 |
Volume 5, Number 1 Pages: 98 thru 149 |
Conservation by Self-Determination
in
Central America
Addressing the Global Biocultural Diversity Crisis from an Alternative Development Paradigm
Danielle Elford
Queensland University, Australia
© 2002 Center for World Indigenous Studies
|
In this essay I undertake to investigate the need for, and the theory
behind, conservation by self-determination through a regional focus on Central
America. “Conservation by self-determination” is a program of action that
addresses the global biocultural diversity crisis.
Biocultural diversity encompasses biological diversity, cultural
diversity and the geographically coterminous, mutually dependent relationship
between them. The current biocultural diversity crisis is a consequence of, as
well as a fundamental precondition for, conventional development or
modernisation. This is because the
normative basis of modernisation is dependent upon a product-oriented,
capitalist market economy and is based upon a “top down” approach (Rahman
1993:216-217).
Conservation by self-determination is founded in an alternative
development paradigm: one advocating sustainable or ecodevelopment based upon
“bottom up” or “grassroots” initiatives and recognising that ‘[w]hat
matters in development is whether the capacity of the people of a region to meet
their own needs, solve their own problems, guarantee the ecological survival of
the region and enjoy life is approaching a satisfactory state at a satisfactory
pace’ (Trainer 1995:38).
The first part of this paper defines the biocultural diversity crisis and
reviews how it has been addressed to date.
Initially, the crisis was viewed only in terms of the conservation of
biological diversity, and addressed through the creation of protected areas such
as national parks. More recently however, the broader implications of the
biocultural diversity crisis have begun to receive international attention, and
a possible relationship between indigenous peoples and conservation is
increasingly being recognised. Modern
conservation initiatives can currently be divided into three broad approaches in
relation to their significance for indigenous nations: classic nature
conservation, green capitalism and social ecology.
A theoretical and empirical investigation of these approaches and how
they have been applied in Central America however, demonstrates that, as they
are currently implemented, none effectively promote biocultural diversity.
The second part of this paper suggests an alternative approach to
conservation: conservation by self-determination.
This approach emerges from the social ecology approach, but aims to more
effectively incorporate indigenous self-determination.
In this way it becomes socio-political,
as well as a conservation strategy. It is this merging of conservation and
indigenous peoples that creates the potential to promote biocultural diversity.
Conservation by self-determinaton is examined theoretically, complex
issues inherent in its framework are discussed, and two case studies of attempts
by indigenous nations to implement this approach in Central America are
presented for comparative analysis. These
initiatives of the Kuna in Panama and the Miskito in Nicaragua have taken place
in different historical and political contexts, and had different outcomes.
The aim of this comparative analysis is to identify those conditions
which facilitate the implementation of conservation by self-determination, and
to critically determine the potential of conservation by self-determination as
environmental and political action.
This paper proposes a list of both
internal and external conditions conducive to the implementation of conservation
by self-determination, and concludes that , if these conditions can be met, then
conservation by self-determination has potential as a theoretically
grounded program of action capable of changing conditions, engendering new
understandings, and contributing to the
emancipation of the oppressed nations of the Fourth World. THE
GLOBAL BIOCULTURAL DIVERSITY CRISIS Biocultural
Diversity
Biocultural diversity is a
term that amalgamates three concepts: biological
diversity, cultural diversity and the relationship between them (McNeely
1992:38). The term biological
diversity, or biodiversity, refers to ‘the variety of life forms, the
ecological roles they perform, and the genetic diversity they contain’ (Wilcox
1984:640). Global biodiversity is represented by the total number of species,
both wild and domesticated, that exist on earth (Nietschmann 1992:1).
Estimates indicate that anywhere between five and 50 million species
exist, only about 1.4 million of which have been recorded (May 1992:18; McNeely et
al. 1990:17). It has been
estimated that global biodiversity is being lost at a rate as high as 30,000
times the rate of biodiversity loss in a state of unperturbed nature (Gray
1991:ii). Since ecosystems
interconnect, environmental destruction within a single ecosystem has serious
consequences not only locally, but for global biodiversity as a whole.
This is the global biodiversity
crisis (Gray 1991:ii).
Cultural diversity refers to
‘the variety of human life ways, the social and
ecological roles they perform, and the knowledge they contain’ (Nietschmann
1992:1). Global cultural diversity
is represented by the total number of distinct nations on earth (Nietschmann
1992:2). Nations
are made up of “one people” based on common ancestry, history, society,
institutions, language, ideology, territory and often religion (Nietschmann
1994). They are fundamentally
different from States which are
centralised political systems that use civilian and military bureaucracies to
enforce certain institutions and laws, and sometimes a certain language and
religion, without regard for the pre-existing nations within their boundaries (Nietschmann
1987).
There are currently some 190 internationally recognised States and
between 5,000 and 8,000 distinct nations, most of which are not recognised by,
and have not consented to be part of, the States which occupy them (Nietschmann
1992:1-2). Thus, nations of
indigenous people, who number between 200 and 600 million (Kemf 1993:4) and
constitute only 4 percent of the global population (Burger 1987:11), represent
90 to 95 percent of the world’s cultural diversity (Barzetti 1993:10; Gray
1991:8). Within the last 150 years, between 30 and 50 million indigenous people
have perished (Kemf 1993:4). Moreover,
surviving indigenous nations world-wide continue to lose, or are threatened with
losing, their territories, their cultures, and in some cases, their lives.
This is the global cultural
diversity crisis (Gray 1991:ii).
The homelands of the world’s surviving indigenous nations cover almost
20 percent of the planet (Martin 1993:xvi).
Many are located in more inaccessible regions such as tropical forests,
mountains, deserts and tundra (Dasmann 1991:11), and probably half are located
on islands and along coasts, particularly in tropical waters (Nietschmann
1992:1). These environments are also those that shelter most of the planet’s
surviving biodiversity. The geographically
coterminous relationship between biological and cultural diversity is
expressed as the Rule of Indigenous Environments:
‘Where there are indigenous
peoples with a homeland there are still biologically-rich environments’ (Nietschmann
1992:3). This is no coincidence. The
reality is that ‘many of the same forces that degrade environments and reduce
biological diversity, also displace, disperse, and destroy cultural diversity,
and whole nations’ (Nietschmann 1992:2).
Consequently, the homelands of suppressed or displaced indigenous nations
are usually characterised by degraded environments.
Biological and cultural diversity coexist because they are mutually
dependent (Nietschmann 1992:2). This
interdependence is a product of the relationship between indigenous peoples and
the environment, the essence of which is a connection between people and land
that is based on social and cultural, as well as economic, considerations
(Clarke 1995:8).
Indigenous peoples traditionally depend upon their environment for
subsistence. Consequently, over
thousands of years, they have developed finely tuned
knowledge of local ecosystems and their processes (Clarke 1995; Posey
1989:242; Schmink et al. 1992:3).
They have also developed culturally
encoded resource management practices that are well adapted to the
sustainable use of these ecosystems (Alcorn 1993:425; Balée 1989; Clay 1988;
Davis and Wali 1994:4; Oldfield and Alcorn 1991a:120; Redford 1991:47).
In the process of using and managing their resources indigenous peoples
interact with and modify the environment (Clay 1988; Gray 1991:21-22; Redford
1991:46; Redford and Stearman 1993a:252). While
historical evidence suggests that ‘in their efforts to make a living,
[indigenous peoples]...at times, degraded the ecosystems in which they lived’
(Clarke 1995:5; also McNeely 1994a:10,14), Wilcox and Duin report that: It
has become a more or less accepted principle among ecologists that moderate
levels of physical disturbance, such as often imposed by traditional
forms of resource exploitation, enhances ecological complexity, landscape
heterogeneity, and species diversity, thus
promoting overall biodiversity (1995:50, emphasis added).
Scientific findings indicate that through thousands of years of
interaction between humans and their environment, virtually all terrestrial
habitats have been inhabited, modified, or managed (Balée 1989; Deihl 1985:37;
Dufour 1990:658; Gomez-Pompa and Kaus 1992:273; McNeely 1993:251, 1994; McNeely et
al. 1990:51; West and Brechin 1991:385).
The most pervasive modifications arising through indigenous interaction
with forest ecosystems, for example, have been attributed to agroforestry
(McNeely 1994a:7).
Agroforestry is based on
land-use systems in which numerous annual crops and/or animals are deliberately
raised interspersed with native ones (Clarke and Thaman 1993; Clay 1988:32;
Nations and Komer 1983a:235; Redford et
al. 1992:333). It is a process
that takes advantage of natural environmental variation and relies on native
successional processes to transform natural forests into harvestable ones
(Alcorn 1990; McNeely 1994a:7). The
focus of agroforestry is whole landscapes or agroecosystems (Oldfield and Alcorn
1991b), as well as individual species, and its objective is to maintain and
enhance the natural capabilities of the land (Clarke 1995:7).
In addition to the intensification of agricultural production, landscape
enhancement entails aesthetically “improving” the land in ways compatible
with cultural perceptions of beauty (Clarke 1995:7).
Agroforestry practices, such as selective burning and other forms of
forest clearance, create a mosaic of forests in many different states of
ecological succession and under differing degrees of management (Dufour 1990;
McNeely 1994a:10). The changing
composition of succeeding forests promotes
landscape biodiversity (McNeely 1994a). Agroforestry also promotes
cultural diversity through its contribution to agrodiversity:
the variety of ways in which farmers manage diverse natural ecosystems
for production (Clarke 1995:7).
Since agroforestry involves protecting, sparing and planting specific
crops, the species composition of mature forests in many parts of the world may
well be the result of past human action (Dufour 1990; Gomez-Pompa and Kaus
1992:274; McNeely 1994a). Thus,
just as indigenous peoples are dependent upon the environment for subsistence,
many of the world’s ecosystems are dependent upon continued interaction with
local human populations for their long term maintenance (McNeely et
al. 1990:51; West and Brechin 1991:385).
Such observations concerning the interdependence of biological and
cultural diversity reveal the notion of “pristine wilderness” to be a
largely Western construct (Deihl 1985:37; McNeely 1994a; Redford and Stearman
1993a:253). Since the majority of
the world’s ecosystems are actually at least partially anthropogenic, its
biologically rich environments must be recognised as ‘humanized, cultural
landscapes and seascapes’ (Hyndman 1994:299). The
Global Biocultural Diversity Crisis
The greatest threat to global biocultural diversity is best explained
through a comparison of the relationships between indigenous nation peoples and
the environment, and State people and the environment.
Dasmann (1991:7) sees these relationships as a dichotomy between
“ecosystem people” and “biosphere people”.
Ecosystem people are ‘people who are dependent on and have learned to
live in a sustainable manner within a natural ecosystem or group of closely
related ecosystems.’ In contrast,
biosphere people are ‘those who, potentially at least, draw on the resources
of the global economy or from the entire biosphere to maintain ways of life that
are not necessarily sustainable and may be destructive to any one ecosystem’ (Dasmann
1991:7).
Geopolitically, these groups translate into nations and States. State
environments, dominated by State culture and typically large and dense
numbers of State people, are characterised by ‘environmentally unsustainable
centrifugal economies, biological impoverishment, and, most often a razed
landscape’ (Nietschmann 1992:3). Nation
environments on the other hand, typically dominated by low densities of long
resident indigenous peoples, are characterised by ‘ecologically adapted,
centripetal cultures and economies, surviving biological richness, and
variegated, healthy landscapes’ (Nietschmann 1992:3).
In sum, since ‘the loss of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity
both stems from and invites the loss of cultural diversity’ (World Resources
Institute et al. 1992:11), the
greatest threat to biocultural diversity is that posed by the world’s States.
While most nations have no need to leave their territories to take
resources from others, most States survive solely by the unsanctioned invasion
and takeover of the territories and resources of nations (Nietschmann 1992:2-3).
Such invasion is rationalised as “development” under the normative
modernisation paradigm. As
biologically rich environments are ravaged to meet the demands of States,
established indigenous lifeways can no longer be maintained, indigenous
ecological knowledge and resource management practices are lost, and ultimately,
global cultural diversity is reduced (Hyndman 1994:297).
Conversely, as indigenous nations are destroyed or expelled from their
cultural landscapes, processes such as agroforestry, which have contributed to
the maintenance of indigenous ecosystems, are replaced by processes such as agrodeforestation
(Clarke 1991): the depletion of
useful species from cultural landscapes (Hyndman 1994:297).
Furthermore, as the stewardship of biological diversity is removed from
indigenous nations, biologically rich environments are left undefended against
States, whose subsequent invasion and exploitation further contributes to the
loss of biological diversity. This
is the global biocultural diversity
crisis. Biocultural
Diversity in Central America
Central America, the 500,000 km2 isthmus incorporating the
States of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and
Panama, forms the land bridge between the two largest terrestrial ecosystems of
the Western Hemisphere: North and
South America (Heckadon 1992:5). A
central mountain range, covering three quarters of the isthmus, runs its entire
length and divides the region into three geographic zones:
the humid Caribbean Slope, the drier Pacific Slope and the Central
Mountainous Zone (Heckadon 1992:8).
Central America’s geographical and climatic variation, having given
rise to 20 vegetational and six soil zones, and its location as the mingling
place for the species of two continents, have contributed significantly to its
extraordinary biological diversity
(Chapin 1992a:63; Heckadon 1992:5-6). Its
surviving tropical forests are particularly
rich in biodiversity and have been referred to as ‘among the richest habitats
on earth’ (Leonard 1987:26). Its
2,000 km Caribbean coast is also exceptionally diverse, being ‘the single most
important area of marine and coastal biological diversity in the Americas’ (Nietschmann
1992:5).
It is estimated that when the first Europeans arrived in Central America,
the region was home to between 5.6 and 7 million indigenous people (Chapin
1992b:232; Woodward 1992:643). Soon
thereafter, fewer than one million had survived the disease, warfare, and
slavery of Spanish colonialism (Chapin 1992a:64; Woodward 1992:643).
Today, between 4 and 6 million of Central America’s inhabitants are
indigenous. Cultural
diversity remains considerable and is represented by over 43 distinct
indigenous nations whose homelands span 40 percent of the region (Chapin
1992a:65-66, 1992b:232; Nietschmann 1988:280).
Table 1 documents the
estimated population of each indigenous nation.
Central America’s demographic profile reveals that these 6 million
nation people comprise 20% of the population,
while 30 million, or 80% of the population, are State people. TABLE
1.
THE INDIGENOUS NATIONS OF CENTRAL AMERICA:
LOCALITY AND ESTIMATED POPULATION
(After Grosvenor et al. 1992)
Adams (1992:501-503) notes that the post-invasion increase in Central
America’s indigenous population has not been evenly distributed.
While Guatemala’s indigenous population has recovered 225 percent, for
example, Costa Rica has less than 7.5
percent of its previous population.
Such imbalance can be attributed in part to the geographic
marginalisation that Central America’s indigenous nations have suffered.
Historically, while the majority of Central America’s non-indigenous
population inhabited the Pacific Slope, and to a lesser extent, the Mountainous
Zone, the Caribbean Slope and parts of the Mountainous Zone remained relatively
isolated. Consequently, it was to
these “regions of refuge” within their homelands that surviving indigenous
peoples, escaped black slaves, and mixtures of the two, retreated (Chapin
1992a:64). Similarly, it is largely
only within these areas that contemporary indigenous nations have been able to
maintain autonomous lifeways (Chapin 1992b:232-233).
Much of the indigenous population of Central America currently occupies
two fairly isolated regions: the
Guatemalan highlands and the Caribbean coast.
The highlands of Guatemala are the territory of 22 Mayan nations whose 3
to 4.5 million indigenous members make up 35 to 50 percent of Guatemala’s
population (Chapin 1992a:66; Nietschmann 1989:50).
Likewise, 70 percent of Central America’s Caribbean coast is the
territory of 10 indigenous nations (Nietschmann 1992:5).
These are also the regions that shelter most of Central America’s
surviving biological diversity.
Conversely, the Pacific Slope, and much of the Mountainous Zone, which
together currently support most of Central America’s total population of
around 30 million (Heckadon 1992:11; Utting 1993:4), are regions in which
indigenous nations have been suppressed or displaced and the environment has
been largely degraded (Houseal et al.
1985:10). The 500,000 strong Pipil
and Lenca nations of El Salvador, for example, have been stripped of much of
their traditional culture, language and territory, and the State flatly denies
their existence (Chapin 1989, 1993:224). Predictably,
El Salvador has no surviving forests (Nations and Komer 1987:162).
Thus, in accordance with the aforementioned Rule of Indigenous
Environments, most of Central America’s remaining biologically rich
environments are geographically
coterminous with its surviving indigenous nations.
Central American evidence also demonstrates that this coterminous
relationship is one of interdependence.
Despite having entered into the cash economy to varying degrees, most
contemporary indigenous nations with a homeland who survive in Central America
retain extensive ecological knowledge and continue to practice a mixed
subsistence economy based upon migratory agriculture, fishing, hunting and
gathering. In short, they maintain
a dependence upon their environment (Davis and Wali 1994; Harp 1994; Houseal et
al. 1985; Kutay 1991; Nietschmann 1973).
Conversely, indigenous environments in Central America continue to be
humanised, cultural landscapes and seascapes whose composition may be dependent
upon the maintenance of indigenous practices (Gomez-Pompa and Kaus 1992:274;
Park 1992:33). As McNeely observes:
The
current composition of the vegetation in Central America...is the legacy of past
civilizations, the heritage of cultivated fields and managed forests abandoned
hundreds of years ago. ...[M]any of the tree species now dominant in the mature
vegetation ...were and still are the same species protected, spared, or planted
in the land cleared for crops as part of the practice of shifting agriculture
(1994a:10-11, emphasis added). The
Biocultural Diversity Crisis in Central America
During the sixteenth century, when European colonial powers reached
Central America, the region’s forests covered 400,000 km2 (Nations
and Komer 1983a:232). Although some
Pacific Slope deforestation occurred during the subsequent periods of colonial
domination and independence, the
environmental situation remained fairly stable until the 1940s.
At this time, intensive resource exploitation accelerated as the new
technology of heavy-duty vehicles and machinery facilitated road building and
land clearing, making the extraction of oil, minerals, and most significantly,
timber, from isolated areas economically viable (Chapin 1992a:64).
Since then, more than two thirds of Central America’s rainforests have
been cleared (Nations and Komer 1983a:232).
A significant threat to indigenous peoples in Central America is the
destruction of their environment. In
accordance with the theory that States pose the main threat to global
biocultural diversity, the threat to Central America’s indigenous peoples is
posed primarily by the non-sustainable norms of modernisation and development
pursued by the States within which indigenous nations are encapsulated (Halle
1992).
This type of development drives the number one type of environmental
destruction in Central America: deforestation.
Deforestation is a three stage process (Chapin
1992a:64-65; Myers 1981; Nations and Komer 1982, 1987).
Initially, external interests enter the forest to extract valuable
hardwoods and sub-surface resources. Even
when selective, this type of resource extraction damages remaining forest and
denies indigenous resource rights. Once
logging roads provide access to the area, State populations of landless
peasants, driven by population pressures and inequitable land distribution, and
often encouraged by State governments, colonise, clear, and cultivate the land.
Since rainforest soils are not highly fertile, they soon become depleted
and new land must be cleared. As
these colonists advance, indigenous nations are further deprived of their
resources, expelled from their land, and pushed further back into the forest.
Finally, as colonising peasants are forced to move on to new land, the
areas they have cleared are bought up by cattle ranchers and turned into
pasture. Rainforest soils are
unable to support even pastures for long however, and soon these too become
weeded, eroded wastelands which are eventually abandoned.
This “development” process is clearly not ecologically viable.
Nor is it economically efficient. Cattle-raising
on rainforest soils offers a much lower production rate than many other food
production systems, particularly the indigenous agroforestry systems of the
region (Nations and Komer 1987:162-163). Furthermore,
neither indigenous peoples nor local colonists benefit from beef production.
As beef production increases, local per capita beef consumption actually
decreases because most is produced for export. Ninety percent of Central
America’s beef exports go to the United States.
There, comparatively high prices are paid for lean grass-fed, as opposed
to grain-fed, beef by hamburger manufacturers who supply the fast-food industry
(Myers 1981; Salati and Vose 1983:68). Myers
(1981:8) calls this protein flight ‘the “hamburgerization” of the
rainforests.’
As a result of this process, the rate of deforestation in Central America
has increased significantly every decade for the past 50 years (Chapin
1992b:233). As the forests which form the wildlife corridor between the Americas
disappear, Central America’s biological diversity is being lost forever.
As Central America’s indigenous nations subsequently lose their
homelands, the region’s cultural diversity is also being lost forever.
This is Central America’s biocultural diversity crisis. ATTEMPTS
TO ADDRESS THE CRISIS THROUGH PROTECTED AREAS
Since the late 19th century, aspects of the global biocultural diversity
crisis have been internationally recognised.
Comprehension of the problem, however, has been largely limited to the
biological diversity crisis, and attempts to redress it have been channelled
through conservation initiatives. Accordingly,
when the term conservation was
coined in the United States in 1907, the objective was to protect “nature”
(biodiversity) from humans. This
objective was based on the premise that ‘man (sic.) disrupts the fundamental
harmony or balance of nature’ (Smith 1971:4).
Since its conception in 1832 (see Dasmann 1988; Harmon 1987; Nash 1970),
the protected area has been the
predominant in-situ conservation
strategy.
In 1872, the first Western protected area, Yellowstone National Park, was
established (Nash 1970:734). By the 1920s, national parks had been established
on all continents, and in 1969, the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN) defined a national park
as: ...a
relatively large area which is not
materially altered by human exploitation and occupation, and where the
highest competent authority of the country has taken steps to prevent or
eliminate exploitation or occupation in the whole area (McNeely 1994b:392,
emphasis added).
Predictably, as this Western ideal was adopted world-wide, serious
contradictions between conservationist rhetoric and what was practical in the
field emerged (Hough 1988:129-130). Since
most biologically rich areas are
occupied or exploited, and thus materially altered by humans, eliminating
occupation and resource exploitation created serious conflicts with local
people, often indigenous nations
Fortunately, since the 1970s, it has gradually been recognised that the
goal of conservation should be the protection of biocultural
diversity, and conservation has been redefined as: ...the
management of human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest
sustainable benefit to present generations while maintaining its potential to
meet the needs and aspirations of future generations (International Union for
the Conservation of Nature 1980:2).
Consequently, an increasing number of conservation initiatives have moved
away from the model of protected areas as “isolated islands” (McNeely
1994b:399) towards one oriented towards protecting the environment and
meeting human needs (Hales 1989:141; Ishwaran 1992:18).
An essential difference between the many types of protected area now in
existence is the degree of human resource use and environmental alteration which
occurs (Brechin et al. 1991:7). Indigenous
Peoples and Protected Areas:
Evidence from Central America
Since biological and cultural diversity are coterminous, indigenous
homelands, harbouring diverse and intact ecosystems, are often targeted for
protected area designation. Current protected area initiatives consider the
rights and interests of indigenous peoples to differing degrees.
Gray (1991:56) proposes that modern conservationists can be divided into
three categories with respect to their position regarding the relationship
between indigenous peoples and protected areas:
“classic nature conservationists”, “green capitalists” and
“social ecologists”. He also
identifies three parallel groups amongst those who seek solutions to the
problems faced by indigenous nations: “isolationists”,
“pro-indigenous capitalists”, and “proponents of self-determination”.
All of these positions address threats to the environment and indigenous
nations with the same sense of urgency, however each emphasises a different set
of priorities. Classic
Nature Conservation
Classic nature conservationists
advocate a preservationist approach to conservation.
They see the environment targeted for protection as
“pristine wilderness”, and all people, including the area’s
indigenous inhabitants, as destructive and predatory.
Their solution to environmental destruction is to guard endangered
species and non-renewable resources by excluding all human activity from
protected areas (Gray 1991:56; Hyndman 1994:296).
In so guarding the environment, classic nature conservationists support
the creation of national parks based
on the Yellowstone model (Kemf 1993:6; Lewis 1990:18). Yellowstone National Park
was established on the territory of the Crow, Blackfeet and Shoshone-Bannock
indigenous nations. Despite the
fact that some history books report that when the park was created the Shoshone
willingly accepted an invitation to move to a reservation in 1871, more recent
accounts note that, in 1877, 300 people were killed in a series of battles, and
in 1886, the park’s administration was finally turned over to the United
States army (Kemf 1993:5-6). In
accordance with this “model”, it has been common practice to first establish
national parks, and later to inform local, indigenous landowners that they will
have to move or follow new rules (Clay 1985:2; Deihl 1985:37; Gray 1991:iii;
Hyndman 1994:296; Kemf 1993:6; Lewis 1990:18; Nietschmann 1991a:373; Poole
1989:25-26; Utting 1993:105).
This lack of consideration for indigenous peoples inherent in the classic
nature conservationist approach is evident throughout Central America, where 80%
of all recognised protected areas are inhabited by indigenous peoples who have
been subjected to some type of land/resource use restriction (IWGIA 1996:72).
The Honduran government, for example, has recently decreed the formation
of two national parks on Garífuna territory: Cayos
Cochinos, comprising 18 small islands, and Punta
Sul Park, which incorporates
five communities. These communities
are living in fear of imminent expulsion (IWGIA 1996:72-73).
Parallel to the classic conservationist position is that of the isolationists
which argues that indigenous peoples need a large land base upon which they can
be protected from encapsulation into the modern world system (Gray 1991:56;
Hyndman 1994:296). This position
has been rejected as an impossible ‘zoo-like arrangement of an enforced
primitive state’ (Goodland 1988:403).
Dispossessing indigenous peoples of their territory, and/or restricting
or prohibiting their access to resources may have negative effects on both
indigenous peoples and the environment. In
terms of the environment, ‘[e]fforts to totally exclude human influence from
“natural” ecosystems, as in strictly protected national parks, can lead to a
situation that has not occurred for thousands of years and will have unknown
ecological implications’ (McNeely et al.1990:51).
For indigenous peoples, the consequences of classic nature conservation
are devastating. When established
lifeways and livelihoods can no longer be maintained due to the loss of land and
resources, indigenous nations in many cases suffer from social collapse and
greater cultural and economic dependency (Gray 1991:24-28; Hyndman 1994:297; Rao
and Geisler 1990). This situation
contributes to the erosion of indigenous ecological knowledge and established
resource management practices, and ultimately, to the loss of cultural diversity
(Hyndman 1994:297).
Furthermore, indigenous peoples’ subsequent resentment toward an
imposed protected area is likely to result in social conflict, clandestine
activities, non-cooperation or apathy, all of which will ultimately undermine
the possibility of achieving the goals of biodiversity conservation
(Lewis 1990:19; Rao and Geisler 1990:21,22; Utting 1994:257).
In Belize, for example, the management strategy of Crooked
Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, established in 1984, forbids all hunting within the
park. Since no alternative is
available to local people who depend upon waterfowl and wild game for protein,
many ‘have begun to hunt the
endangered and protected animals to demonstrate their dissatisfaction’
(Steinberg 1993:260).
Costa Rica’s protected area system, covering 30 percent of the State (Budowski
1992:50-51), and often held up as a model for other countries in Latin America (Barzetti
1993:101,105; MacFarland et al.
1982:592), also demonstrates the fundamental weaknesses of the classic approach
to conservation. There too, serious
conflicts have arisen as indigenous peoples have responded to the inconsiderate
way the State has established protected areas, often without socioeconomic
studies of peoples likely to be affected, and rarely offering alternative land
or employment to displaced peoples. The
State’s process of land acquisition which is often not financially viable, and
the limits placed on resource use in protected areas, have also been problematic
(Utting 1993).
When Cahuita National Park,
in 1970, became the first legally established national park in Costa Rica, for
example, the financing necessary to compensate Garífuna landowners for the loss
of their land was unavailable to the National Parks Service.
Twelve years later the owners had still not been paid.
As a result, the Garífuna see the park as yet another imposition by
outside authorities on their lives, and serious conflicts between park
authorities and local communities continue (Kutay 1991; MacFarland et
al. 1982:595).
The negative effects of the classic approach to conservation are
compounded by the fact that the Costa Rican government’s primary strategy for
dealing with conflicts over national park resources is to ignore them,
neglecting to enforce environmental laws, policies and regulations (Utting
1994:235). This, accentuated by
limited human and financial resources, has meant that protected area status
often exists only on paper (Utting 1994:239).
This situation is common throughout Central America (Green 1990:123-124).
Since the aim of conservation is to benefit both present and future
generations, the classic nature conservationist’s perspective, although still
powerful, is now discredited (Gray 1991:26; Hyndman 1994:297).
It extinguishes the rights of indigenous peoples, contributing to the
ultimate collapse of their relationship with the environment, and clearly fails
to recognise the significance of biocultural diversity.
Rather, it contributes to its destruction. Green
Capitalism
Unlike classic conservationists, green
capitalists recognise the significance of biocultural diversity and support
the integration of conservation and development. Through the promotion of the
economic value of healthy forests, green capitalists create an economic and
ecological argument for conservation strategies that support local sustainable
resource extraction for the international market (Clay 1992:402; Gray 1991:56).
Green capitalists are aligned with pro-indigenous
capitalists, who argue that indigenous peoples need to penetrate
international markets in order to obtain the capital they need to survive and
fight for their homelands (Gray 1991:56; Hyndman 1994:296).
Green capitalists advocate protected area strategies that involve
indigenous communities, sustainably harvesting rainforest products for the
international market. They use
economic incentive and protected areas called extractive
reserves to compensate indigenous land owners for their labour, surplus
subsistence goods and other commodities produced through the utilisation of
indigenous ecological knowledge and sustainable harvesting techniques (Gray
1991:35-36; Hyndman 1994:298).
One example of the green capitalist approach in Central America is
currently operating in the Uaxactun-Carmelita
Extractive Reserve in northern Guatemala’s Petén region.
This reserve, based on the extraction of three renewable resources:
chicle gum, xate palm and
allspice (Nations 1992; Reining and Heinzman 1992), is now incorporated into the
Maya Biosphere Reserve which is home to approximately 7,000 people, of which an
estimated 3,000 are Mayan (Chapin 1992a:66; Santiso 1993:8).
In the Petén, the extraction of xate
and allspice has been practiced for at least 30 years, and chicle, for more than
90 years. These products are thus
exploited by a well-established forest culture with considerable knowledge and
experience (Reining and Heinzman 1992:11).
They are currently collected by more than 6000 people (Santiso 1993:6),
many of whom are dependent upon them for a substantial part of their cash
income. Combined, they produce
between US$4 million and US$7 million per year in export revenues for Guatemala
(Nations 1992:209). There is thus a strong economic incentive for conserving the
reserve’s forests.
A substantial number of biologists, anthropologists and indigenous
peoples however, are opposed to green capitalism (Pearce 1990).
They argue, for example, that increased demand for new and exotic
commodities could lead to their over-exploitation (Corry 1993:153), or even
encourage their cultivation as cash crops (Clay 1992:409; Posey 1990:96),
ultimately destroying the ecosystems targeted for protection.
They also argue that green capitalism may not provide indigenous peoples
with a sustainable income when it perpetuates a cycle of economic dependency on
external markets, foreign intermediaries and consumer demands, which neither
indigenous peoples, nor the companies they trade with, can control (Corry
1993:149; IWGIA 1993:8).
Accordingly, in the Petén, it is possible that local economic pressures
will lead to an influx of inexperienced harvesters using non-sustainable
harvesting techniques (Nations 1992:216). Already,
harvesting techniques are inefficient as up to 40 percent of all xate
harvested is discarded once it reaches warehouses (Nations 1992:212).
Furthermore, increased demand for these forest resources has already
resulted in their over-exploitation since ‘so far few products of existing or
potential economic value have been identified, thus concentrating commercial
extraction activities on only a few species’ (Santiso 1993:9).
The danger of over-dependence on three products was demonstrated in the
early 1980s when sorva, a chicle substitute from Brazil, led to the temporary
collapse of Guatemala’s chicle industry (Nations 1992:215).
Those in opposition to green capitalism also argue that it only
conditionally recognise the rights of indigenous peoples to the land and
resources they occupy and utilise (Corry 1993:151), and may not strengthen
indigenous peoples’ community-level organisation (Clay 1992, 1993).
It is a paternalistic, top down assumption that indigenous peoples are
primitive capitalists, operating under a capitalist rationality and organised
into communities conducive to forming the types of cooperatives necessary for
this type of project. In reality,
this conventional development model is not necessarily culturally appropriate
for indigenous societies (Gray 1990; IWGIA 1993:9).
Most indigenous peoples targeted for sustainable harvesting practice
kinship modes of production (see Wolf 1982).
These are systems of subsistence production and simple reproduction based
on reciprocity with the internal regulation of production, distribution and
consumption (Hyndman et al. 1994).
When they enter into the international market these indigenous economies
often clash with capitalist relations of production, and the economy is taken
out of indigenous social control. Since
sustainability based on internal subsistence production is very different from
that controlled by consumer demands, indigenous economies encountering the
market are faced with a fundamental contradiction between limiting and
increasing demand (Gray 1990).
Consequently, introducing economic incentives can radically change the
values and priorities of indigenous communities (Clay 1992:410), contributing to
internal division, and the breakdown of cultural diversity.
Assigning economic exchange value to indigenous resources also detracts
from international recognition of their subsistence use value (Corry 1993:148;
IWGIA 1993:7).
In the Petén, since cooperatives have not been formed among the
harvesters, it is the contractors and exporters who make the real money (Nations
1992:216). Due to inflation, the
harvesters’ real income is decreasing, while exporters are profiting from
stable or increasing international prices (Reining and Heinzman 1992:116).
Thus, extractive reserves as currently implemented under the green
capitalist approach may not be compatible with the conservation of biocultural
diversity. While they may promote
the short term protection of biological diversity, lack of local control means
that the long term protection of the region’s biocultural diversity cannot be
guaranteed.
Another Central American extractive reserve, the Terra
Nova Rain Forest Reserve, established in 1993
in Belize, is based upon an alternative approach to sustainably harvest
indigenous resources (Balick et
al. 1994; Moran 1994:105-106). Terra Nova’s management plan incorporates
the activities of traditional Mayan healers and their students.
Following an indigenous pattern of communally owned and managed
resources, the reserve has been deeded to the Belize Association of Traditional
Healers which represents the region’s indigenous
Mayan nations. Terra Nova is
intended to become a self-supporting extractive reserve through the regulated
harvest of medicinal plants for the local market.
A clinic with a sliding fee scale will also benefit local villagers, at
least 75 percent of whom depend on plant medicines for some aspect of their
primary health care needs.
The reserve has received much support, particularly at the grassroots
level, and the healers’ association is working in collaboration with
scientists, governmental policymakers and the local tourist industry in an
attempt to make Terra Nova the world’s first successful “ethnobiomedical”
extractive reserve. Since, unlike
in the Petén, production and marketing will be strictly under indigenous
control for a local market, Terra Nova may have the potential to truly conserve
biocultural diversity in Belize.
Thus, despite the significant drawbacks of the green capitalist approach,
not all attempts to sustainably harvest indigenous resources will have
detrimental effects on indigenous communities (Gray 1991:41). Given that many
indigenous communities desire interaction with cash economies, achieving this is
dependent upon careful planning and the empowerment of indigenous peoples
(Colchester 1989; Corry 1993; Gray 1990). If
trading is to be culturally appropriate, encourage real economic independence,
and strengthen indigenous communities against immediate local, regional and
national forces, commercialisation must start with the people themselves and the
local market (Corry 1993:148-149; IWGIA 1993:9).
Indigenous communities have had access to extensive trade networks for
centuries (Stiles 1994:106). They can therefore utilise existing relationships
on local and State levels in order to make their own contacts and develop their
own systems of control over marketing channels, processing, and transport
systems (Gray 1990; IWGIA 1993:9). For
this to occur, legal recognition of indigenous rights to land and resources is
essential (Pendelton 1992:256; Stiles 1994:109).
Social Ecology
This second approach to sustainable harvesting is advocated by self-determination
proponents who believe that the indigenous voice is paramount.
They support political empowerment and land rights for indigenous
peoples, which they believe can insure their future (Gray 1991:56; Hyndman
1994:296). Self-determination
proponents are aligned with social
ecologists who believe that there are no other land use models that preserve
ecological stability or biological diversity as efficiently as the established
land use models of indigenous nations (Houseal et
al. 1985:10). Thus, social ecologists emphasise the need for integrating
conservation with ecodevelopment programs (Hyndman 1994:297; Wells and Brandon
1993). Thus, they too
identify the true goal of protected area management as the conservation of
biocultural diversity.
Protected area strategies arising from the social ecology perspective
were internationally recognised in the 1970s when The United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) launched a program
called Man and the Biosphere (MAB),
the first in situ conservation
program for the preservation of cultural
land and seascapes (Oldfield and Alcorn 1991b:44).
MAB’s central component is an international network of biosphere
reserves. Biosphere reserves
are protected areas designed to conserve representative (as opposed to
exceptional) samples of major ecosystems (Eilers 1985:9).
They incorporate resident indigenous communities and aim to promote their
participation in land use and management (Gregg 1991:278).
These objectives are combined within biosphere reserves through the
demarcation of various zones: a
strictly protected “core area”, an adjacent or surrounding “buffer zone”
where limited resource use occurs, and an exterior, often open ended
“transition area” where sustainable resource exploitation by local
communities occurs (Brandon 1991:371; Gregg 1991:279-282; USMAB 1989).
The Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve
in Honduras was, in 1980, the first such reserve established in Central America
(Kolankiewicz 1989:36). Later, in
1982 and 1983 respectively, the La
Amistad and Darién Biosphere
Reserves were established in Costa Rica and Panama.
All three of these reserves incorporate significant indigenous
communities and their homelands (For detailed case studies of these three
biosphere reserves see Glick and Betancourt 1983; Gradwohl and Greenberg
1988:78-80; Houseal et al. 1985;
Kolankiewicz 1989; Olson 1989; Poole 1989:58-62; Torres et
al. 1989.)
The experiences of the now 324 biosphere reserves in 82 States (Semple
1995) have demonstrated that ‘the main problem for all existing biosphere
reserves is that of their proper management’ (Batisse 1993:4). This has been
attributed largely to problems associated with the practical aspects of buffer
zones and local participation (Wells and Brandon 1993), and a lack of resources
and organisational framework necessary for their implementation (Ishwaran
1992:20).
More than ten years after their creation, the Central American biosphere
reserves mentioned above are not well managed:
all face the possibility of having major highways constructed through
them (Houseal et al. 1985; 248; IWGIA
1995:73; Nations and Komer 1983b; Olson 1989); all are threatened by the
presence of both illegal, and government approved, mining and logging, as well
as contraband and narcotic-related activities (Gradwohl and Greenberg 1988:80;
Houseal et al. 1985:14; IWGIA
1994a:49, 1995:72; Kolankiewicz 1989:36; Olson 1989:250; Poole 1989:61-62;
Torres et al. 1989:257); and
colonists are currently farming and rearing cattle within the borders of all
three reserves (Gradwohl and Greenberg 1988:80; Houseal et
al. 1985; Olson 1989:250; Poole 1989; Torres et
al. 1989:256).
Significantly, while biosphere reserves provide short term territorial
security, it is not a pre-requisite that the indigenous peoples within their
borders receive legal title to their lands and resources (Davis and Wali
1994:8). Furthermore, although
social ecologists are committed to the participation of indigenous peoples in
protected area management, rarely has genuine participation been elicited (West
and Brechin 1991:395). Instead,
most biosphere reserves have treated indigenous peoples as passive beneficiaries
of project activities (Wells and Brandon 1993:160).
The management plans of Rio Platano, La Amistad and Darién Biosphere
Reserves all neglected to involve resident indigenous peoples to any significant
degree during the planning and implementation stages.
Although education teams were sent to explain the reserve concept to
indigenous communities within the Rio Platano Reserve during its initial
planning stages, for example, these communities were viewed as a user group
within the reserve rather than members of the planning team (Glick and
Betancourt 1983:172; Houseal et al.
1985:15).
Clearly in Central America, as in the rest of the world, biosphere
reserves have not lived up to one of MAB’s expectations.
Hence, although social ecology provides the most viable theoretical
approach to biocultural diversity conservation, ‘the potentially important
role of indigenous cultures in developing the conservation role of biosphere
reserves has yet to be fully realized’ (Gregg 1991:290). CONSERVATION
BY SELF-DETERMINATION: AN INTEGRATED SOCIAL ECOLOGY/SELF-DETERMINATION APPROACH It
is proposed that in order to overcome some of the problems affecting the
successful implementation of biosphere reserves, and other protected areas based
on the social ecologist’s approach to conservation, the involvement of
indigenous peoples and their homelands must be under indigenous control.
Conservation by self-determination, a conservation strategy which is the
product of a truly integrated social ecology/self-determination perspective, is
thus proposed as one approach that may achieve this goal. Self-determination
Self-determination is the
exercise of ‘the right [of a people] to freely determine its social, economic,
political and cultural future without external interference’ (DeLaCruz
1989:1). What self-determination
means for indigenous nations varies from external self-determination:
full sovereign independence through the establishment of a new ethnically
homogeneous State, to internal self-determination:
autonomy or self-government through the establishment of a cultural and
political niche within the framework of an existing State (Hannum 1990:97;
Wright 1988:381).
During the last decade, ‘[w]ithin the UN human rights system, the issue
of [indigenous] rights has moved...from the fringe to the mainstream’ (Wiggins
1993:352). In 1982, the UN Working
Group on Indigenous Populations was established to develop international
standards concerning the rights of indigenous peoples (Lopez-Reyes 1995:53).
In 1985, the Working Group began to draft a Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) (Hannum 1990:85).
The draft DRIP, agreed upon by the members of the Working Group at its
eleventh session (Fourth World Documentation Project 1993) declares in Article
3: ‘Indigenous peoples have the right of self-determination.
By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and
freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.’
Furthermore, Article 26 states: Indigenous
peoples have the right to own, develop, control and use the lands and
territories, including the total environment of the lands, air, waters, coastal
seas, sea-ice, flora and fauna and other resources which they have traditionally
owned or otherwise occupied or used (Fourth World Documentation Project 1993). Central
to the indigenous struggle for self-determination is the legal recognition of
these rights to land and resources (IWGIA
1994b:171).
Also central is the facilitation of political dialogue for the generation
of constructive agreements between States and indigenous nations.
In order for this dialogue to occur, indigenous nations must be
politically empowered (IWGIA 1994b:171). Political
empowerment is based on self-organisation:
‘the creation of representative or participatory institutions which
enable people to aggregate and articulate interests, [and] mobilize in defence
of such interests’ (Utting 1993:169). Such
indigenous institutions must construct alliances on local, national and
international levels in order to bring local issues to national and
international attention, and to exert pressure on policymakers (Utting
1993:169-170). Self-determination
in Central America
In Central America, as in the rest of the world, indigenous nations are
committed to the struggle for self-determination.
In only a few cases however, have indigenous peoples’ collective rights
to land and resources been legally recognised.
While Panama, Costa Rica, Belize, and Nicaragua, legally recognise
indigenous territories, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have ‘no clear
policy or mechanism for establishing Indian reserves or territorial status’ (Herlihy
1993:55-56). Furthermore, the
indigenous reserves that do exist, often exist on paper alone.
In Costa Rica and Panama for example, approximately half of all land
designated as part of indigenous reserves is currently owned or occupied by
non-indigenous interests (Carmack 1989; Utting 1994:238).
In an endeavour to improve this situation, almost all Central American
indigenous nations are involved in organised, territorially-defined
self-determination movements (see Berkey 1995:13; Carmack 1989; Chapin 1993:220;
Cultural Survival Quarterly 1992a; Luthin and Calderon 1995:38; Nietschmann
1992:4; Stocks 1992; Wilk and Chapin 1989). In
order to promote the legal recognition of their homelands, indigenous
organisations have begun to prepare land-use maps and land tenure studies (Anaya
and Macdonald 1995; Berkey 1995; Cultural Survival Quarterly 1996; Gonzalez et
al. 1995; Herlihy 1993; Luthin and Calderon 1995; Nietschmann 1995).
They are also fighting for their rights in State courts, legislative
bodies and constitutional conventions (Wiggins 1993:353). Conservation
by Self-determination
Advocates of conservation by self-determination recognise and promote
biocultural diversity, and believe that indigenous self-determination and
environmental protection can be interdependent and mutually reinforcing (Nietschmann
1991a:373). Accordingly,
conservation by self-determination is conservation in which the involvement of
indigenous peoples and their homelands is under indigenous control. It is a
grassroots initiative in which conservation efforts, although initially
propelled by external financial and political support, are locally driven.
This type of conservation is in accordance with Article 28 of the draft
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: ‘Indigenous peoples have the
right to the conservation, restoration and protection of the total environment
and the productive capacity of their lands, territories and resources’ (Fourth
World Documentation Project 1993).
Complex issues regarding the theory behind conservation by
self-determination are evident in continuing discussions concerning the nature
of the relationship between indigenous peoples and conservation (Alcorn 1993;
Clad 1984; Dwyer 1994; Peres 1994; Posey 1992; Redford 1991; Redford and
Stearman 1993a, 1993b). One facet
of this discussion centres on the relationship between indigenous peoples and
the environment, and the contrast between this relationship and that between
Western conservationists and the environment.
One position expounded in the first part of this paper was that
indigenous peoples both use and manage their resources. Some debate has
surrounded the matter of the extent to which indigenous peoples’ resource
management practices are “conscious” however, and whether any “real”
concepts of conservation exist within indigenous cultures (Posey 1992:21).
Indigenous resource management practices are characterised by ‘the
commingling of knowledge, practice and belief’ (Gadgil et
al. 1993:155, emphasis added), and thus, may function ‘to satisfy
religious, ritual or utilitarian needs [and] may or may not be intended by the
participants to achieve the observed outcome’ (Dwyer 1994:92).
Since most ecologists argue that unless people consciously articulate
their intention with regard to their production practices, they are using rather
than managing their resources (Gray 1991:21), indigenous peoples are often seen
solely as resource users rather than managers.
This view is used to support the assertion that indigenous peoples are
not conservationists. Indeed,
indigenous peoples themselves have made this claim (Chelala 1992:45).
Such claims have been used to support the contention that the goals of
indigenous peoples are not compatible with the goals of conservation (Redford
and Stearman 1993b). Yet clearly,
the absence of this Western concept amongst indigenous ones ‘does not mean
that conservation is new to indigenous peoples’ (Alcorn 1993:425).
While “conservation” may not exist as a concept within indigenous
cultures, conservation can and does occur.
It is simply that ‘individuals from different cultures inevitably think
and speak with different cognitive “realities”’ (Posey 1992:22).
Thus, indigenous cognitive realities concerning the environment and its
maintenance differ from Western conservationists’ reality.
It is for this reason that subsistence activities such as agroforestry
hold value for Western conservationists (Clarke and Thaman 1993).
In many coastal areas, for example, ‘detailed indigenous marine
knowledge has led to systems of customary sea tenure that observed almost every
form of modern reef conservation centuries before the need was even recognized
in the West’ (Hyndman 1994:297). Indigenous
models which perceive entire landscapes as units of management are thus
commensurate with Western ideas of watershed and coastal zone management, or of
landscape ecology and human ecosystem science (Clarke 1995:7).
The conclusion that indigenous peoples’ resource management practices
are incompatible with those of Western conservation, thus reflects the failure
of Western ecologists to understand indigenous realities.
This inadequacy can only be overcome through a ‘sharing of realities’
leading to an understanding of emic
interpretations (those that reflect indigenous cognitive and linguistic
categories) of indigenous realities (Posey 1992:22).
At the opposite end of the continuum is an image of indigenous peoples as
“natural conservationists” who live in harmony with their environment (Dwyer
1994:91; Redford and Stearman 1993b). This
notion has inspired the unrealistic and idealised reincarnation of the myth of
“the noble savage” as “the ecologically noble savage” (Redford 1991:46).
While it has been demonstrated that ‘there are methods used by
indigenous peoples that are definitely superior to those used by non-indigenous
peoples living in the same habitat’ (Redford 1991:47), such methods are often
sustainable only under a certain set of conditions:
low population density, favourable ratios of population size to land and
resource availability, and limited indigenous involvement in the market economy
(Dwyer 1994:92; Redford 1991:47).
Since indigenous nations are increasingly faced with internal population
and resource pressures, and increased involvement in market economies, many
indigenous peoples have adapted to integrate external values and lifestyles at
the expense of indigenous ecological knowledge and resource management
practices. Moreover, as indigenous
homelands have been reduced in the face of external pressures, becoming mere
remnants of once more extensive biospheres, indigenous resource management
practices may no longer be appropriate (Clad 1984; Dwyer 1994; Gadgil et
al. 1993:156; Rao and Geisler 1990:29; Redford 1991; Redford and Stearman
1993a:252). This predicament has
led to speculation concerning the ability of indigenous peoples to drive
conservation efforts (Peres 1994).
To recognise the value of indigenous knowledge and practice therefore, is
not to suggest that optimal conservation means absolutely no outside management
input (Rao and Geisler 1990:27).
For this reason, current attempts at conservation by self-determination
are based on comanagement.
Comanagement involves shared decision making between indigenous peoples
and conservationists (as equals) for protected area management.
It also encourages the integration of indigenous and non-indigenous
knowledge and practice (DeWalt 1994:127; Rao and Geisler 1990).
It has been argued (Alcorn 1993:426; Cox and Elmqvist 1993:12) that
conservationists need to respond to indigenous needs and concerns by initiating
frank discussion and debate with indigenous peoples in order to foster ‘the
explicit recognition of different priorities and consequent trade-offs, and the
understanding and compromise that this process engenders’ (Redford and
Stearman 1993a:254). It has also
been argued that:
When
the practical concerns of conservationists and indigenous peoples meet, then it
is the former...who must make concessions to the needs of the latter. ...through
acknowledgment of the rights of those peoples and in full understanding that by
acting in this way they may compromise the global reach of modern conservation
(Dwyer 1994:96).
While both these views are incorporated into the argument for
conservation by self-determination, the latter makes an important point:
ultimately, decisions concerning indigenous land and resources must rest with
indigenous peoples. For this
reason, only where indigenous peoples see a need to protect their environments,
is conservation by self-determination proposed as an approach through which
indigenous peoples may establish protected areas within their homelands,
simultaneously achieving the goals of conservation and demanding recognition of
their indigenous rights. Indigenous
self-determination and environmental protection can
be interdependent and mutually reinforcing, but they are also separate
matters. Consequently, if Fourth
World nations choose to undertake practices antithetical to conservation, this
too must be their choice, as it has been the choice of
the States of the First, Second and Third Worlds.
Conservation by self-determination has been attempted globally through
recently established biosphere reserves, integrated conservation/development
projects and other community-based projects.
In Central America, two notable indigenous initiatives have been
undertaken by the Kuna nation in Panama and the Miskito nation in Nicaragua.
While both have a degree of legal autonomy within their respective
States, the political contexts within which they have sought to protect the
biocultural diversity of their homelands have differed. A
Project for the Management of Kuna Yala (Pemasky) Forested Areas When
they launched their Project for the Management of the Forested Areas of Kuna
Yala in 1983, the Kuna became responsible for the design and implementation of
‘the world’s first internationally recognised forest park created by an
indigenous group’ (Clay 1988:6). Kuna
Yala: Biocultural Diversity
Kuna Yala, the autonomous homeland of the Kuna nation lies on the
Caribbean coast of Panama. Its
321,159 hectares extend from the Caribbean slopes of the San Blas Mountains to
the coast, and include the San Blas Archipelago, more than 300 coral islands
stretching 375 kilometres along the coast (Archibold 1992:25). Its forests, low
lying wetlands, mangroves, rivers, coastal lagoons, and rich offshore waters
exhibit rich biodiversity (Archibold 1992:25-27; Breslin and Chapin 1984:34;
Castillo 1992:17; Houseal et al.
1985:16).
The Kuna nation consists of over 30,000 people, the vast majority of whom
are distributed among 50 small coastal islands and 12 mainland villages.
Kuna subsistence production is thus based on both terrestrial and marine
resources. In addition to hunting,
fishing and gathering, the Kuna practice a mix of family and communal slash and
burn agriculture on small parcels of land along the coast (Chapin 1985:41).
Since they have also entered into various avenues of the cash economy
(for example cash crops, salaried employment, small businesses and
cooperatives), a market-oriented, cash-based economy currently operates
alongside their subsistence production (Breslin and Chapin 1984; Houseal et
al. 1985:16; Swain 1989:92).
The Kuna retain an intimate relationship with their environment,
continuing to identify their culture with a specific expanse of land - Kuna Yala
(Breslin and Chapin 1984:31). Their
rich oral history teaches that humans must act in balance with nature (Archibold
1992:25; Houseal et al. 1985:16;
Sherzer 1990:67,73). This balance
is reinforced through cultural constraints which function to protect the
environment (Archibold and Davey 1993:52,55; Breslin and Chapin 1984:34; Chapin
1985:48-49; Houseal et al. 1985:16).
The Kuna retain extensive ethnobotanical knowledge, identifying and using many
species relatively unknown to Western scientists (Archibold 1992:27; Archibold
and Davey 1993:55). An
ethnopharmacognostic study undertaken in one Kuna village, for example, resulted
in the collection of 99 species, from 42 plant families, all of which held some
medicinal value for the Kuna (Gupta et al.
1992). They also maintain diverse agroecosystems.
A study of one area of Kuna Yala, for example, identified 72 plant
combinations utilising 48 tree species and 16 domestic crops (Houseal et
al. 1985:16; Utting 1993:49). Kuna
Autonomy: Towards
Self-determination
For
the Kuna of Panama, contact with Europeans began early, was brutal, and is
remembered, mythologized, recreated, and performed in detail to this day... (Sherzer
1994:902,922).
When the Spanish reached Kuna territory during the sixteenth century, the
Kuna nation staunchly resisted invasion. Since,
at that time, Central America’s Caribbean coast was a zone of British-Spanish
colonial conflict (Nietschmann 1989:19), the Kuna instead allied themselves with
the British traders and pirates of the Caribbean (Stout 1947:51). Their
resistance against the Spanish culminated during the early eighteenth century in
a widespread war that, although temporarily evicting the Spanish (Nietschmann
1988:278), culminated in the Spanish calling for the ‘reduction or
extinction’ of the Kuna (Herlihy 1985:43).
Although the Kuna were never conquered or subjugated, they
were eventually forced to retreat from large tracts of their homeland,
which then extended from the Caribbean coast across the forested Darién region
as far as the Pacific coast (Chapin 1985:43).
They initially sought refuge in the thick forests of the more isolated
Caribbean slopes of their homeland, and by the mid-nineteenth century had begun
transferring their villages to the San Blas Islands in order to avoid the pests
and plagues of the mainland (Chapin 1985:43; Houseal et
al. 1985:16).
Despite this history of conflict, the Kuna are one of the few indigenous
nations in the Americas to have survived the impact of colonisation with their
social, cultural, political and linguistic independence intact (Breslin and
Chapin 1984:26; Sherzer 1994:922). Consequently,
they are ‘perhaps the most socially and culturally cohesive indigenous society
in the hemisphere’ (Wright et al.
1988:356). This cohesion, based on
strong principles of autonomy and self-reliance, enables Kuna identity to be
retained while they confront outside influences (Chapin 1985:42; Houseal et
al. 1985:16).
Early this century, Kuna territory, resources and cultural integrity were
once more threatened. While
non-Kuna resource pirates and colonists were expropriating Kuna land and
resources, the Panamanian government was implementing a full-scale program of
coercive acculturation (Herlihy 1989:17; Howe 1986:19; Nietschmann 1988:279).
Consequently, in 1925, the Kuna took up arms to successfully defeat and
drive out government police and non-Kuna invaders (Herlihy 1989:18; Howe
1986:19).
By 1938, the subsequent negotiations between the Kuna and the State had
generated legislation recognising an official, autonomous Kuna reserve, which
was called for the first time in Panama’s history, a comarca
(Herlihy 1989:18; Howe 1986:19; Stout 1947:87).
In 1945, Kuna and State authorities drew up a constitution which was
formally recognised in 1953, establishing regional governance and formalising
the Kuna political system (Herlihy 1989:18; Howe 1986:20).
Consequently, Kuna Yala, which is the Kuna’s preferred name for their
territory (Howe 1986:xiii), legally became the
Comarca de San Blas.
The Kuna have thus retained their traditional democratic political
system, embodied in frequent village meetings, and the biannual Kuna General
Congress. Three national chiefs
represent the Kuna to Panamanian society (Archibold 1992:29; Houseal et
al. 1985:16). Moore (1984:36)
has compared Kuna congress procedures with the Panamanian legislature’s, and
concluded that it is the indigenous model that is the more democratic, while the
Panamanian model is ‘not so much a structure for inputs to express popular
demands as...a structure for outputs.’ (For a discussion of Kuna politics see
Howe 1986.)
According to Panamanian law, no non-Kuna can hold claim to land within
the comarca. Thus, the State has
legally recognised indigenous rights to land and resources (excluding
sub-surface resources) (Breslin and Chapin 1984; Herlihy 1989:21,23).
It was this legal status, and their history of political resistance and
social cohesion, which empowered the Kuna to continue to defy the territorial
invasion and environmental destruction of their homeland. Kuna
Yala Under Threat
In the 1970s, the construction of a road linking the Pan-American Highway
to Panama’s Caribbean coast opened Kuna Yala to a flood of landless peasants
and cattle ranchers. Soon, tracts
of forest along the mountain ridge bordering Kuna Yala were decimated.
This invited increased poaching and plunder of Kuna forest resources, and
colonisation of Kuna territory (Archibold 1992:21; Archibold and Davey 1993:52).
Furthermore, deforestation in the mountains meant that before long the
Kuna would be faced with the serious effects of erosion.
Large quantities of soil would be washed down the coastal slopes,
affecting Kuna farms, and continuing into the ocean to jeopardise the coral
reefs and Kuna fishery (Archibold and Davey 1993:53; Wright et
al. 1988:353). Effectively,
their subsistence base would be destroyed. PEMASKY
- Conservation by Self-determination
In order to protect themselves, the Kuna decided to establish a permanent
presence at Udirbi, the site where the road met Kuna Yala’s border. Their
initial efforts at small-scale farming in the area, although recognised as a
comarca-wide effort (Chapin 1985:46; Houseal et
al. 1985:17), failed due to the area’s unsuitability for agriculture (Archibold
and Davey 1993:53-54).
At this point, the Kuna requested outside technical assistance, and in
1981, through liaison with technicians from the Tropical Agronomic Centre for
Research and Education (CATIE) in Costa Rica, the concept of a Kuna protected
area was born (Chapin 1985:46-48; Houseal et
al. 1985:17). In mid-1982, the
Kuna received international funding and, working with CATIE staff, they
developed a comprehensive project design which was formally launched, in late
1983, as the Research Project for the Management of the Forested Areas of Kuna
Yala (Proyecto de Estudio para el Manejo de Areas Silvestres de Kuna Yala (PEMASKY))
(Breslin and Chapin 1984:34; Chapin 1985:48-49).
The key aim of PEMASKY is ‘to protect [Kuna Yala’s] natural resources
and tropical ecosystems while ensuring that the resources are used sustainably
for the benefit of the Kuna people’ (Archibold and Davey 1993:54).
It also aims to stimulate environmental education, ecotourism,
traditional Kuna crafts, and scientific research.
An underlying goal is the maintenance of Kuna cultural values (Archibold
and Davey 1993:54).
The most encouraging aspect of PEMASKY is the degree of control the Kuna
have been able to maintain over the project.
Although CATIE provides technical assistance, the Kuna themselves have
designed the project, managed the organisational aspects, defined the
objectives, and controlled personnel arrangements (Houseal et
al. 1985:17). They have also
protected their traditional ecological knowledge by firmly establishing
guidelines concerning the behaviour and obligations of visiting researchers (Archibold
1992:30; Chapin 1991; Clay 1988:66-7; Martin 1995:246-248).
Western scientists and the Kuna entered into PEMASKY with radically
dissimilar world views and consequently became involved for very different
reasons. The scientists’ interest
was in the study and preservation of species and the furthering of Western
science. The Kuna, on the other
hand, are there to protect their homeland, livelihood, and identity as a people
(Chapin 1985:50). Yet both
converged on a single goal: to
conserve the biocultural diversity of Kuna Yala.
To this end, PEMASKY attempts to incorporate knowledge from both worlds.
The Kuna contribute valuable ethnobotanical and agroforestry knowledge,
giving scientists a better understanding of the Kuna Yala ecosystem in general.
The scientists, in return, contribute valuable technical knowledge,
enabling the Kuna to monitor and strengthen established practices.
In addition, PEMASKY facilitates and encourages Kuna involvement in
national and international conservation and indigenous rights networks (Houseal et
al. 1985:17).
Since their protected area has been up and running, the Kuna began to
pursue nomination for international biosphere reserve status.
This move reflects their awareness of the benefits of establishing
themselves within the international conservation
network. Such benefits
include improved access to technical and financial knowledge and assistance, and
international recognition of Kuna land title and autonomy (Gregg 1991:288).
Consequently, since November 1987, the Kuna have managed Kuna Yala as a
biosphere reserve divided into several management zones (Map
5) (Archibold 1992:29; Wright et al.
1988:355). The Buffer Zone
has now been established outside Kuna Yala in an area under State government
administration (Archibold and Davey 1993:54; Wright et
al. 1988). Emerging
Problems
Despite its positive management strategy, PEMASKY is facing several
obstacles. There are fears, for
instance, that the growing influence of Western practices may negatively affect
the project. Significantly, many
Kuna youth are rejecting, or simply failing to learn, established beliefs and
local resource management practices (Chapin 1990:44).
Kuna elders largely blame the Western education curriculum, which fails
to address cultural links to the environment.
The Kuna are considered ‘easily the best educated [indigenous people]
in Panama, perhaps in Central America’ (Breslin and Chapin 1984:31), yet while
they acknowledge the role of Western education in preparing them to interact
with the outside world, the Kuna are concerned that the next generation is being
taught the language and traditions of a foreign culture before their own (Archibold
1992:30-32).
As a result, there is now some concern over Kuna land use and fishery
practices. It has been suggested
that, during the last 10 years, poor agricultural and fishery practices have
replaced established ones and lead to some resource deterioration (Archibold and
Davey 1993:56).
This erosion of cultural ties is reinforced as young people move to
Panama City to further their education. While
some return to Kuna Yala as professionals, others do not (Archibold and Davey
1993:56). Despite migration away from Kuna Yala however, its resource base is
under pressure from an increasing population.
It is becoming difficult to meet society’s needs using established
techniques, some of which have evolved to support only a small population (Archibold
1992:32; Archibold and Davey 1993:56-57).
Uncontrolled tourism is also becoming a problem.
While the Kuna have always endeavoured to keep tourism in Kuna Yala under
Kuna control and regulation (see Swain 1977, 1989), tourists are placing
additional pressure on the resource base, and increasing pollution (Archibold
1992:30-32; Archibold and Davey 1993:56-57).
Furthermore, initial Kuna attempts to foster ecotourism through PEMASKY
have failed. Although the protected
area is ideally located just two hours from Panama City, there is a significant
lack of nature tourism infrastructure linking the protected area to the capital
(Chapin 1990).
PEMASKY’s general management plan includes programs for the development
of carefully controlled ecotourism, agroforestry, and socioeconomic research to
assess the extent to which Kuna needs have changed over the last decade.
Unfortunately, a lack of funding
and personnel to develop these programs has prevented the Kuna from taking
action (Archibold 1992:32; Archibold and Davey 1993:56-57).
Although during its first phase PEMASKY received financial support from
many national, multinational, and private organisations, funds have largely
dried up.
Also disheartening is the lack of support from the Panamanian government
(Archibold 1992:32; Archibold and Davey 1993:56-57).
While the Kuna continue to physically demarcate Kuna Yala’s boundaries,
conflict over the location of the boundaries has led to protests, as has the
Panamanian government’s continued granting of mining concessions on indigenous
lands. The Kuna General Congress
accuses one Canadian company, Western Keltic Mines, Inc., of aiming to divide,
mine and weaken Kuna political institutions as it prepares to begin exploiting
five concessions on Kuna territory (IWGIA 1996:74-76). The
Miskito Cays Protected Area (MCPA)
Yapti
Tasba: Biocultural Diversity
Yapti Tasba, the united homelands of the Miskito, Sumu, Rama and Creole
nations, lies on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua.
It covers a combined land and sea territory of 110,000 km2,
extending along Nicaragua’s entire Caribbean coast (Nietschmann 1989:12).
Yapti Tasba is perhaps the most biologically diverse coastal area in tropical
America (Jukofsky 1993:206). It
incorporates part of the largest tropical rainforest north of Amazonia, the most
extensive seagrass pastures in the Western Hemisphere, and the widest
continental shelf and stretch of offshore coral reefs in the Caribbean (Nietschmann
1993a:270). Its forests, rivers,
coastal lagoons, wetlands, mangroves, estuaries, reefs and seagrass pastures
provide habitat for numerous species
including the largest populations of manatees in Central America and the
Caribbean, the world’s largest
remaining populations of hawksbill and green sea turtles,
and the most economically significant spiny lobster and shrimp
developmental and fishing grounds in the Caribbean (Jukofsky 1993:206;
Nietschmann 1991b:232).
Yapti Tasba has a population of over 260,000, of which an estimated
150,000 are of the Miskito Nation (Nietschmann
1989:15). The Miskito nation is
bordered by the Sumu nation to the west, and the Rama and Creole nations to the
south. Its 37,000 km2
of tropical forest and pine savanna cover northeast Nicaragua and the
disputed sector of Yapti Tasba which, since 1960, has been claimed by Honduras.
The adjacent waters, cays, reefs and marine resources are also part of the
Miskito nation (Nietschmann 1989:3-4).
Most Miskito communities are located in the forests along the rivers of
the northeast region, or along the coast (Nietschmann 1989:3).
Due to their proximity to the sea, the Miskito have developed the
knowledge and ability to exploit both land and sea resources (Nietschmann
1973:89). Lowland tropical forest
agriculture, fishing, hunting, gathering, and the raising of some domestic
animals are the basis of Miskito subsistence production (Conzemius 1932:58-81;
Nietschmann 1973). This system has
survived 500 years of State encapsulation (Nietschmann 1973:25).
Furthermore, since the Miskito have traded and had access to foreign wage
labor and outside money market economies since the seventeenth century,
‘[h]unting and fishing, gathering of natural resources for barter and
sale, and wage labor have all been equally important to the Miskito economy’
(Helms 1971:4). Therefore,
‘[o]perating alongside the traditional subsistence economy is a
market-oriented, cash-based economy’ (Nietschmann 1973:60).
The Miskito have maintained a certain equilibrium with their environment,
and ‘land and their traditional rights to it is inseparable from Miskito
culture’ (Bach 1991:39). This
relationship is reinforced through cultural constraints such as hunting
restrictions, food preferences and taboos, and religious beliefs which function
as adaptive mechanisms for maintaining acceptable exploitation levels of certain
resources (Conzemius 1932:132-134,165; Nietschmann 1973:110-113).
Specific birds and animals, for instance, are not hunted for fear of
offending the animal’s keeper. Others
are avoided due to the danger of assuming some undesirable characteristic
attributed to them (Conzemius 1932:133-134).
Certain trees that are the abode of spirits are not felled for fear of
retribution (Conzemius 1932:128-129), and, in some instances, entire areas are
avoided (Conzemius 1932:169). A
History of Miskito Resistance
The
Miskito people still exist not because of isolation but because they have
defended their territory for 500 years (Nietschmann 1991a:373).
When attempts were made by the Spanish to ‘invade, annex and tax’ (Conzemius
1932:8) Miskito territory, the Miskito resisted, maintaining their independence
(Nietschmann 1989:19). Instead,
they, like the Kuna, formed trade alliances with the pirates and British traders
of the Caribbean (Bach 1991:38; Sollis 1989:483). As in the Kuna case,
Miskito-Spanish conflict soon developed into a long-term war.
The Miskito however, ‘defeated every Spanish strategem to occupy their
territory, either by trickery or force...[and] humiliated the Spanish military
in open battle on almost every occasion that they met’ (Day 1988:30).
Consequently, the Spanish never occupied Miskito territory.
Furthermore, from the mid-seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries
the Miskito’s industriousness and their nation’s abundant natural resources
established it as ‘a haven of political and social stability’ (Day 1988:27)
and the most economically prosperous region in Central America (Nietschmann
1989:19).
During the mid-nineteenth century, after Nicaragua’s independence, the
United States became the dominant power in the region, dislodging Britain and
denying Miskito territorial sovereignty (Nietschmann 1989:20).
Before the British left the region however, they gave each Miskito
community a map and title to its land (Nietschmann 1989:22).
Throughout the late nineteenth century, ‘foreign states made treaties
between themselves over the Miskito nation without the consent or representation
of the Miskito government’ (Nietschmann 1989:20).
Eventually, in 1894, it was “reincorporated” into Nicaragua by
Nicaraguan President General Zelaya, who ordered its military invasion (Conzemius
1932:9; Day 1988:29). This
“reincorporation” ‘did not take place without resistance’ (Ortiz
1988:5).
For the Nicaraguan government “reincorporation” meant free resources
and cheap labour. For the land,
waters, resources and wildlife of the Miskito nation however, it meant
ecological disaster (Ortiz 1987:47). For
the Miskito it meant: ...the
disruption of national and regional Indian government and autonomy and the
temporary transfer and camouflage of these centuries-old institutions into
village-level politics and economies...the Miskito nation survived by
decentralization of its institutions (Nietschmann 1989:232). Twentieth
Century State Politics and the Environment
During the early twentieth century, an enclave economy, based on rubber
extraction, banana plantations, forestry and mining, was established in
Nicaragua to supply raw materials for the industrial economy of the United
States (Bach 1991:38; Vilas 1989:44-51). Consequently,
United States citizens controlled 90 percent of the region’s productive and
commercial activity (Sollis 1989:488-489).
During the subsequent 42 year rule of the Somoza family (1937-1979) (for
a synopsis of Nicaraguan political history see Skidmore and Smith 1992:326-330),
environmental destruction continued to accelerate (Sollis 1989:490-497).
By the late 1970s, rapid growth of lumbering, cattle ranching, cotton
cultivation, and marine resource exploitation
had left Nicaragua with one of the highest deforestation, soil erosion
and species depletion rates in the world (Nietschmann 1993a:270).
During this time, the Miskito nation’s geographical isolation from the
capital, and the Somoza strategy of procuring maximum profits through minimum
presence, ensured that, although capitalism threatened their society and
resource base, Miskito communities remained functionally autonomous (Nietschmann
1988:275, 1989:23-24).
In 1979 however, the Somoza government collapsed and the Sandinistas
seized power (Nietschmann 1990:44). The
Sandinista revolution (1979-1990) was limited by class-based Marxism and could
not fathom an identity and a resistance based on culture (Nietschmann 1989:28).
Consequently, it approached the nations of Yapti Tasba with ignorant and
insensitive integrationist and developmentalist policies (Mohawk 1982;
Nietschmann 1989:26-27; Ortiz 1988:6-7; Sollis 1989:497-501; Vilas 1989:96-119).
In response, delegates from 256 indigenous communities founded MISURASATA
(Miskito, Sumu, Rama, Sandinista United) to represent indigenous interests to
the Sandinista government (Nietschmann 1989:28).
Through MISURASATA and Sandinista agreement, a mapping and land tenure
study of community lands was planned for presentation to the government in 1981.
The 100-year-old maps and titles provided by the British were brought
from each community to Bilwi. A
composite map produced from these documents revealed that ‘each community’s
lands bounded with another community’s to form extensive, unbroken
territories’ (Nietschmann 1989:30).
The central government saw this as a threat to the revolution, and nine
days before the study was to be presented to the government, MISURASATA leaders
were arrested, files were burned, and four armed Sandinistas and four unarmed
Miskito were killed (Nietschmann 1989:32-33).
Within six months 5000 Miskito and Sumu had fled to Honduras, and 65
young Miskito and Sumu began surprise hit-and-run attacks on Sandinista
outposts. The Sandinistas mounted a
serious counterattack, particularly against the villages along the Wangki River.
Thus, in 1981, organised armed resistance against the occupation began (Nietschmann
1989:33-34). During the early 1980s
43,000 Miskito, Sumu and Rama people were displaced, either forced into
Sandinista relocation camps or made refugees in Costa Rica and Honduras (Nietschmann
1984:32).
The Miskito-Sandinista war, along with the Contra-Sandinista war, was
fought in the countryside. While
military activities were environmentally destructive in some areas, these wars
effectively halted large scale resource exploitation:
wildlife exploitation decreased, cattle
pastures shrank, gold-mining
ceased, State-owned lumber mills
and logging trucks were sabotaged, and
roads and bridges were destroyed. Thus,
the wars actually promoted biological diversity, producing a situation
Nietschmann has described as “conservation by conflict” (1990:44,48). Miskito
Autonomy: Towards
Self-determination
The Miskito-Sandinista war was about resources and territory (Nietschmann
1990:48). Thus, it was fought with
Miskito autonomy as a major objective. By
the mid-1980s, autonomy was accepted as the only path to reconciliation (Nietschmann
1993b:1,6), and during 1984-1985, a cease-fire was declared, and negotiations
between Miskito leaders and the government began (Ortiz 1988:9).
In 1987 a constitutional Autonomy Law was passed, guaranteeing respect
for indigenous languages and culture, indigenous control over natural resources,
and the need for local consensus concerning development projects (Bach 1991:40).
By 1990, the nations of Yapti Tasba had a minister-level cabinet post in
the central government, and two autonomous regions with autonomous governments (Nietschmann
1995:34-35). The North Atlantic
Autonomous Region (RAAN), centred in Puerto Cabezas, consists of Miskito and
Sumo communities. The South
Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS), centred in Bluefields, includes Miskito, Rama,
Creole and Ladino communities (Nietschmann 1993b:6).
While this autonomy process decentralised some political power, decisions
regarding resource exploitation depend upon trilateral agreement between local
communities, autonomous governments and the central government (Nietschmann
1993b:6). Furthermore, while the autonomous councils are independent, they
depend upon the State ministries for budget decisions.
Thus, the main problem has been obtaining the necessary funding (IWGIA
1996:74). Despite these limitations however, the Autonomy Law provides an
initial framework within which to work to strengthen Miskito autonomy in the
future (Nietschmann 1993b:15). Recent
Environmental Threats
Since the wars and the 1990 elections which saw the Sandinista government
replaced by that of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, five groups have claimed and
used Yapti Tasba’s resources: the
regional governments of RAAN and RAAS, the Institute of Atlantic Coast
Development (INDERA), the Nicaraguan central government, local indigenous
communities, and finally, in all the confusion, foreign resource pirates and
drug traffickers. This last group
has taken advantage of the quick pullout of the Sandinista army, which has left
the once highly militarised Caribbean coast the least defended (Nietschmann
1993b:6-7).
The Chamorro government officially accepts the principle of autonomy on
the Caribbean Coast. It is however,
largely seen as a barrier to the resource exploitation deemed necessary for the
reconstruction and economic recovery of the Pacific region.
Thus, the government continues to seek ways to cash in on Miskito
resources (Nietschmann 1990:48, 1993b:7), and illegal logging, which is now
endemic throughout the Atlantic coast (IWGIA 1996:73), remains unchecked. By
1994 exports from these regions made up 36% of the GNP,
while the regions only received 0.5% of the national budget
(IWGIA 1995:71).
The theft of Miskito resources by external interests angers Miskito
communities, who claim it is they, and not the central or regional governments,
who have always defended their resources (Nietschmann 1993b:6-7).
In addition to lacking the financial resources to defend their nation,
environments, resources, and communities (Nietschmann 1992:5), the Miskito have
been unable to legally prevent the exploitation of their marine resources
because the continental shelf and waters of their homeland have not been legally
incorporated into the autonomous regions (Nietschmann 1995:35). The
MCPA: Conservation by
Self-determination ?
In response to repeated attempts by coastal Miskito communities to secure
protection for their territorial fishing and turtling grounds, an
internationally funded, Miskito-staffed, Miskito Cays National Park was first
proposed by the Nicaraguan government in 1980.
At this time, a grass-roots indigenous organisation began resource
management plans (Jukofsky 1993:206). Unfortunately,
the war interrupted these efforts (Nietschmann 1990:48).
After the war, in 1990, Miskito community leaders, international
scientists and Nicaraguan natural resource officials arranged a fact-finding
voyage to the Miskito Reefs. The
outcome was a proposal to the government for the creation of a community-based
marine protected area where resource exploitation would be managed so that the
Miskito could continue utilising the area, and profit from the export of shrimp
and lobster (Jukofsky 1993:207; Nietschmann 1995:35).
The protected area would be designed and run by the 15,000 residents of
23 coastal Miskito communities (Nietschmann 1991b:234).
Community seminars and workshops were held in early 1991 to develop the
concept of community management (Jukofsky 1993).
Representatives of the 23 communities gave permission for the area to be
developed within their coast and sea territories (Nietschmann 1995:35).
In addition to protecting and sustainably using the area’s resources,
the protected area was seen by the Miskito as a way to reinforce their autonomy
and to maintain their culture (Nietschmann 1992:5).
At this time, the Miskito created MIKUPIA (“Heart of the Miskito”),
an non-government organisation, intended to organise the 23 Miskito communities
to manage their protected area. With
international funding, MIKUPIA’s plans included demarcating Miskito territory,
and training Miskito resource specialists and guards.
Within a year, MIKUPIA’s eight staff were coordinating with 90
“community promoters” to raise consciousness and to discuss the protected
area concept within Miskito communities (Cultural Survival Quarterly 1992b).
In October 1991, President Chamorro officially created the provisional
1,300,000 hectare Miskito Cays Protected Area (MCPA) (Jukofsky 1993:209).
The government stipulated that Miskito community representatives would be
part of the planning team which had four years to complete scientific and legal
studies for the establishment of a permanent protected area (Nietschmann
1995:35).
An advisory team recommended that the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID) fund MIKUPIA US$3,000,000 for five years to
work with Miskito communities on the protected area project.
Instead, USAID funded the Florida based Caribbean Conservation
Corporation (CCC). Once the CCC
received funding it backed out of agreements with communities, and began
planning a ‘top-down, central government-based, foreign advisor-dependent
old-style colonialist protected area’ (Nietschmann 1995:35).
The CCC’s first progress report, issued in 1994, made no mention of
Miskito sea territories, sea tenure, marine resource rights, or traditional
marine resource management. Furthermore,
the Miskito were to be given only limited rights to fishing under the new
protected area scheme. This report
and the first draft of the management plan indicated that it was the Miskito
themselves who were the environmental threat (Nietschmann 1995:35).
After three years and almost US$2,000,000 nothing had been done to
prevent, or even write a report on, resource piracy.
Consequently, in late-1994, Miskito communities banned the CCC from
further research on Miskito territory, and notified USAID of the conflict.
With no outside help, using the experience they gained during the war,
the Miskito re-armed themselves against the pirates and drug traffickers.
The Nicaraguan government’s response was that the Miskito had no right
to confront anyone in “Nicaraguan” waters (Nietschmann 1995:35).
In April 1995, the Nicaraguan military arrested 40 Miskito for attempting
to defend their waters against Honduran resource pirates.
It is in the military’s interest to allow piracy to continue since they
get a cut of the stolen resources (Nietschmann 1995: personal communication). MCPA:
A Future ?
Clearly the MCPA, which began as a grass-roots project initiated in
response to requests from Miskito communities, has not developed as hoped.
The Miskito however, refuse to give up.
Their most recent community-based initiative to regain control of their
territory and resources has been the Miskito Reef Mapping Project (Nietschmann
1995:34). This project, begun in
April 1994, proposes to accurately map the Miskito Reefs and surrounding waters,
an area which is currently inaccurately charted on British Admiralty and United
States Defence Mapping Agency charts.
The mapping project has three aims:
to document the Miskito Reefs and surrounding waters, identifying them as
Miskito territory; to justify
Miskito community defence of their sea territory and resources;
and to provide baseline geographic and biological information for future
studies.
Miskito “captains” (the traditional sea knowledge specialists),
turtle fishers, lobster divers and Miskito environmentalists have already begun
work with invited marine scientists in order to combine indigenous knowledge
with accurate and affordable mapping technology based on sail, scuba and
satellite. The first of the
project’s four phases, completed in September 1994, produced a 1:175,000 base
map bearing Miskito names for the area’s underwater habitats and topographical
features. This map has been
distributed throughout local communities, the autonomous governments and other
Central American governments. The
other phases, to be completed by 1997, will produce a series of maps
demonstrating community sea territories north and south of the reef, marine
biodiversity and marine habitats.
It is envisioned that the maps will be invaluable in environmental
monitoring, and in seeking international conservation support.
It is hoped that the maps, and the documentation of illegal boats that is
concurrently being carried out, will persuade the RAAN government to arrest
resource pirates. KUNA
AND MISKITO EXPERIENCE: CONTRIBUTIONS TO A THEORY OF CONSERVATION BY
SELF-DETERMINATION
A cross-cultural analysis of the experiences of the Kuna and the Miskito
reveals similarities useful in an examination of the conditions which enable
indigenous nations to attempt conservation by self-determination.
Such comparison also reveals differences useful in an assessment of why
Miskito attempts at conservation by self-determination have thus far been
defeated. Parallel
Experiences
Both the Kuna and Miskito nations are located on Central America’s
Caribbean coast, one of the few regions in Central America that has remained
rich in biocultural diversity. Both
have also interacted with non-indigenous economies since the sixteenth century.
Yet, having retained extensive ecological knowledge and established
resource management practices, they have maintained an intimate, mutually
dependent relationship with the environment.
This has been possible because they have retained control of their
subsistence systems and their ecosystems, and thus, have been able to make
important societal and cultural changes, adapting traditional subsistence
economies to incorporate market-oriented, cash-based economies (Nietschmann
1973:24).
The Kuna and the Miskito also share a common history of resistance
against invasion. This resistance
has been effective because their communities are characterised by enduring
social and cultural cohesion, political organisation and independence (Chapin
1985:42; Houseal et al. 1985:16).
Centuries of resistance have in turn strengthened Kuna and Miskito
identity, and enhanced their understanding of immediate external political and
legal realities (Gradwohl and Greenberg 1988:81-83; Houseal et
al. 1985:18).
Consequently, when the need has arisen, both indigenous nations have been
well prepared to take a stand against their respective States in demanding their
rights. Indeed, both went to war
with those States to secure negotiation and subsequent recognition of their
homelands as autonomous territories. In
both cases while legal autonomy is limited, it allows for some degree of
political control, and most significantly the legal recognition of the
indigenous nations’ rights to land and resources.
This parallel history has strengthened and reinforced Kuna and Miskito
self-determination, and most significantly, has created a suitable environment
for attempting conservation by self-determination.
In accordance, both nations have actively sought to establish protected
areas within their homelands.
It is significant that neither people has attempted to establish
protected areas without external input. Both
the Kuna and the Miskito have attempted, with different degrees of success, to
establish protected areas in co-operation with Western scientists.
Both have also aimed for a mix of conservation and development goals in
protected area strategies to benefit both present and future generations.
Although the Kuna now have a legally recognised protected area and the
Miskito do not, the problems that both are currently facing largely stem from,
or are intensified by, a lack of external financial and political support. Conditions
Facilitating Conservation by Self-determination
Since parallel circumstances have conditioned Kuna and Miskito attempts
at conservation by self-determination, it can be concluded that certain
conditions foster its successful implementation.
The first and foremost of these conditions is that indigenous nations who
survive within their biologically rich homelands, and maintain a healthy
relationship with the environment, must want to protect their homelands’
biocultural diversity. In order to
act upon this desire, it is advantageous for nations to be socially and
culturally cohesive; to have
legally recognised rights to control their land and resources;
to be able to organise politically;
to have an understanding of, and ability to interact with, external
political, economic and education systems;
and to have access to external financial and political support.
Despite the existence of most of these circumstances in the case of the
Miskito however, they have as yet been unable to successfully implement
conservation by self-determination. The
differences between the experiences of the Kuna and the Miskito shed light on
why. Divergent
Experiences
A crucial difference between the experiences of the Kuna and those of the
Miskito has been timing. The Kuna
achieved legal autonomy within Panama almost 50 years earlier than the Miskito
did within Nicaragua. Furthermore,
while the Kuna war against the State leading to the activation of the autonomy
process lasted a few days, the Miskito-Sandinista war lasted several years (Nietschmann
1988:279). Howe (1986) suggests
that while the Kuna may have been more politically astute and more patient than
the Miskito, the crucial difference between these two conflicts lies in the
actions of the United States government, which intervened in both cases.
While Kuna interests happily coincided with those of the United States,
resulting in prompt mediation of a peace agreement between the Kuna and the
Panamanian State, the Miskito were ‘cynically manipulated [by the United
States government] in the anti-Sandinista campaign’ (Howe 1986:64), resulting
in a more violent and prolonged conflict.
Consequently, while the Kuna have had 50 years to foster a healthy
working relationship with the Panamanian government, the Miskito continue to
suffer the backlash of their very recent conflict with a popular revolutionary
government. It is fair to assume
that, under these circumstances, it will take time for a working relationship to
evolve between the Miskito and the Nicaraguan government.
Other differences between the experiences of the Kuna and the Miskito
hinge on the conditions outlined above. The
Miskito have not secured legal title to the area of their homeland in which the
Miskito Coast Protected Area was established.
In addition, they did not have access to the external financial support
that was provided for its implementation. Consequently,
they have been as yet unable to assert their control over conservation
initiatives within their homeland. This experience reinforces the fact that
indigenous nations cannot achieve conservation by self-determination alone:
the local, regional, national and international context has to be
conducive. Conservation
by Self-determination: The Future
Future prospects for PEMASKY and Kuna Yala are not all bleak.
The Kuna have successfully protected their territory from the original
threat which motivated the project. They
have also successfully maintained political and administrative control over
PEMASKY, their homeland and its resources.
The Kuna have initiated, planned, implemented and managed their protected
area, and are continuing efforts to find solutions to the problems that have
arisen.
The Miskito Coast Protected Area on the other hand has been expropriated
by outside interests. The Miskito
are, however, persevering in their attempts.
Their case clearly reinforces the fact that self-determined indigenous
involvement in conservation can only work if conservationists welcome indigenous
peoples and work with them instead of against them.
Finally, it is important to note that, to date, the homelands of both the
Kuna and the Miskito have remained rich in biocultural diversity.
Therefore, neither group has thus far failed in their attempts at
conservation by self-determination. While
there is the possibility that PEMASKY and the MCPA may fail for many of the
reasons that other protected area initiatives have failed, there is also the
possibility that they may succeed, because, unlike the majority of the world’s
protected areas, they have the support of the indigenous nations within whose
territories they are located.
For other indigenous nations, conservation by self-determination may hold
the same potential. Already, other
indigenous nations in Central America are involved in similar initiatives. The
Tawahka Sumu in Honduras, for example, have formed the Indigenous Tawahka
Federation of Honduras (FITH) and proposed a Tawahka Biosphere Reserve
surrounding their homeland, which until now has lacked official protection (Herlihy
1993). The experience of this and
other indigenous nations is at this stage not well documented.
Future research of this type will have much to glean from the inclusion
of their efforts. As more nations organise locally, nationally and internationally, it is probable that more will seek ways to conserve the biocultural diversity of their homelands. Indeed, ‘[e]xperience is already showing that many indigenous peoples are moving to adopt the modern reserve concept to protect biocultural diversity’ (Alcorn 1993:425). Conservation by self-determination is one possible course of action they may choose.
REFERENCES
Adams,
Richard
1992
Notes on map supplement: indigenous peoples and the environment in
Central America. Research and Exploration
8(4):501-504. Alcorn,
Janis B.
1990
Indigenous agroforestry strategies meeting farmers needs. In Anthony B.
Anderson (ed.) Alternatives to
deforestation: steps toward sustainable use of the Amazon
rainforest, pp.141-151. New York:
Columbia University Press.
1993
Indigenous peoples and conservation. Conservation
Biology 7(2):424-
426. Anaya,
S. James and Theodore Macdonald
1995
Demarcating indigenous territories in Nicaragua: the case of Awas Tingni.
Cultural
Survival Quarterly
19 (3 ):69-73. Archibold,
Guillermo
1992
Pemasky in Kuna Yala: protecting Mother Earth...and her children. In
Valerie Barzetti and Yanina Rovinski (eds) Toward
a green Central America: integrating
conservation and development,
pp.21-33. West Hartford, Conneticut:
Kumarian
Press, Inc. Archibold,
Guillermo and Sheila Davey
1993
Kuna Yala: protecting the San Blas of Panama. In Elizabeth Kemf (ed.) Indigenous
peoples and protected areas: the law
of Mother Earth, pp.52-57. London: Earthscan. Bach,
Hanne
1991
Miskito Indians in Nicaragua: the first ethnic group to obtain autonomy
in Central America? IWGIA Newsletter
3:38-43. Balée,
William
1989
The culture of Amazonian forests. In Darrell A. Posey and William Balee (eds)
Resource management in Amazonia:
indigenous and folk strategies, pp.1-21. Bronx, NY: New York Botanical
Garden. Balick,
Michael J., Rosita Arvigo and Leopoldo Romero
1994
The development of an ethnobiomedical forest reserve in Belize: its role
in the preservation of biological and cultural diversity. Conservation
Biology 8(1):316-317. Barzetti,
Valerie (ed.)
1993
Parks and progress: protected
areas and economic development in Latin America and
the Caribbean. Washington DC: International Union for the Conservation of
Nature. Batisse,
Michel
1993
Biosphere reserves: an overview. Nature
and Resources 29(1-4):3-5. Berkey,
Curtis
1995
Mayas of Belize and conservation: the need to protect Maya lands in the
Toledo district. Cultural Survival
Quarterly 19(2):13-16. Brandon,
Katrina
1991
Integrating conservation and development. National
Geographic Research and Exploration
7(3):371-372. Brechin,
Steven R., Patrick C. West, David Harmon and Kurt Kutay
1991
Resident peoples and protected areas: a framework for inquiry. In Patrick
C. West and Steven R. Brechin (eds) Resident
peoples and national parks: social dilemmas
and strategies in international
conservation, pp.5-28. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Breslin,
Patrick and Mac Chapin
1984
Conservation Kuna-style. Grassroots
Development 8:26-35. Budowski,
Tamara
1992
Ecotourism Costa Rican style. In Valerie Barzetti and Yanina Rovinski (eds)
Toward
a green Central America: integrating
conservation and development, pp.48-62. West Hartford, Conneticut: Kumarian
Press, Inc. Burger,
Julian
1987
Report from the frontier: the
state of the world’s indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd. Carmack,
Robert M.
1989
Indians in Buenos Aires, Costa Rica. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13(3):30-33. Castillo,
Geodisio
1992
Five hundred years of tropical jungle: indigenous heritage for the
benefit of humanity. In Mark Plotkin and Lisa Famolare (eds) Sustainable
harvest
and marketing of
rainforest products, pp.16-19.
Washington D.C.: Island Press. Chapin,
Mac
1985
Udirbi: an indigenous project in environmental conservation. In Theodore
Macdonald Jr. (ed.) Native peoples and
economic development: six case studies from Latin
America (Occasional Paper #16), pp.39-53. Cambridge: Cultural Survival Inc.
1989
The 500,000 invisible Indians of El Salvador. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13(3):11- 16.
1990
The silent jungle: ecotourism among the Kuna Indians of Panama. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 14(1):42-45.
1991
How the Kuna keep scientists in line. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 15(3):17.
1992a
Disappearing forests; disappearing peoples. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 16(3):63-66.
1992b
Indigenous peoples and the environment in Central America. Research
and Exploration 8(2):232-234.
1993
Central America: Indians and rain forests. In Marc S. Miller (ed.) State
of the
peoples: a global human rights report
on societies in danger, pp.218- 230.
Boston: Beacon Press. Chelala,
Celina
1992
We are not conservationists: interview with Nicanor Gonzalez. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 16(3):43-45. Clad,
James
1984
Conservation and indigenous peoples. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 8(4):68-73. Clarke,
William C.
1991
Agro-deforestation in Melanesia. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 15(2):45-48.
1995
The ecopolitical meanings of
indigenous ecological knowledge. Unpublished manuscript. Clarke,
William C. and R.R. Thaman (eds)
1993
Agroforestry in the Pacific
Islands: systems for sustainability. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Clay,
Jason W.
1985
Parks and people. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 9(1):2-5.
1988
Indigenous peoples and tropical
forests: models of land use and management from
Latin America. Cambridge:
Cultural Survival Inc.
1992
Buying in the forests: a new program to market sustainably collected
tropical forest products protects forests and forest residents. In Kent H.
Redford and Christine Padoch (eds) Conservation
of neotropical forests: working from traditional resource
use, pp.400-415. New York: Columbia University Press.
1993
Marketing and human rights: lessons from the Cultural Survival marketing
program.
IWGIA Newsletter
3:4-6. Colchester,
Marcus
1989
Indian development in Amazonia: risks and strategies. The
Ecologist 19(6):249-254. Conzemius,
Eduard
1932
Ethnographical survey of the
Miskito and Sumo Indians of Honduras and Nicaragua. Washington: US
Government Printing Office. Corry,
Stephen
1993
The rainforest harvest: who reaps the benefit? The
Ecologist 23(4):148-153. Cox,
Paul Alan and Thomas Elmqvist
1991
Indigenous control of tropical rainforest reserves: an alternative
strategy for conservation. Ambio
20(7):317-321. Cultural
Survival Quarterly
1992a
“We can survive and prosper”: interview with Juanita Segundo Sánchez
and Gloria Mayorga Balma. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 16(3):37-40.
1992b
Projects for the future. Country: Nicaragua, Organization: MIKUPIA-
heart of the Miskito. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 16(3):45.
1996
Territorio Awas Tingni. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 20(1):36. Dasmann,
Raymond
1988
National parks, nature conservation, and the “future primitive”. In
John H. Bodley (ed.) Tribal peoples and
development issues: a global overview, pp.301-310. Mountain View,
California: Mayfield Publishing Company.
1991
The importance of cultural and biological diversity. In Margery L.
Oldfield and Janis B. Alcorn (eds) Biodiversity:
culture, conservation, and ecodevelopment, pp.7-15. Boulder, Colorado:
Westview Press. Davis,
Shelton H. and Alaka Wali
1994
Indigenous territories and tropical forest management in Latin America. Indigenous
Affairs 4:4-13. Day,
Peter
1988
Miskito power: back on the British main. Quadrant
32(1-2):27-37. Deihl,
Colin
1985
Wildlife and the Maasai. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 9(1):37-40. DeLaCruz,
Joseph B.
1989
From self-determination to self-government. In Carol J. Minugh, Glenn T.
Morris and Rudolph C. Ryser (eds)
Indian self-governance: perspectives on the political
status of Indian nations in the
United States of America, pp.1-14. Olympia, USA:
Center for World Indigenous Studies. DeWalt,
Billie R.
1994
Using indigenous knowledge to improve agriculture and natural resource
management. Human Organization
53(2):123-131. Dufour,
Darna L.
1990
Use of tropical rainforests by native Amazonians. Bioscience
40(9):652-659. Dwyer,
Peter D.
1994
Modern conservation and indigenous peoples: in search of wisdom. Pacific
Conservation Biology 1:91-97. Eilers,
Horst
1985
Protected areas and indigenous peoples. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 9(1):6-9. The
Fourth World Documentation Project
1993
Discrimination against indigenous peoples: report of the Working Group on
Indigenous Populations on its eleventh session. Document: DRFT9329.TXT: United
Nations Economic and Social Council. Gadgil,
Mudhav, Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke
1993
Indigenous knowledge for biodiversity conservation. Ambio
22(2-3):151-156. Glick,
Dennis and Jorge Betancourt
1983
The Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve: unique resource, unique alternative. Ambio
12(3-4):168-173. Gomez-Pompa,
Arturo and Andrea Kaus
1992
Taming the wilderness myth. Bioscience
42(4):271-279. Gonzalez,
Nicanor, Francisco Herrera and Mac Chapin
1995
Ethnocartography in the Darién. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 18(4):31-33. Goodland,
Robert
1988
Tribal peoples and economic development: the human ecological dimension.
In John H. Bodley (ed.) Tribal peoples
and development issues: a global overview, pp.391-
405. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company. Gradwohl,
Judith and Russell Greenberg
1988
Saving the tropical forests.
Washington D.C.: Island Press. Gray,
Andrew
1990
Indigenous peoples and the marketing of the rainforest. The
Ecologist 20(6):223-227.
1991
Between the spice of life and the
melting pot: biodiversity conservation and its impact
on indigenous peoples (IWGIA Document No.70). Copenhagen: International Work
Group for Indigenous Affairs. Green,
G.
1990
Conservation through the looking glass: the case of Central America. In
M. Palo and G. Mery (eds) Deforestation
or development in the Third World?, pp.121-129. Helsinki: The Finnish Forest
Research Institute. Gregg
Jr, William P.
1991
MAB Biosphere reserves and conservation of traditional land use systems.
In Margery L. Oldfield and Janis B. Alcorn (eds)
Biodiversity: culture, conservation,
and ecodevelopment, pp.274-294.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. Grosvenor,
Gilbert M., Anthony R. de Souza and Mac Chapin
1992
The coexistence of indigenous peoples and the natural environment in
Central America. Research and Exploration
8(2): Map Supplement. Gupta,
Mahabir P., Ana Jones, Pablo Solis, and Mireya D. Correa
1992
Ethnopharmacognostic study of Kuna Yala. In Mark Plotkin and Lisa
Famolare (eds)
Sustainable harvest and marketing of
rainforest products, pp.201-211. Washington D.C.: Island Press. Hales,
David
1989
Changing concepts of natural parks. In David Western and Mary Pearl (eds)
Conservation for the twenty-first
century, pp.139-144. New York: Oxford University Press. Halle,
Mark
1992
Forward. In Valerie Barzetti and Yanina Rovinski (eds) Toward
a green Central
America: integrating conservation and
development, pp.ix-x. West Hartford, Conneticut: Kumarian Press, Inc. Hannum,
Hurst
1990
Autonomy, sovereignty, and
self-determination: the accommodation of conflicting
rights. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press. Harmon,
David
1987
Cultural diversity, human subsistence, and the national park ideal. Environmental
Ethics 9(2):147-158. Harp,
William
1994
Ecology and cosmology: rainforest exploitation among the Embera-Choco. Nature
and Resources 30(1):23-27. Heckadon,
Stanley
1992
Central America: tropical land of mountains and volcanoes. In Valerie
Barzetti and Yanina Rovinski (eds) Toward
a green Central America: integrating conservation
and development, pp.5-19. West
Hartford, Conneticut: Kumarian Press, Inc. Helms,
Mary W.
1971
Asang: adaptations to culture
contact in a Miskito community. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Herlihy,
Peter H.
1985
Choco Indian relocation in Darién, Panama. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 9(2):43-45.
1989
Panama’s quiet revolution: comarca homelands and Indian rights. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13(3):17-24.
1993
Securing a homeland: the Tawahka Sumu of Mosquitia’s rain forest. In
Marc S. Miller (ed.) State of the
peoples: a global human rights report on societies in danger, pp.54-59.
Boston: Beacon Press. Hough,
John L.
1988
Obstacles to effective management of conflicts between national parks and
surrounding human communities in developing countries. Environmental
Conservation 15(2):129-136. Houseal,
Brian, Craig MacFarland, Guillermo Archibold and Aurelio Chiari
1985
Indigenous cultures and protected areas in Central America. Cultural
Survival Quarterly
9(1):10-19. Howe,
James
1986
The Kuna gathering: contemporary
village politics in Panama. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Hyndman,
David
1994
Conservation through self-determination: promoting the interdependence of
cultural and biological diversity. Human
Organization 53(3):296-302. Hyndman,
David, Levita Duhaylungsod and Benjamin Thomas
1994
To the last grain of rice: T’boli subsistence production. Dialectical
Anthropology 19:45-79. Ishwaran,
N.
1992
Biodiversity, protected areas and sustainable development. Nature
and Resources 28(1):18-25. International
Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)
1980
World conservation strategy:
living resource conservation for sustainable development. Gland,
Switzerland: IUCN. International
Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
1993
Indigenous peoples and the commercialisation of forest products. IWGIA
Newsletter 3:7-9.
1994a
Mexico and Central America. The
Indigenous World 1993-1994 1:40-50.
1994b
IWGIA and indigenous peoples. The
Indigenous World 1993-1994 1:165-181.
1995
Mexico and Central America. The
Indigenous World 1994-1995 2:62-73.
1996
Mexico and Central America. The
Indigenous World 1995-1996 3:62-76. Jukofsky,
Diane
1993
Heart of the Miskito. In Elizabeth Kemf (ed.) Indigenous
peoples and protected areas: the law
of Mother Earth, pp.205-210.
London: Earthscan. Kemf,
Elizabeth
1993
In search of a home: people living in or near protected areas. In
Elizabeth Kemf (ed.) Indigenous peoples
and protected areas: the law of mother earth, pp.3-11. London:
Earthscan.
Kolankiewicz,
Leon
1989
The Pesch of Honduras face uncertain prospects. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13(3):34-36. Kutay,
Kurt
1991
Cahuita National Park, Costa Rica: a case study in living cultures and
national park management. In Patrick C. West and Steven R. Brechin (eds)
Resident peoples and
national parks: dilemmas and strategies in international conservation,
pp.114-129.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Leonard,
H. Jeffrey
1987
Natural resources and economic
development in Central America. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books. Lewis,
Damien
1990
Conflict of interests. Geographical
Magazine 62(12):18-22. Lopez-Reyes,
Ramon
1995
The establishment of a United Nations Permanent Forum of Indigenous
Peoples and Autonomous Assembly of Indigenous
Peoples. Indigenous Affairs 2:52-56. Luthin,
Charles and Orlando Calderon
1995
Regional Environmental Commission established in Honduran Mosquitia. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 18(4):38-39. MacFarland,
Craig, Roger Morales and James R. Barborak
1982
Establishment, planning and implementation of a national wildlands system
in Costa Rica. In Jeffrey A. McNeely and Kenton R. Miller (eds) National
parks, conservation and development: the role of protected areas in sustaining
society, pp.592-600. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Martin,
Claude
1993
Introduction. In Elizabeth Kemf (ed.) Indigenous
peoples and protected areas: the law of mother earth, pp.xv-xix. London:
Earthscan. Martin,
Gary J.
1995
Ethnobotany. London: Chapman
and Hall. May,
Robert M.
1992
How many species inhabit the earth? Scientific
American 267(4):18-24. McNeely,
Jeffrey A.
1992
Nature and culture: conservation needs them both. Nature
and Resources 28(3):37-43.
1993
People and protected areas: partners in prosperity. In Elizabeth Kemf
(ed.) Indigenous peoples and protected
areas: the law of Mother Earth, pp.249-257. London: Earthscan.
1994a
Lessons from the past: forests and biodiversity. Biodiversity
and Conservation 3:3-20.
1994b
Protected areas for the 21st century: working to provide benefits to
society. Biodiversity
and Conservation 3:390-405. McNeely,
Jeffrey A., Kenton R. Miller, Walter V. Reid, Russell A. Mittermeier and Timothy
B. Werner
1990
Conserving the world’s
biological diversity. Gland, Switzerland: International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources, World Resources Institute, Conservation International, World Wildlife
Fund-US and the World Bank. Mohawk,
John C.
1982
The possibilities of uniting Indians and the left for social change in
Nicaragua. Cultural Survival Quarterly
6(1):24-25. Moore,
Alexander
1984
From council to legislature: democracy, parliamentarianism, and the San
Blas Cuna. American Anthropologist
86(1):28-42. Moran,
Katy
1994
Biocultural diversity conservation through The Healing Forest
Conservancy. In Tom Greaves (ed.) Intellectual
property rights for indigenous peoples: a sourcebook, pp.99-109. Oklahoma
City: Society for Applied Anthropology. Myers,
Norman
1981
The hamburger connection: how Central America’s forests become North
America’s hamburgers. Ambio
10(1):3-8. Nash,
Roderick
1970
The American invention of national parks. American
Quarterly 22(3):726-735. Nations,
James D.
1992
Xateros, chicleros, and pimenteros: harvesting renewable tropical forest
resources in the Guatemalan Petén. In Kent H. Redford and Christine Padoch (eds)
Conservation of neotropical forests:
working from traditional resource use, pp.208-219. New York: Columbia
University Press. Nations,
James D. and Daniel I. Komer
1982
Indians, immigrants and beef exports: deforestation in Central America. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 6(1):8-12.
1983a
Central America’s tropical rainforests: positive steps for survival. Ambio
12(5):232-
238.
1983b
International action halts road through Honduras rainforest. Ambio
12(2):124-125.
1987
Rainforests and the hamburger society. The
Ecologist 17(4-5):161-167. Nietschmann,
Bernard Q.
1973
Between land and water: the
subsistence ecology of the Miskito Indians, Eastern
Nicaragua. New York: Seminar Press.
1984
The unreported war against the Sandinistas: 6,000 Indian guerillas are
fighting for their land. Policy Review
29:32-39.
1987
The third world war. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 11(3):1-16.
1988
Miskito and Kuna struggle for nation autonomy. In John H. Bodley (ed.) Tribal
peoples and development issues: a global overview, pp.271-280.
Mountain View, California: Mayfield
Publishing Company.
1989
The unknown war: the Miskito
nation, Nicaragua, and the United States. New York: Freedom House.
1990
Conservation by conflict in Nicaragua. Natural
History November:42-49.
1991a
Nietschmann rejoins: conservation by self-determination. Research
and Exploration
7(3):373.
1991b
Miskito Coast Protected Area: field notes. Research
and Exploration
7(2):232-234.
1992
The interdependence of biological
and cultural diversity (Occasional Paper No.21). Olympia: Center for World
Indigenous Studies.
1993a
Nicaragua’s new environmental alliance for Indian-Latin America. Research
and Exploration 9(3):270-271.
1993b
The development of autonomy in the Miskito nation. Fourth
World Bulletin 2(2):1,6-7,15.
1994
The Fourth World: nations versus states. In George J. Demko and William
B. Wood (eds) Reordering the world:
geopolitical perspectives on the
twenty-first century, pp.225-242.
Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
1995
Defending the Miskito Reefs with maps and GPS: mapping with sail,
scuba and satellite. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 18(4):34-37. Oldfield,
Margery L. and Janis B. Alcorn
1991a
Traditional conservation and use of biodiversity: introduction. In
Margery L. Oldfield and Janis B. Alcorn (eds)
Biodiversity: culture, conservation, and ecodevelopment,
pp.119-126. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
1991b
Conservation of traditional agroecosystems. In Margery L. Oldfield and
Janis B. Alcorn (eds) Biodiversity:
culture, conservation, and
ecodevelopment, pp.37-58. Boulder,
Colorado: Westview Press. Olson,
Eric
1989
Biosphere reserves of Central America: a critique. In William P. Gregg,
Stanley L. Krugman and James D. Wood (eds) Proceedings
of the Symposium on Biosphere Reserves: Fourth World Wilderness, September 14-17
1987, Estes Park,
Colorado, USA, pp.242-253. Atlanta, Georgia: US Department of the
Interior National Park Service. Ortiz,
Roxanne Dunbar
1987
Indigenous rights and regional autonomy in revolutionary Nicaragua.
Latin American Perspectives
14(1):43-66.
1988
The Miskito Indians of Nicaragua,
The Minority Rights Group Report No.79. London:
Minority Rights Group. Park,
Chris C.
1992
Tropical rainforests. London:
Routledge. Pearce,
Fred
1990
Brazil, where the icecream comes from. New
Scientist 7:45-48. Pendelton,
Linwood H.
1992
Trouble in Paradise: practical obstacles to nontimber forestry in Latin
America. In Mark Plotkin and Lisa Famolare (eds) Sustainable
harvest and marketing of rain forest products, pp.252-262. Washington DC:
Island Press. Peres,
Carlos A.
1994
Indigenous reserves and nature conservation in Amazonian forests. Conservation
Biology 8(2):586-588. Poole,
Peter
1989
Developing a partnership of
indigenous peoples, conservationists and land use.
Washington D.C.: World Bank. Posey,
Darrell A.
1989
Alternatives to forest destruction: lessons from the Mêbêngôkre
Indians. The Ecologist 19(6):241-244.
1990
Intellectual property rights. Journal
of Ethnobiology 10:93-98.
1992
Interpreting and applying the “reality” of indigenous concepts: what
is necessary to learn from the
natives? In Kent H. Redford and Christine Padoch (eds) Conservation
of neotropical forests: working from
traditional resource use, pp.21-34. New York:
Columbia University Press. Rahman,
Anisur
1993
People’s self-development:
perspectives on participatory action research. London:
Zed Books. Rao,
Kishore and Charles Geisler
1990
The social consequences of protected areas development for resident
populations. Society and Natural
Resources 3(1):019-32. Redford,
Kent H.
1991
The ecologically noble savage. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 15(1):46-48. Redford,
Kent H., Bert Klein and Carolina Murcia
1992
Incorporation of game animals into small-scale agroforestry systems in
the neotropics. In Kent H. Redford and
Christine Padoch (eds) Conservation of
neotropical forests: working from traditional resource use, pp.333-353. New
York: Columbia University Press. Redford,
Kent H. and Allyn Maclean Stearman
1993a
Forest dwelling native Amazonians and the conservation of biodiversity:
interests in common or in collision? Conservation
Biology 7(2):248-255.
1993b
On common ground?: response to Alcorn. Conservation
Biology 7(2):427-428. Reining,
Conrad and Robert Heinzman
1992
Nontimber forest products in the Petén, Guatemala: why extractive
reserves are critical for both conservation and development. In Mark Plotkin and
Lisa Famolare (eds) Sustainable harvest
and marketing of rain forest
products, pp.110-117. Washington DC: Island Press.
Salati,
Eneas and Peter B. Vose
1983
Deforestation of tropical rain forests. Ambio
12(2):67-71. Santiso,
Claudia
1993
The Maya Biosphere Reserve: an alternative for the sustainable use of
resources. Nature and Resources
29(1-4):6-11. Schmink,
Marianne, Kent H. Redford and Christine Padoch
1992
Traditional peoples and the biosphere: framing the issues and defining
the terms. In Kent H. Redford and
Christine Padoch (eds) Conservation of
neotropical forests: working from traditional resource use, pp.3-13. New
York: Columbia University Press. Semple,
Alison
1995
Growth of a green network. Geographical
67(2):11. Sherzer,
Joel
1990
Verbal art in San Blas: Kuna
culture through its discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
1994
The Kuna and Columbus: encounters and confrontations of discourse. American
Anthropologist 96(4):902-924. Skidmore,
Thomas E. and Peter H. Smith
1992
Modern Latin America. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. Smith,
Guy-Harold
1971
Conservation of natural resources.
New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sollis,
Peter
1989
The Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua: development and autonomy. Journal
of Latin American Studies 21:481-520. Steinberg,
Michael
1993
Protecting wildlands through culturally compatible conservation. Environmental
Conservation 20(3):260-262. Stiles,
Daniel
1994
Tribals and trade: a strategy for cultural and ecological survival. Ambio
23(2):106- 111. Stocks,
Anthony
1992
Land war: land barons responded with murder after Indians in Honduras
organized to recover their land. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 16(1):16-18. Stout,
D. B.
1947
San Blas Cuna acculturation: an
introduction. New York: Viking. Swain,
Margaret Byrne
1977
Cuna women and ethnic tourism: a way to persist and an avenue to change.
In Valene L. Smith (ed.) Hosts and
guests: the anthropology of tourism, pp.71-81.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1989
Gender roles in indigenous tourism: Kuna mola, Kuna Yala, and cultural
survival. In Valene L. Smith (ed.) Hosts
and guests: the anthropology of tourism. Second
Edition, pp.83-104. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press. Torres,
Hernan, Donald P. Masterson and Luis Hurtado de Mendoza
1989
La Amistad Biosphere Reserve: an exercise in environmental planning. In
William P. Gregg, Stanley L. Krugman
and James D. Wood (eds) Proceedings of
the Symposium on Biosphere Reserves:
Fourth World Wilderness, September 14-17 1987, Estes
Park, Colorado, USA, pp.254-263. Atlanta, Georgia: US Department of
the Interior National Park Service. Trainer,
Ted
1995
What is development? Society and
Nature 3(1):26-56. United
States Man and the Biosphere Program (USMAB)
1989
Biosphere reserves: what, where and why? Focus
39(1):17-19. Utting,
Peter
1993
Trees, people and power: social
dimensions of deforestation and forest protection in
Central America. London: Earthscan.
1994
Social and political dimensions of environmental protection in Central
America. Development and Change
25:231-259. Vilas,
Carlos M.
1989
State, class and ethnicity in
Nicaragua: capitalist modernization and
revolutionary change on the
Atlantic Coast. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Wells,
Michael P. and Katrina E. Brandon
1993
The principles and practice of buffer zones and local participation in
biodiversity conservation. AMBIO
22(2-3):157-162. West,
Patrick C. and Steven R. Brechin
1991
National parks, protected areas, and resident peoples: a comparative
assessment and integration. In Patrick C. West and Steven R. Brechin (eds)
Resident peoples and national parks: social dilemmas and strategies in
international conservation, pp.363- 400.
Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Wiggins,
Armstrong
1993
Indian rights and the environment. The
Yale Journal of International Law 18(1):345-354. Wilcox,
Bruce A.
1984
In-situ conservation of genetic resources: determinants of minimum area
requirements. In Jeffrey A. McNeely and Kenton R. Miller (eds) National
parks, conservation, and development: the role of protected areas in sustaining
society, pp.639-647. Smithsonian Institution Press: Washington D.C. Wilcox,
Bruce A. and Kristin N. Duin
1995
Indigenous cultural and biological diversity: overlapping values of Latin
American ecoregions. Cultural Survival
Quarterly 18(4):49-53. Wilk,
Richard and Mac Chapin
1989
Belize: land tenure and ethnicity. Cultural
Survival Quarterly 13(3):41-45. Wolf,
Eric Robert
1982
Europe and the people without
history. Berkeley: University of California Press. Woodward
Jr, Ralph Lee
1992
Central America: part II. Collier’s
Encyclopedia 5:643-648. World
Resources Institute (WRI), The World Conservation Union (IUCN) and United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
1992
Global biodiversity strategy.
WRI, IUCN and UNEP. Wright,
Robin M.
1988
Anthropological presuppositions of indigenous advocacy.
Annual Review of Anthropology 17:365-390. Wright,
R. Michael, Brian Houseal and Cebaldo de Leon
1988
Kuna Yala: indigenous biosphere reserve in the making? In John H. Bodley
(ed.) Tribal peoples and development
issues: a global overview, pp.352-356. Mountain View, California: Mayfield
Publishing Company.
|