Posted on September 23, 2002
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Indigenous
Peoples and Neotropical Forest Conservation: Impacts of Protected Area Systems
on Traditional Cultures
Amy
E. Daniels
Interdisciplinary
Ecology
College
of Natural Resources and Environment
University
of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611
adaniels@ufl.edu
Abstract
In the race to protect remaining
tracts of neotropical forests and the resources harbored therein, the Western
concept of biological conservation has heretofore been the dominate modus
operandi for protecting natural areas in Latin America.
Through the establishment of first-world style protected area systems,
indigenous cultures and traditional resource-uses have historically been
considered only in light of how they may affect biodiversity and ecosystem
function within protected areas. Case
studies of various indigenous cultures onto which protected areas have been
superimposed demonstrate the documented and potential negative effects on both
biological and cultural systems, and the connection between the two.
An understanding of these effects is important in cultural preservation
and biodiversity conservation. These
factors should be considered in the design and management of inhabited protected
natural areas. The unique bottom-up
management of the Kuna and Kayapò reserves may provide insight in the
establishment of more effective conservation areas that meet the needs of
indigenous peoples in an ever-shrinking world.
Introduction
The
intensity and rate of tropical deforestation in Latin America in recent years
has engendered a sense of urgency in the creation of protected areas, sometimes
at the exclusion of circumspect consideration and recognition of socio-economic
realities. Presently, eighty
percent of protected areas in Latin America are inhabited by indigenous peoples.
Some of these areas are amongst the
most biodiverse systems on earth (Colchester and Gray 1998).
Since the frequent synergism of indigenous rights and environmentalism
began in the 1980s, much debate has occurred regarding the extent to which the
two agendas are compatible. Within the community of Western conservation biologists, this
debate has largely centered on the extent to which indigenous inhabitants impact
biodiversity and ecosystem processes in designated protected areas, particularly
as they become increasingly acculturated (Peres 1994).
Albeit critical in the race to preserve remaining tropical forests, the
resolution of this question represents only part of the requisite insight needed
to promote effective conservation. Forest-dwelling
indigenous peoples possess vast knowledge of the natural systems in which their
cultures evolved, much of which is unknown or undocumented in modern science. Moreover, some indigenous cultures demonstrate an ethical
commitment to the preservation of these natural systems.
Western conservationists may begin to recognize this characteristic as an
increasingly important paradigm in light of limited defensibility of existing
and proposed protected areas. Given
that protected area systems are, ironically enough, a form of regional
development, an understanding of the ways in which they impact indigenous
peoples may be important for both cultural and biological conservation.
Deforestation in Latin America
The effects of deforestation occur along a continuum of intensity: complete destruction in the cases of clear-cutting, to unsustainable
extraction practices, to alteration of ecological characteristics within
remaining intact forest stands due to edge effects (Smith et al. 1995). In 1995, forests in Latin America and the Caribbean comprised 27.5
percent (950 million hectares) of the global forest cover, representing a 9.7
percent decrease from 1980 (FAO 1999). Species
extinctions through tropical deforestation are thought to exceed 27,000 per year
(Myers 1993), representing losses that are difficult to quantify and interpret.
These losses include those of alpha diversity; genetic diversity within
and among species; potential agricultural crops; botanical medicines or chemical
derivatives thereof; regional and global ecosystem services such as carbon
sequestration; and the local resource bases of forest-dependent peoples.
The remaining vast stretches of neotropical forests, such as those of the
Amazon Basin, have come to represent perhaps some of the last frontiers of
nature untouched by humanity. While
vast tracts of the neotropics may seem pristine relative to many forests of
industrialized nations, many of the forests of tropical America have served as
the resource base for hunters, gatherers and farmers for much of recent history
(Smith et al. 1995). In fact, much
of the Brazilian Amazon is now thought to have been transformed over millennia
by indigenous cultures managing and manipulating critical resources to support
themselves. Balèe (1989) estimates
that at least 11.8 percent of the terra
firme (permanent high ground) in this region is anthropogenic.
Indigenous Peoples of Latin America
A population of approximately 40 million descendents of the original
inhabitants of Latin America still occupies this vast geographic region (Brysk
1994). Though the groups comprising
this population can be distinguished using countless criteria like linguistic
patterns, belief systems, and resource use, they are generally referred to as
“indigenous peoples.” This
sweeping designation serves to obscure differences with regard to their
respective histories, beliefs, varying degrees of political access and
acculturation, and differing future goals among and within indigenous groups.
However, the groups can be united on the basis of several broad
generalities. Indigenous peoples
have largely been marginalized from the national economic and political systems
superimposed on their territories and cultures. For example, until the ratification of the 1988 constitution
(Allen 1989), indigenous peoples in Brazil were legally orphans of the state
with political status equivalent to that of children and the mentally ill (Seeger
1982). Another commonality
indigenous peoples share is that of subsistence economies intimately dependent
on the specific environment in which they evolved.
Thus neotropical indigenous cultures generally represent a tremendous
knowledge-base on forest resources, their uses and the natural processes that
regulate them.
Given this intimate relationship with natural systems, indigenous peoples
often bear the burden of Western stereotypes which depict their traditional
practices and cultures as being harmonious with nature.
While this stereotype may be valid in some cases, indigenous peoples are
not homogenous in this respect; some traditional cultures are more sustainable
than others. Many aspects of
resource management practices of the Machiguenga of the Peruvian Amazon, for
example, have been described as similar to industrialized forest resource
exploitation (Johnson 1989).
The Foreign Concept of Western Conservation
The
relatively sparse indigenous populations now found in forests of Latin America
are an artifact of the population decimation that occurred upon contact with
European colonizers. In Brazil, for
example, there are currently only 250,000 indigenous inhabitants, comprising 0.2
percent of the population (Leitao 1994). Some
Amazonian peoples, however, were known to support densely populated
civilizations prior to European contact (Smith et al. 1995).
So the struggles of sustainability and conservation are not unknown.
But the Western conceptions thereof, and the mechanisms by which these
objectives may be achieved, often are. In
fact, there is quite possibly no translation of Western-trained biologists’
concept of “conservation” in any non-European language (Alcorn 1993).
Similarly, the foreignness and confusion over the concept of sustainable
development in Latin America at-large can be illustrated with its two Spanish
translations: “sostenible” and
“sustentable” (IWGIA 1998).
The Creation of Protected Area Systems:
An Inherently Western Paradigm
Historically, protected areas in the third world have been modeled after
those of industrialized nations (Cox and Elmqvist 1991).
In developed countries a number of factors contribute to the feasibility
and moderate success of such a system, where large tracts of depopulated land
are protected and managed by the state. One
such factor is that their diversified economies, fully integrated into the
global market, nearly exclude the practice of land-based subsistence.
And some argue that this system has been possible at least in part
because first world countries have-
and use-
the capability to exploit natural resources elsewhere, like in developing
nations (Alcorn 1991).
As in the U.S. and Europe, land for protected natural areas in Latin
America is acquired in any combination of three ways (Cox and Elmqvist 1991):
executive order or legislative action used to declare government land a
protected area; state purchase of private land; and debt-for-nature swaps, in
which a sum of international debt is remitted based on land area set aside for
protection. After land acquisition,
any number of management strategies from top-down to bottom-up approaches may be
employed. The strategy selected depends heavily on the primary purpose
of the protected area and by whom it will be managed. Once selected, this strategy, among myriad other variables,
is important in determining the impacts of a given protected area system on
indigenous cultures. The potential
negative effects of protected areas can be broadly categorized as either
directly undermining a people’s means of subsistence or by the indirect impact
through influencing conventional cultural characteristics.
Case Studies of
the Effects of Protected Area Systems
The Top-Down Management Approach
The case of Bolivia’s Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is classically
illustrates a protected area that impairs a pre-existing community’s ability
to provide for itself. The managing
agency of the park, Fundaciòn Amigos de la Naturaleza (Friends of Nature
Foundation or FAN), operates a very expensive, exclusive, and low-impact form of
ecotourism to help finance the Park’s operations.
In 1988 FAN received permission to extend the boundaries of the park to
encompass land that was being used by local forest-dwellers for logging and
harvesting heart of palm (Wheat 2000). The
local residents have not been given the option to participate in the design,
management, or ecotourism enterprises of the Park (Wheat 2000).
Hence, they may be driven to economic activities that are possibly even
less sustainable than those of their former livelihoods in effort to meet their
basic needs. The circumstances of this specific case have heretofore
precluded the involvement of outside support, perhaps largely because the
livelihoods of the local residents do not match the romantic notion of “the
ecologically noble savage” (Redford 1990).
In any case, their livelihoods have been disrupted and the conflict of
interests may ultimately challenge the efficacy of the park, given the reality
of limited defensibility of protected areas (Peres and Terborgh 1995).
Another case illustrating the impact of protected area systems on
indigenous residents via a strict top-down management approach can be found with
Panama’s Darien National Park along the Colombian border.
Created in 1980, the land of the park was home to three indigenous
groups: the Embera, the Wainan, and
the Kuna. Several years after its
creation, the area also received the distinctive designation of “United
Nations World Heritage Site” (1981). Then
with the incorporation of existing indigenous reserves in 1993, the area became
a Biosphere Reserve. The first
major jolt to indigenous communities during the implementation of the National
Park was the management plan’s recommendation to relocate selected villages
and prohibit hunting and fishing activities in certain areas of the park
incidentally critical to the livelihoods of these longtime residents (Dalfelt
and Morales 1978). The plan was
later modified to merely encourage the voluntary relocation of select Embera
villages to sites with greater infrastructure, which in turn facilitated the
loss of their native language and other manifestations of acculturation (Houseal
et al. 1994). A substantial blow to
both Embera cultural traditions and the environment occurred with the park’s
prohibition of all hoofed animals within twenty-five miles of the Colombian
border. The Embera largely
subsisted on integrated, low-impact swine production in community forests. With the exclusion of their staple commodity and principal
source of income, the group quickly evolved-at
the behest of the national government no less-
into a logging-dependent culture (Houseal et al. 1994).
Copious evidence exists to verify that even the more sustainably-minded
indigenous groups are not beyond liquidating natural resources (Zimmerman et al.
2001). However, in such cases of
seemingly inevitable environmental destruction, at least the indigenous groups
would reap the short-term benefits of unsustainable logging activities.
The Brazilian Kayapò, for example, earned an unbelievable sum of $33
million in logging profits from mahogany extraction in 1988 alone (The Economist
1993). While certainly inconsistent
with the romantic notion of indigenous culture as the embodiment of purity, such
figures underscore the tentacles of the global market and the ever-shrinking
world in which indigenous cultures are responding to and evolving in.
Biosphere Reserves: Concept Versus Reality
The
next model of protected area systems considered is UNESCO’s international
network of Biosphere Reserves, part of the Man and the Biosphere Program (MAB).
In theory, this model falls somewhere between the top-down and bottom-up
approaches to biological conservation, with an emphasis on the preservation of
traditional land-use systems. Launched
in 1971, the Biosphere Reserve program was possibly the first large-scale
initiative to emphasize the integration of human populations in protected
natural areas (Gregg 1991). As
such, one of its positive effects has been to underscore the need for more
collaboration amongst all stakeholders in protected area management.
The spatial organization of Biosphere Reserves includes different zones
which are regulated on the basis of how the land and resources may be used.
Each reserve must contain a core area which is generally pristine or
“old growth” biological communities and strictly protected from economic
activity and extraction. This core is surrounded by a buffer wherein traditional land
and resource uses, scientific investigations, and limited human settlement are
permitted. The final layer is a
transition zone: an open-ended area where the bulk of human population resides.
While representing an important paradigmatic shift
in protected area systems, its implementation in many cases has demonstrated
that the MAB Biosphere Reserve program may still exhibit a largely top-down
approach. A case in point is that
of the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve in the Talamanca region of Costa Rica and
Panama. The reserve is occupied by
six indigenous groups who share the uncertain fate of all indigenous cultures in
Costa Rica. Though indigenous
reserves represent approximately 6.3% of the nation’s territory, only sixty
percent of this area is actually controlled by the indigenous (Segura 1998),
exemplifying their lack of political voice in the national system.
One indigenous group of the La Amistad reserve holds
that their God, whom they call SibÖ,
created the natural world and placed it in their care (Palmer et al. 1991).
These Bribri have historically possessed intimate knowledge of, and
demonstrated commitment to, the conservation of both wild and cultivated
diversity. Though they formerly
occupied the lowlands of the Talamanca region, along with the indigenous Cabècar
group, colonization forced them into higher elevations and harsher agricultural
conditions (Houseal et al. 1994). Despite
this topographical shift, the Bribri long maintained ethical stewardship of the
land through ecologically-sound forest management and agricultural practices (Posas
2001). They also preserve forests critical to the protection of their watershed
by designating them as sacred places (Posas 2001).
However, the infiltration of foreign values through both outside
religious influences and increased urbanization of young Bribri and Cabècar,
has facilitated the erosion of cultural traditions and beliefs (Segura 1998).
Traditional food-production systems are being increasingly converted to
monoculture systems. Clan marriage practices are being disrupted.
Finally, the traditional “classrooms,” whereby the young are trained
to fulfill vital cultural and ecological functions, are disappearing (Segura
1998).
Due to the difficult terrain, limited social and
political organization, and general suspicion of outsiders, the indigenous
communities within the La Amistad reserve play virtually no role in the planning
or management of the Biosphere Reserve (Houseal et al. 1994).
Given Costa Rica’s well-developed system of protected natural areas,
one may have expected a more effective implementation of the Biosphere Reserve
program in attempt to integrate human and natural systems.
It is arguable that the high profile of the international MAB Biosphere
Reserve program has usurped the place of a possible alternative protected area
design that may have better catered to the needs of local indigenous groups
facing, at least to some degree, inevitable acculturation.
The story of the Bribri and Cabècar highlights
another overarching weakness of existing protected area systems, particularly
those inhabited by indigenous populations.
These systems have, by and large, failed to consider conservation beyond
the “natural” environment and wild genetic diversity.
Western conservationists have historically perceived the in
situ preservation of cultivated diversity to be either subordinate to,
distinct from, or incompatible with that of natural systems (Oldfield and Alcorn
1991). Scientists are thought to be
responsible for a mere one percent of experimental trials with new crops,
intercropping systems, and agroforestry techniques.
Rather, indigenous peoples may take the lion’s share of credit in this
area (Cultural Survival Quarterly 1991). Although
the MAB program in theory recognizes the significance of traditional uses of
landscapes and resources, the case of the Bribri’s disappearing agricultural
knowledge demonstrates that a more effective approach to achieving this goal in
its buffer and transition zones merits consideration within the conservation
arena.
Indigenous
Management of Conceptually Western Protected Area Systems
Moving a step closer toward a bottom-up approach to
protected area management is the case of the Kaa-Iya National Park in the Chaco
region of Bolivia. Within the
Chaco, South America’s second largest biome, the indigenous Guarani can be
divided into several groups including the Izozogans.
With a population of approximately 8,000, this sub-set of the Guarani has
managed the Kaa-Iya National Park since 1995 with assistance from the North
American based Wildlife Conservation Society (Arambiza 1998).
The Izozog people are primarily an agricultural
people who also depend heavily on the forest for daily supplements to their
diet. The various Guarani groups
throughout the southern cone of South America have until recent years remained
closely linked through their religion (Leitao 1994).
Like the Bribri, the Guarani also believe their lands have been given to
them as gifts from God and individual groups demonstrate deep ties with specific
tracts of land (Arambiza 1998). They
view control of their native territory as a guarantee of the continuation of
their people and their way of life. Threats to this guarantee abound, however.
Many of their traditional territories in the southern cone of South
America have been impacted by tea extraction activities; real estate speculation
in conjunction with the Hidrovia waterway project; wildlife poachers; and
deforestation for agricultural use by Mennonites and other colonists (Arambiza
1998, Leitao 1994).
The Izozog Guarani are cooperating with the Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS) on several projects related to the management of
their National Park (Arambiza 1998). Community
members are creating detailed maps of various land-use zones, anthropogenic
landscape features, culturally significant and sacred areas, and natural
resource distributions. WCS trains
select community members as para-biologists in scientific research of the
area’s flora and fauna. Park guards are being trained to defend the park and
its resources. The Izozog are
implementing environmental education programs for both teachers and students.
Finally, the Izozog created a management plan to affirm agreement of
goals amongst interested parties like WCS, the Bolivian government, and
international donors like the World Bank.
Thus far in the management of Kaa-Iya, there have
been no conflicts between the stakeholders (Arambiza 1998).
The Izozog feel they are able to continue their traditional lifestyle and
protect their land from outside threats. Compared
to landless Guarani neighbor groups in southwest Brazil, this certainly seems to
be the case. Leitao (1994) has
described the fate of the Brazilian Guarani.
These groups (the Kaiowà, Nandeva and M’bya) have no means by which to
continue their traditions and worse, must witness the destruction of their
culturally significant territories. The
presence of missionaries, critical of their cosmogony and perception of the
natural world, has had negative effects on community esteem.
Suicide rates are high and alcoholism is rampant.
Though not completely autonomous, the Izozog are
largely in control of managing the resources they need to support their
traditional livelihoods within the confines of a national park.
Likely due to the influence of WCS, the Izozog have partitioned the park
into land-use zones for wildlife protection, agricultural fields and livestock (Arambiza
1998). This Western concept may
impact their traditional spatial conception of the landscape. Furthermore, the Kaa-Iya mapping project of other landscape
features represents the danger of re-shaping indigenous models so that they fit
classically Western constructions (IWGIA 1998). Similarly, the environmental education program and the
training of para-biologists and park guards instill Western thought patterns and
perceptions. While this may serve
as a positive complement to Guarani concepts, these programs also have the
potential to supplant traditional customs.
The overarching impact of the protected area in the
case of the Guarani may be to promote differential cultural evolution.
While the groups have long exhibited different land-use practices suited
to their particular regions of the Chaco (Arambiza 1998), they have been united
to some degree by their spiritual beliefs (Leitao 1994).
Currently the Izozog are responding to forces of change within the
protected area and the surrounding Guarani groups responding to outside forces
of change (largely degradation of their territories). Though perhaps a natural function of cultural evolution and
adaptation that may have occurred independent of the national park, the Izozog
are likely to loose traditions that maintain the union with their fellow Guarani.
Protected
Area Systems Petitioned by Indigenous Groups
The following and final cases illustrate a truly
bottom-up approach to design, implementation and management of protected natural
areas. In the cases of the Kayapò
of Southern Brazil and the Kuna located on the Northeast coast of Panama, not
only are the indigenous groups in complete control of the protected natural
areas, they served as the impetus in their establishment.
Up to this point, recommendations for conservation efforts in third world
countries have been given in a unidirectional manner: from developed countries
to developing countries (Alcorn 1991). Given
the Western roots of modern protected area systems, these cases of the Kuna and
Kayapò biological reserves are dependent on technical assistance from Western
institutions. However, they
represent an opportunity to better understand how protected areas both
complement and/or conflict with traditional cultures and may contribute to the
on-going evolution of conservation in protected area systems.
In the early 1980s, the Kuna became the first
indigenous group to designate a protected forest within its territory (Redford
and Stearman 1993). The initiative
was highly popular amongst conservation organizations and received large sums of
financial support from international sources.
Known as PEMASKY (Spanish acronym for The Study Project for the
Management of the Forested Area of the Kuna Territory), the Kuna Park, and the
Kuna Wildlands Project, the Kuna set aside 60,000 hectares within their 321,159
hectare autonomous indigenous area. Given
their superior ability to navigate the modern political system relative to most
other indigenous groups (Chapin 1991), the Kuna conceived the idea of the forest
reserve as a way to fund their major objective:
protecting their sacred forest from colonization and other degrading
forces (Chapin 1998).
The philosophical and ethical basis for conservation
in Kuna culture stems from the idea that every living thing has a spiritual
dimension (Chapin 1991). Forests are sanctuaries “where the spirits hang their
clothes from the tops of the tallest trees.
If they cut down the trees, the spirits will punish them.
Disease-even death-could follow” (Archibold and Davey 1993).
Hence, in some senses the concept of botanical parks has been pervasive
throughout Kuna history in that adjacent to each community is a stand of
pristine forest, even when the land may be well-suited and otherwise convenient
for agriculture (Chapin 1998).
The Costa Rican institution CATIE was contracted by
the Kuna to design the management plan for the reserve.
The first several years of PEMASKY witnessed much enthusiasm about the
possible fusion of Western and indigenous resource management practices.
Increased involvement of outside conservation groups pushed the
management plan toward the design of a MAB Biosphere Reserve, though this was
never truly the goal of the Kuna (Chapin 1998). Poor financial planning and dearth of forethought resulted in
insufficient funding after the project’s initial phases.
This fact coupled with differences in the visions among planners
ultimately led to the eventual obscure profile of the project and finally, its
slow dissolution.
From the Kuna point of view, however, the project was
successful with regard to their major objective of stopping colonization.
Furthermore, the concept has been used as a model for various projects
with indigenous groups in Amazonia (Redford and Stearman 1993).
However, the political and scientific climate to which the Kuna adapted
in planning the project is thought to have had lasting impacts on their
perception of the natural world (Chapin 1998).
The younger generation increasingly subscribes to Western conservation
concepts without regard to the traditional ethical and spiritual basis for
conservation (Chapin 1991). This
specific case underscores a larger threat, of similar origin, to the Kuna
culture.
The Kuna have been successful in maintaining
relatively strong cultural identity in the face of outside threats and an often
violent, brutal national history. This
has been due in part to their ability to integrate sufficiently enough to
perceive threats and defend themselves and their culture in the appropriate
national and international context. Forty
plus years of Western education in Spanish, has spawned a literate, modern brand
of Kuna that undermines the oral tradition of teaching “the way of the great
father” (Chapin 1991). Chapin
(1991) poses the critical question of whether the Kuna will continue to act as
stewards of the Earth as its traditional belief system is in increasing danger
of disappearing.
The story of the Kayapò is possibly one of the best
publicized of the indigenous Amazonians. Leaders
like Payakan rose to international fame in the 1980s as they mobilized to
protest illegal mining on their territory and other threats like a hydroelectric
project (Conklin and Graham 1995). Much
of their political power and voice was initially derived from their savvy use of
Westerners’ stereotypes about Amazonian forest-dwellers to their advantage in
seeking self-determination (Conklin and Graham 1995).
Over the course of the last fifteen years, however, the record of some
Kayapò groups in the mahogany logging industry has drastically undermined this
strategy (Zimmerman et al. 2001). While
income generated from logging concessions helped the Kayapò finance the defense
of their territory through guarding borders and performing aerial surveillance,
it also contributed to the disruption of their egalitarian social structure
since some availed themselves of developed-world luxuries (e.g. automobiles).
The Kayapò Center for Ecological Studies or Pinkatiì
was implemented in 1992 in the 8,000 hectare forest reserve that the Kayapò
themselves established for the conservation of biodiversity.
The reserve is managed jointly by A’Ukre villagers and the
environmental NGO Conservation International, Brazil.
The research program within Pinkatiì generates employment for the
A’Ukre community as research assistants (Zimmerman et al. 2001).
Entry fees paid by scientists and other visitors benefit the entire
community, as do the obligatory donations of medicine (primarily for malaria)
required of the researchers (Zimmerman et al. 2001).
Perhaps the most significant impact of the creation
of the reserve has been restoration of the egalitarian principles on which Kayapò
society is based (Zimmerman et al. 2001). Within
the bounds of the reserve, villagers have effectively prohibited the extraction
of mahogany by outsiders and members their own community.
Also, the project allows the group to participate in the market economy
without disruption of their traditional lifestyle. Particularly significant is the continuation of their
sophisticated agricultural techniques. The
Kayapò have demonstrated no interest in migrating toward a larger-scale food
production system (Zimmerman et al. 2001).
By providing needed income without disrupting
important community characteristics, the Kayapò are continuing to produce food
the way they always have. They
employ an extensive variety of plants and through the semi-domestication of
these selected varieties, the Kayapò manipulate distinct ecological units
between microclimates for the net effect of increasing biological diversity
(Posey 1985). Furthermore, Posey
(1985) argues that these strategies, especially the Kayapò techniques for
creating apètè (forest patches), may have important implications for forest
conservation.
Potential negative impacts like transplanting
Western concepts in the minds of the research assistants or unsustainable
dependence on outside institutions may affect the success and longevity of
Pinkatiì. However, thus far the
project has faced no major obstacles and both Kayapò villagers and Conservation
International are satisfied with its success (Zimmerman et al. 2001).
Under the present circumstances, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks
in the case of the Kayapò.
Conclusions
The establishment and management of protected area
systems is a form of ecodevelopment that may be more or less integrated with the
traditional practices of the inhabitants over which (top-down approach) or with
which (bottom-up approach) they are superimposed.
While in most cases, the impacts on traditional cultures is milder than
those of other development forces by which indigenous peoples will or have been
inevitably influenced, these impacts merit consideration in the planning phases
and management strategies of protected areas.
In re-thinking the design and implementation of
protected areas in neotropical forests, evaluations of past cases should be
considered. The cases of Noel
Kempff Mercado National Park and Darien National Park illustrated how protected
area management may inevitably create niches for increased resource exploitation
of the very resources they aim to protect.
The case of La Amistad Biosphere Reserve illustrated that while the
participation-oriented Biosphere Reserve concept is more promising in theory, it
may not be an effective model if the residents are unable, unwilling and/or
otherwise excluded from the process. Geographic,
historical and cultural circumstances should be evaluated before employing this
model. While the bottom up
approach, illustrated by the Kuna and Kayapò cases, seems to hold much merit,
such models have been in practice for shorter time periods and potential dangers
and pitfalls have been identified. Monitoring
and evaluation of bottom-up approaches may yield invaluable insight into
effective biological and cultural conservation in an increasingly dynamic global
context.
“Inevitably once contact has been made with segments of
national society, the relationship with the ecosystem changes” [for indigenous
people] (Seeger 1982). Alcorn
(1991) disturbingly predicts that by 2050 even indigenous inhabitants in the
most remote areas of the world will be drawn into the global market economy.
The ease of industrialized resource exploitation will increase.
The losses of natural and cultivated biodiversity and cultural knowledge
may proceed unchecked if more complementary protected area systems are not
implemented. The complex variables
that must be considered in achieving more effective protected areas, as shown in
this discussion, may best be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
More realistic and sustainable protected areas must
be designed, implemented and managed taking into account the indigenous cultures
involved; the specific conservation objectives; the traditional and potential
resource-use of the people; and the impacts thereupon of the proposed or
existing protected area. Western conservationists continue to search for a new model
or paradigm to resolve the conflict between cultural and biological
conservation. Rather than laboring
to conceive the ideal model, the effort may be better spent exploring the unique
circumstances of the myriad established and potential protected areas where
interests of biological and cultural conservation intersect.
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