Self‐Determination or Environmental Determinism for Indigenous Peoples in Tropical Forest Conservation

Abstract

Advocates of people-free parks argue that human occupation of tropical forests inevitably results in a loss of biodiversity, notably through the elimination of top predators and the consequent disruption of ecosystems. Schwartzman et al. (this issue) do a good job countering this simplistic view, both by questioning its empirical basis and by arguing that protected areas need human occupants to defend them. In an increasingly globalized and liberalized world, conservationists cannot rely on beleaguered state bureaucracies to defend isolated, protected areas of high biodiversity (Colchester 1998 b ). Strictly protected areas need to be implanted within much larger managed landscapes occupied by human beings who also care about the environment and the well-being of future generations. The actual relations between local communities and their natural environments are, of course, extremely diverse and vary not just between societies and over time but also between different localities. Indigenous peoples, as a polythetic and self-ascribed class of human societies, may be more respectful of their local environments than most societies, owing to their close ties with their ancestral lands, their common property management regimes, and their sense of holding lands in trust for future generations (Ostrom 1990; Kempf 1993; Western & Wright 1994; Kothari et al. 1996; Stevens 1997). Conservationists, whatever their misgivings about the abilities of indigenous peoples to manage their environments sustainably, have to start their interventions with the reality that exists on the ground (West & Brechin 1991). It is now recognized that as many as 85% of the world’s protected areas are inhabited by indigenous peoples (Alcorn 2000), and most remaining areas of tropical forests with high biodiversity are also owned or claimed by them (Weber et al. 2000). It makes more sense for conservationists to work with these peoples than to cast them into the role of environmental villains and expel them from their homelands. To choose the latter course is a sure route to social conflict and political instability (Colchester 1994; Ghimire & Pimbert 1997). There are other compelling reasons that conservationists should collaborate with indigenous peoples, not least because to do otherwise would be to violate international law. Indigenous peoples’ rights, inter alia , to the use, ownership, management, and control of their traditional lands and territories are recognized in International Labour Organisation Convention 169 (International Labour Organisation 1989). Their right to self-determination has been acknowledged by the United Nations Subcommittee on the Elimination of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities and the United Nations Human Rights Committee (Kambel & MacKay 1999). The Convention on Biological Diversity, signed into being in 1992 and now ratified by 171 countries, likewise emphasizes the need to protect customary use of biological resources. In 1994 the World Conservation Union (1994) revised its system of protected-area categories to allow others, including indigenous peoples and not just state agencies, to own and manage protected areas. The existing and emerging rights of indigenous peoples in international law have been endorsed by mainstream conservation organisations such as the WorldWide Fund for Nature (International) (1996) and the World Conservation Union (1997 a , 1997 b ). Recently, the World Commission on Protected Areas et al. (1999) published guidelines for recognizing indigenous rights in protected areas.