples and local communities, overlooking what was obvious: they were the most interested parties in the sustainable management of the forests as these were their source of life --no one better than these peoples knew forest ecosystem functioning and management. It is thus that the so-called experts classified indigenous forest management practices, implying a sustainable rotation system, together with those of settlers-farmers herded by governmental policies towards tropical areas (and for whom the forest was more of an obstacle than a resource), accusing them all --indigenous peoples and farmers-- of being the main agents causing forest degradation. This prejudiced vision prevailed for a long time, but recently forest communities have launched a process of empowerment, making their positions known, setting up local, regional, national and international alliances, linking themselves with other sectors of civil society with similar positions, demanding respect for their rights, dialoguing, defending their territories, expressing their positions in international fora. And at this time, when the economic, social and environmental impacts of the industrial and Western development model are revealed as more than sufficient proof of unsustainability, when the loss of the ancient harmonic links between humans and nature --which up to now had enabled the life of our species on the Earth-- hurts and is felt in its tragic dimensions, a change becomes imperious, a change implying a return to the sources. And it is in this sense, against the prevailing power that the community-based natural resource management systems become visible once again and arise with the force of an alternative to be followed. In 1978, during the
World Forestry Congress "Forests for People," a gradual change
of perspective started to gain acceptance on an international scale,
insofar as people started recognising that those who most know about
forests are those living in them. Beyond more or less elaborate technical definitions, the name itself of "community forest management" already expresses its characteristics quite precisely. However, it might be useful to identify at least some of the minimum assumptions for it to be considered as such. In the first place, the community management system seeks to guarantee access and control over forest resources to the communities living in them, but mainly to those who depend on the forest to satisfy their economic, social, cultural and spiritual needs. Forest management should be aimed at offering security not only to the present generation but also to coming generations, and also at increasing the possibility of sustainability. It therefore is based on three principles: - the rights and responsibilities
for forest resources should be clear, safe and permanent. In general terms, the concept incorporates basic defining elements that do not attempt to refer to a single model but to a diversity of models. Each one will have its own special characteristics, as a result of the culture and the environmental characteristics of the site, but all of them within a conceptual framework transcending the merely technical. Such a conceptual framework includes a holistic vision of the world, spanning ecological, social, political, economic, moral and spiritual factors. Its moral values are based on harmony and not on conflict; social values are seen in links based on co-operation and association among community groups; ecological values seek to integrate people and their environment with economy on a local scale through the adoption of a multifunctional and multiproduct approach. In this framework, the economy seeks to reduce poverty, promoting equity and self-sufficiency; and social integration aims at promoting local development based in the communities. Furthermore, democracy in decisions on local resources implies that measures should be adopted by the community itself, in the ways it decides to. In turn, spirituality and culture are an integral part of the forest communities who consider the forest to be the home of their ancestors, of spirits and sacred gods, giving it a much wider dimension than that of a purely commercial one. It is important to note that this is not a theoretical suggestion, but a description of real situations existing throughout all the continents. Community forest management exists and is increasingly visible, in spite of the opposition or insufficient support it receives on the part of governments and international organisations. In this framework, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg offers a good opportunity to disseminate this approach as an alternative to the predominant destructive model. The Forest Community Management Caucus is working to gather forces and to try and have an influence on governments as a way of having an impact on how the texts of international agreements are drawn up, on identifying strategies and mechanisms to create a world movement that will go beyond summit meetings, establishing links with other similar groups, making the most of the presence of the mass media to reach public opinion and thus be able to create awareness. In Johannesburg the governments have the possibility of taking the community forest management system as a reference and of attempting to change the predominant course of forest policy. Whether they take these suggestions into consideration or not will reveal the degree of commitment they have with forest conservation. Source: WRM's bulletin
Nº 61, August 2002. Community-Based Forest Management: Forests for the People who Sustain the Forests The world is losing its forests. All over the globe, many people are suffering from destructive processes that are depriving them from the natural resources on which they have sustained their livelihood. WRM as well as many organisations from around the world have long been denouncing this situation and supporting the peoples who are struggling to defend their forests and their rights. The story of colonial and later state appropriation and control of the forests under the banner of "scientific forestry" has been a common feature of a centralised technocratic management that was increased along the last century with the rise of the modern nation-state, the power of technology and of the global economy, eventually leading to the wholesale trade of the forests for the sake of industrial forestry interests. Scientific forestry, as imposed on the South by the North, first through colonialism and then through the development agencies and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, has fatal flaws, it arrogates forest lands, the land of local communities, to the State and then hands out rights to exploit the timber to private interests. The result is an unholy alliance of powerful players who have a vested interest both in excluding communities from forests and avoiding serious limits on exploitation that would limit profits in the name of sustainability. In the case of Southern impoverished countries, timber sales have been servicing the spiralling debt. Such debt is built on the dependence ties woven by major Northern countries acting on behalf of the vested interests of big corporations, and supported by the mediation of the international financial institutions (IMF, World Bank, etc.), while at the same time generating enormous personal wealth for a handful of timber tycoons. That process has given rise to a number of factors which have put enormous pressure on the forests and the people living in and depending on them, who suffer unequal access to forest resources. The unfair terms of international trade have depressed commodity prices --the main exports of Southern countries-- triggering a never ending search of increased productivity at the expense of ecosystems. Along these lines, "development programmes" --and the infrastructure that go with them-- have been imposed on the impoverished and nature-rich countries by the powerful nations which thus benefit twofold from easy access to natural resources and the high interests of the loans granted to carry out those programmes, which regard nature as a pool of merchandises --minerals, oil, genetic resources, wood, land for agricultural expansion-- to be exploited for short-term profit. That process, graphically described by writer Eduardo Galeano as "the open veins of Latin America" is equally applicable to Southern countries throughout the world. The result has been forest degradation and destruction, displaced people, and the loss of local livelihoods and cultures. In face of that, there is now a growing concern to find a new way to preserve what is left of the world's forests. The WRM has put forward the urgent need for a change in the present relationship with the forest. Two approaches are confronted: one that sees the forest as land --to be exploited, to be explored, to be cleared and occupied, to be tilled, to be planted along large-scale monoculture commercial tree schemes--, and the other that sees the forest as an ecosystem --to be used in its multiple dimensions by and for the people without disrupting the necessary balance between the whole array of components. It is clear that only the second approach can ensure forest conservation and it is equally clear that Indigenous Peoples and other traditional and local communities are the ones capable and willing to implement it. They have a long tradition in the sustainable use of forests under common property regimes, where mutual dependence, shared co-operation and association values, and traditional laws have regulated access to and use of forest resources, conscious that they have been borrowing the forest from their children. We are aware that many experiences have been dismantled, knowledge has been lost and natural resources have been depleted in a number of places. Many communities have suffered external pressure which forced them out of their land, destroyed their livelihood, or "contaminated" them with new fashions and consumerism trends, all of what eventually detach them from their rich culture. However, before it's too late, the solution is at our hands reach. Indeed, it has laid there all the time. Policy-makers have the chance to prove their willingness to fulfil their proclaimed pledges of sustainability; it's just a matter of serving the interests of the people --over transnationals-- and to support and promote the ancient systems of community-based forest management which for centuries have enabled forest-dependent communities to sustainably manage the forest for a living and at the same time to be their guardians. The Forest: A Generous Providing Home For forest dwellers and forest-dependent people, the forest is their main shop, supplying them with food --tubers, leaves, flowers, fruits, nuts, fungi, worms, ants, honey, birds' eggs, small game and fish. They also find there building materials, medicines as well as fuelwood, and raw materials such as bamboo, reeds, leaves, grasses, gums, resins, waxes and dyes for making ropes, mats and baskets, which they can use, barter or sell in nearby villages. Furthermore, the forest is a great water provider; it is a rain catchment area which allows a balanced water storage and distribution. Last but not least, the forest is more than a mere supply-provider for them. It is also the place where they gather for social and cultural celebrations, they assemble in order to take decisions, they bury their dead, they assert a deep moral and spiritual interconnection through which they see themselves as part of the forest. Seeing the forest with a holistic view The close relationship with the forest is imbued in the forest and forest-dependent communities who have always had an "ecosystem approach" in forest management. The present trend of forest exploitation, with its reductionist approach, has taken things apart and disrupted the balance, leading to the present forest crisis. Thus, a holistic view is a necessary element of any community-based forest management experience. It has brought about a deep and wide system of knowledge with its own concepts, definitions and practices which have enabled a sustainable use of the forests along several centuries. This is still valid even now, where we can find examples of communities that manage to conserve and even sometimes restore against all odds areas of degraded forests on which they depend. The forest is the source of forest and forest-dependent communities' livelihoods, so for them it is a matter of survival that their efforts are aimed at managing the forest in a way that guarantees its perpetuity. Otherwise, they are putting their own future at risk. However, when confronted by external forces that disrupt their environment, communities find themselves pressed to search for other means of survival that generally imply an unsustainable management of the scarce natural resources left by forest companies and other commercial and market-oriented interests that have usurped communities' homelands. The wholeness has been broken from outside, but it usually happens that forest and forest-dependent communities, the weakest link of the chain, the victims, end up being portrayed as the culprits. Secure tenureship for community management Below and above all the way of living of forest and forest-dependent communities lies the concept of common ownership of the forest for its use, management and control. The community does not "possess" the forest; rather, it is its guardian for which it has duties as well as rights. But for communities to be able to adequately fulfil the role of guardians they must have secure tenure over the resources contained in the forest and its use must be guaranteed through the governing bodies chosen by each community to adequately represent them. Case studies confirm that lack of security of land rights and user rights for communities is a major cause of decline in local systems of forest management. Conversely, within a context of conflict, security of land rights and user rights is the basis of forest conservation and the well-being of local forest-dependent people. Autonomy and sovereignty for local decision-making power The decision-making power of communities lies within their own representative institutions that legitimately represent their interests and which adopt different forms according to the local culture, the natural environment, and the organisation of each community. Whenever this has been altered to shift the power to a central government (national, state, provincial) the result has been the disruption of the ecosystem integrity with the ensuing decline of resource sustainability and the impoverishment of the community. There is no single model of community-based forest management but all of them have as a common trait the necessary autonomy and sovereignty of their legitimate authorities in order to make decisions relevant to the control, use and management of the resource base of the community with a view to fulfil the needs of its members. Challenges and expectations Community-based forest
management is re-emerging as a valid alternative to the present pattern
of industrial forest use. A large number of people, organisations, and
processes are already working towards achieving and However, many challenges lay ahead and a number of questions need to be raised. Is it possible that isolated cases of community-based forest management can survive within a context where powerful actors like transnationals, governments, international institutions in charge of globalising an economic pattern of open markets and deregulation, are at the wheel? Will we be aware enough to make the difference between genuine cases and those which are just a co-option to the prevailing model? How to preserve the promissory model of community-based forest management from internal and external spurious interests? Most forest and forest dependent communities are no longer living in conditions of balanced ecosystems that long ago they managed to maintain. Large scale deforestation and forest degradation processes, depletion of forest resources with the subsequent scarcity for the surrounding communities have led to changes in their ways of living. In its turn, such alteration gives rise to new needs and values which may imply the loss of traditional knowledge, the shattering of old binds and beliefs which have been the pillar of social cohesion and cultural continuity. Additionally, a number of issues need to be addressed within the communities to ensure their internal cohesion and strength. Among these mention must be made of the participation of women, who have specific needs, perspectives, and roles. Their active participation in decision-making and the equitable sharing of benefits between men and women is crucial for ensuring the long term sustainability of community-based forest management. Equally important is the need to generate the necessary conditions to promote the active participation of youth, representing the future of the community. Getting together Those of us committed to support the forest and forest-dependent communities who struggle to maintain or recover their forests, who support and promote that they regain control over forest management, need to bear in mind that there are many obstacles --both internal and external, national and international-- to be sorted out. The importance of summing up strength and efforts and sharing experiences needs to be underscored. Many local, national and international organisations --including the WRM-- have for many years been advocating and campaigning for a change in that direction. In May this year, a number of those organisations decided to join efforts in the Caucus on Community-Based Forest Management, which aims at influencing global and national processes to create the necessary conditions for enabling local communities to manage their own forests. This is a first step in the right direction. It is now crystal clear that the industrial model leads to forest destruction, while community management allows for its sustainable use. Governments have agreed --at least on paper-- that forests need to be conserved in order to ensure the Planet's health. They must now be made to comply with their commitments and organised civil society --from the local to the international level-- is the key actor in ensuring that deeds match words. The message must be loud and clear: responsibility over forest management must be put back in the hands of forest and forest-dependent communities. Only then will forests stand a chance of surviving. Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.
A groundswell of support appears to be building for community forests, if we believe the rhetoric of the World Bank, the United Nations, and NGOs all over the world. For example, Objective 3: Goal 4 in the Forest Work Programme approved by the 6th Party to the Convention on Biological Diversity reads: "Enable indigenous and local communities to develop and implement adaptive community-management systems to conserve and sustainably use forest biological diversity". Now, no one likes a pessimist, but I have some serious reservations about the supposedly blissful track of community forests, including some of the success stories I have come to rely on in my own advocacy. I wonder, do some community forest schemes actually enable state actors to extend their reach and control over forests? That is, while community forests purport to address power and governance over forests, how many really challenge or, more importantly, change state authority? Research by Arun Agrawal in Kumaon, India, noted that even in so-called community forests, the state continues to "outline the ways in which resources can be used, define who is empowered to use these resources, and extend their control further and more intensively into given territories." (Agrawal, Arun, 'State Formation in Community Spaces', 1998) Furthermore, Agrawal's research found that these community forests did little to further the interests of the most marginalized members of the communities. Nepal's community forests also seem to be heading down this track. Changes to National Forest policies are encroaching on community autonomy over forest lands in insidious ways. The forestry department has enacted stringent measures which make it very difficult and expensive for communities to develop and maintain control over forests. For example, communities are now required to do intensive forest inventories that the government itself does not even do on the national lands. The government is also beginning to charge high taxes on forest products produced by communities. (Kaji Shrestha, FECOFUN, pers. comm., August 2002). Devolution of real
power and authority is only one part of the community forest challenge.
Community forests are bound to remain marginal if our societies (particularly
those in the North, and Southern elites) remain on the current trajectory
of high-throughput economic growth and industrial consumption. The most
valuable forests and largest proportion of forests still remain in the
hands of the state, and in large companies --where profits can be captured.
It seems community forest movements need to address central issues of
consumption and economic development as a part of their strategy. Unfortunately,
the consumptive aspect of forest conservation has largely remained on
the sidelines for governments and NGOs alike. Ashish Kothari states
(in reference to the lack of reference to northern consumption in the
Forest Work Programme of the Convention of Biological Diversity): "Ah,
so while poor communities are expected to take action to restrict their
meagre consumption, the rich will only be obliged to 'become aware'
of their consumption. And then maybe, once they are aware, they will
be nice enough to reduce their impact on the world." (Kothari,
Ashish 'Let the Poor Pay for the Excesses of the Rich', ECO 6(2), 2002). By Jessica Dempsey,
International Network of Forests and Communities, Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.
In Guatemala, in spite of the fact that 20% of the forest regions are under systems of protected areas, the continuous advance of the agricultural frontier, a result of the unequal distribution of means of production --particularly land-- has left a trail of poverty and social exclusion. This situation is more serious in rural zones where most of the population depends on forests. Indigenous and peasant groups are among the most affected, obliged to settle and inhabit fragile ecosystems lacking basic services. However, groups of women have sought alternative organisational forms to manage natural resources in forest systems. In this article we will present two cases, one set in a coniferous ecosystem in the West of the country (in the Department of Huehuetenango) and the other in the North of the country in one of the most important tropical forest ecosystems of the Central American region, in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Department of Peten. The information submitted comes from two case studies carried out by the Environmental Area of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) at its Guatemala Academic Centre, as part of its research activities on community-based forestry and local institutionality. In the Huehuetenango region, groups of Kanjobal indigenous women have organised themselves to manage their forests through a programme of forestry incentives supported by the Government through the National Forestry Institute (Instituto Nacional de Bosques - INAB). Starting with a project to improve the social conditions of Kanjobal women affected by the internal armed conflict, the women organised themselves through the Association of Eulalen Women for Comprehensive Development Pixan Konob (AMEDIK) Corazón del Pueblo. Since they launched the project, 143 hectares have been reforested already and 246 hectares are managed under natural regeneration systems. The forests are jointly managed with three municipalities, as they are located in communal areas and on municipal lands. In this case, the municipalities report to INAB and receive approximately 1.5 to 2.0% on the total accrued from the forestry incentives. This synergy has made it possible for groups of women to have access to the incentives, as without deed titles they were unable to do so. Close on 500 families are presently participating in the project and over the past four years, AMEDIK has received nearly US$100,000 as part of the incentives. In the Maya Biosphere Reserve there are community concessions representing rental contracts for 25 years, for organised groups to manage forests in a comprehensive manner. This amounts to approximately 400,000 hectares that are divided into 15 community concessions. This is considered to be one of the most important regions in the world under indigenous and peasant community management. However, the process involving the women of the region has been slow, and has been marked by generalised opposition by the men, who alleged that economic profit sharing is not fair when two members of the same family are in the organisation. Therefore, there are organised groups with no women members and others where wives and daughters can obtain the right to be member only if the husband is dead or there are no male children. Presently, women participating in the concessions amount to approximately 15%. The groups of women carrying out tasks in the forest are focused on the extraction of non-timber products such as wicker (Monstera sp), berries (Desmuncus sp) and xate (Chamaedorea sp), mainly for handicrafts or to make furniture, while others prefer to participate in the eco-tourism projects. Forestry-management activities are classed as needing hard labour and correspond to men. Summing up, although it is true that the gender issue and involvement of women have been promoted by foreign development bodies, there are certain factors that prevent women becoming involved in forestry-management activities. Firstly, the system for land distribution used in the past did not allow women to have access to land deeds. Other variables, such as education and health show that the most vulnerable groups are indigenous women. In spite of the fact that some groups such as AMEDIK have achieved access to forestry management under forestry incentives, this has not been possible without being accompanied by the municipalities. Furthermore, while forest management changes from timber use to comprehensive management, women participating in community concessions will have to face a long road towards recognition and participation in alternative management of non-timber resources and handicrafts. By Iliana Monterroso, FLACSO-Sede Académica Guatemala; e-mail: imonterroso@flacso.edu.gt Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.
Community forestry requires secure tenure, if the local people are to have any confidence that they will reap the benefits of their efforts. Community mapping can be a powerful tool to help communities think about the lands, represent their land use system and assert their rights to the forests they seek to control. The use of geomatic mapping technologies by indigenous peoples to demonstrate their relationship to their lands and to mount land claims is a relatively recent phenomenon. In South East Asia the basic idea and the technology was introduced in the early 1990s and the technique has since spread rapidly. Community level mapping exercises are now underway in India, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Thailand. At their best, mapping projects directly involve community members in the survey of the land use and boundaries of the own domains. The technologies used vary widely. At their simplest, as used in Thailand, maps may be hand-made 3D maps, made by cutting shapes along contour lines derived from government base maps enlarged to a 1:15,000 scale. Vegetation zones, roads, land use data, village sites and the boundaries of land claims can then be painted onto the models by the local community members. These maps have proved to be useful tools for community mobilisation and village-level discussions of land claims and natural resource management planning. Other mapping exercises are using geomatic (mainly GPS) or traditional surveying techniques to locate data on maps. Although these techniques do allow community members to decide what is put into the maps, they do, however, generally rely to some extent on trained personnel from outside NGOs to prepare the base maps, record the field data directly on the maps, or in the computer, and print up the final maps. Higher technologies, such as sophisticated Global Information Systems, while allowing much more subtle use of colours, layers and data sets, increase the conceptual distance between those with the indigenous knowledge in the communities and those who make the maps. Community control and a sense of ownership of the maps can be attenuated accordingly and there is a risk that the technical NGOs consider themselves and not the villagers to be the owners of the maps. There is a tendency for support NGOs helping indigenous peoples with mapping, to adopt progressively more sophisticated systems driven by their own thirst for knowledge, fascination with the technology and a will to get ahead of and outwit government administrators. The risk is that the mapping process becomes more and more remote from indigenous priorities and in the end becomes yet another form of administrative annexation, this time by NGOs, against which the indigenous peoples have to struggle. Clear mutual agreements on who has the intellectual property rights to maps --they should be vested with the communities not with the NGOs-- and greater investment in training the indigenous leadership in the manipulation of data and the new technologies are part of the answer to this emerging problem. In the field, there are a number of other difficulties that mapping exercises have to overcome. The first is that they tend to freeze what are in reality fluid boundaries and systems of land use. Hard lines are drawn where fuzziness and ambiguity may, in fact, prevail. Mappers in Mindanao, in the Southern Philippines, for example, find that traditional areas of land use expand and contract seasonally. In Borneo, communities move around as lands in the immediate vicinity become 'used up'. Boundaries of hunting grounds shift accordingly. Secondly, the maps do not just include --more or less successfully-- the concepts of the community mappers, they exclude the concepts of those who are not involved, both people within the communities (often women) or areas in question (often lower caste or lower status groups) and those outside them or on their boundaries (neighbouring communities). Successful mapping initiatives depend on both adequate community preparation within the area to be mapped and on prior agreement with neighbouring groups on the boundaries between villages or ethnic groups. This problem can be exaggerated, however, and a common solution where inter-community boundaries are disputed is to map the boundaries that extend around all the communities and leave resolution of the disputes of the internal boundaries to the future, preferably according to customary law and procedures. Within the region, the process of mapping indigenous lands has probably gone furthest in the Philippines, where something like 700,000 hectares of community lands have been mapped out of a total of 2.9 million hectares so far registered with the government as Ancestral Domains. The experience there has revealed a number of additional problems. One is that customary areas and boundaries frequently do not coincide with existing administrative boundaries. Villages can thus find that they are subject to several "barangay", district or even provincial jurisdictions, which entails complicated negotiations if the regularisation of tenure is then sought. Unusually, in the Philippines NGO-made maps can be accepted by the local administration as authoritative documents on which to base land claims and not just as advocacy tools, which is the way they are used in many other areas. In this case, increasing precision in the survey techniques is called for, requiring more specialised training of mappers and implying a closer interaction with the local administration. Those involved in mapping emphasise the need for preparation, training and community-level capacity building as an integral part of any mapping project. Preparatory meetings, workshops and visits are crucial for the long-term success of the mapping exercises themselves. Establishing community consensus and agreement on the goals and practices of the project is a necessary first step and some NGOs make consensus decisions a pre-condition to their involvement in helping to map any area. Community control and sense of ownership depends not only on formal agreements --which are vital-- but also on quite detailed training of community members to ensure that at least some in each mapped community are comfortable with the details of the technology and the way it is being used to represent local knowledge. Unduly abbreviated training is the main weakness in many projects. Since maps are just tools in a much longer process of establishing a community's control over its lands and natural resources, the long term usefulness of mapping projects also depends on adequate capacity-building and community mobilisation. A frequent complaint is that outside donors tend not to provide enough funds for this element, as they seek quick and visible results and are wary of creating dependency --a legitimate concern. Participatory mapping is here to stay as part of the tool-kit used by the indigenous movement. Communities have discovered that it is powerful, as much for community organising, strategising and control as for communicating local visions to outsiders. Mapping can help build community coherence and reaffirm the value and importance of traditional knowledge, recreating respect for elders and customary resource management practices. Perhaps one of the most important benefits of the mapping movement is that it has provided a tool for the indigenous leadership to address community-level concerns, thus helping them maintain ties with their constituents as they engage in political negotiations at the national level. Maps have also proved vitally important tools to indigenous communities confronting the impositions of logging, mining, plantation and conservation schemes. By use of maps, communities and NGOs have been able to demonstrate conclusively the overlaps between indigenous lands and imposed concessions. They have also been used to expose the incompetence of different line ministries, whose maps are so very often erroneous and have created horrendous confusions in the overlap between different jurisdictions and concessions. Initial enthusiasm for community-mapping led to it being considered a 'magic bullet' that could resolve land conflicts and promote community-based forest management, in one shot. Experience has quickly taught most of those involved that mapping is just a tool --a very powerful tool in the right hands-- in a much longer struggle to reform land ownership systems, indigenous self-governance and government systems of administration. To be effective, mapping exercises need to be integrated into long term community strategies and be clearly linked to broader strategies for legal, policy and institutional reforms. The charge that the mapping 'craze' has diverted attention away from other pressing issues --like political organisation, tenure reform, legal changes and national policy reforms-- has some weight. However, the lessons are being learned fast and a more skilled and mature mapping 'movement' is emerging as a result. By Marcus Colchester, Forest Peoples Programme, e-mail: marcus@fppwrm.gn.apc.org Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 63, October 2002.
Conservation through the establishment of 'National Parks' was an idea born in the United States during the 19th century at a time when it was waging war on Indians and colonizing the 'Wild West'. The world's first National Park, Yosemite, was established on the lands of the Miwok people after a bitter war and was followed by the eviction of the remaining people from their land. Setting up the park at Yellowstone also triggered conflict with the local Indians. Nearly all the main National Parks in the USA today are inhabited or claimed by indigenous peoples. Yet according to US law these areas are 'wildernesses', defined by the US Wilderness Act as places 'where man himself is a visitor who does not remain'. It is this wilderness model, exported by western conservationists, that became the dominant approach to nature conservation throughout the tropics during the era of 'development' after the second world war. Though fundamental to much western thinking about nature, many indigenous peoples reject the notion of wilderness, as Jakob Malas a Khomani hunter from the Kalahari, whose lands were classified as the Gemsbok National Park, has noted: "The Kalahari is like a big farmyard. It is not a wilderness to us. We know every plant, animal and insect, and know how to use them. No other people could ever know and love this farm like us." Ruby Dunstan, of the Nl'aka'pamux people of the Stein Valley in Alberta, Canada, who have been fighting to prevent the logging of their ancestral lands, has likewise remarked: "I never thought of the Stein Valley as a wilderness. My Dad used to say 'that's our pantry'. We knew about all the plants and animals, when to pick, when to hunt. We knew because we were taught every day. It's like we were pruning everyday... But some of the white environmentalists seemed to think if something was declared a wilderness, no-one was allowed inside because it was so fragile. So they have put a fence around it, or maybe around themselves." The results of the imposition of the wilderness model are shocking. Millions of indigenous people have been evicted from their lands. Millennial systems of natural resource management disrupted and destroyed. Communities impoverished and deracinated. Rights trampled and colonial forms of administration and enforcement imposed. Getting sound data on the scale of these evictions is hard, they don't get recorded in the 'red data' books, but in India alone it is estimated that 600,000 'tribal' people have been expelled from their lands to make way for protected areas. These impositions have also bred conflict. Protected areas imposed against the will of the local people become management nightmares, conservation fortresses laid siege by local people who have to 'squat' and 'poach' to stay alive. Ironically, too, the expulsions of human settlements may even impoverish the biodiversity of local areas, many of which were managed landscapes not wildernesses, where customary land use systems helped sustain ecosystem diversity and multiplied the niches for wild animals and plants. But aren't forests better defended by securing local peoples' rights? Many conservationists don't think so, arguing that native people are no better than anyone else at conserving nature. The fact that, in the past, forests were preserved in indigenous areas, they argue, was mainly due to the lack of transport, low populations due to warfare and disease, and simple technology. Once roads are built, communities pacified, clinics curb child deaths and the people adopt chainsaws and pick-up trucks, indigenous communities are as liable to destroy nature as anyone else, they claim. They point to Indians selling timber from their reserves in Brazil and the depredations of the bush-meat trade in the Congo basin to underline their argument. However, other data support the contrary case. For example only some 5% of the Brazilian Amazon is locked up in Protected Areas, while over 20% is in officially recognized Indian Reserves. Recent research by the Woods Hole Research Center shows that forests in Indian reserves are in good shape and what forest loss has occurred has been mainly caused by illegal invasions, not by the Indians. Most of the big international conservation agencies, like the WWF-Internatiomal, the World Conservation Union and the World Commission on Protected Areas, have now adopted policies that recognize indigenous and 'traditional' peoples' rights and promote their involvement in conservation. In theory, these agencies should no longer be establishing protected areas without first ensuring that the indigenous peoples' land rights are recognized, the people consent to the establishment of protected areas on their lands and they participate fully in management. The Convention on Biological Diversity also makes (somewhat ambiguous) provisions securing the rights of indigenous and local communities. These changed policies recognise a 'new model' of conservation, which promotes community-based conservation as an alternative to the old exclusionary model based on establishing 'wildernesses'. Not surprisingly, perhaps, given their history, it is the large US-based conservation agencies that have been most reluctant to endorse this new approach Despite advances at the policy level, on the ground the situation is not very encouraging. Few governments accept that recognising indigenous peoples' rights is a logical part of their national conservation strategies. Most protected areas continue to be managed in the old way, excluding communities, denying their land and resource rights and obliging their resettlement. In part this is because most developing countries adopted their conservation laws in the 1960s and 1970s, when the exclusionary model of conservation was still being preached. Another reason is that the local personnel of international conservation agencies have often not even been informed about the new policies adopted at headquarters, let alone trained to implement them. Besides, many protected area administrators of the old school are reluctant now to cede power to those they see as truculent native people grown too big for their boots. The colonial mind-set dies hard. It will be some time before these old dinosaurs die out. By: Marcus Colchester,
Forest Peoples Programme, e-mail: marcus@fppwrm.gn.apc.org . Source: WRM's bulletin Nº 62, September 2002.
In May 2002, a number of people attending the 4th Preparatory Meeting for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), decided to group themselves under a common banner in order to influence government delegates on the need for the global community to recognize community-based and indigenous forest management as a viable tool for alleviating poverty and sustaining the Earth's environment. After just a few days of organizing --and despite warnings that they were beginning their efforts too late-- they were successful in securing this recognition in text being negotiated by the delegates. The Global Caucus on Community-Based Forest Management was thus born. The Caucus, which currently includes more than 200 members from over 30 countries held again a number of meetings and carried out numerous activities some months later at the Johannesburg Summit. Rumours about the Caucus' effectiveness spread, and it was invited to facilitate an open forum on forests, the results of which was formally transmitted to the UN. The Caucus also spent time strategizing for the future, exploring goals such as: 1) Encourage national governments and international agencies to: - Strengthen local
and community governance 2) Achieve recognition for community-based and indigenous forestry as a viable tool for achieving sustainable development, both at home and internationally. 3) Monitor, ensure, and evaluate the implementation of international commitments to community-based and indigenous forestry. 4) Secure political, monetary, and technical support --and respect-- from international agencies and organizations, and home governments. 5) Enable practitioners of community-based forest management to share knowledge and experiences, and provide them with a meaningful voice in international discussions, for example by improving civil society participation in United Nations Forum on Forests and the Collaborative Partnership on Forests. 6) Serve as a resource for governments, organizations, and people interested in supporting community-based forestry. 7) Support people and organisations working on related issues, including (but not limited to) land rights, environmental justice, and sustainable agriculture and fisheries. 8) Work closely with other forest groups, such as Global Forest Coalition and World Rainforest Movement, and support colleagues working in related areas, including (but not limited to) land rights, environmental justice, and sustainable agriculture and fisheries. At the last meeting, the Caucus agreed to establish the following provisional regional nodes for the next 6-8 months: ASIA/PACIFIC In the coming months and years, Caucus members look forward to joining forces to support community-based and indigenous forestry worldwide, through such activities as sharing knowledge and skills, collaborating on the ground, and providing a meaningful voice for forest peoples in policy development. Some Caucus members have already begun working together on community-based monitoring projects, the challenges of protected areas, and organizing events for the World Forestry Congress in Quebec City next September. To join the Caucus,
just send a blank e-mail to globalcbfm-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Source: WRM's bulletin
Nº 63, October 2002. |
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