Saving What Remains

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' ROLE IN CONSERVATION

July 31, 2012

Tropical forests have been inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years, and human activities on a traditional scale may actually help promote forest diversity. Traditionally forest-dependent indigenous peoples have rarely over-exploited the resource that provides them with their livelihood, and they carefully practice rotational farming and sustainably harvest forest products and game. Yet these Indigenous peoples often take the brunt of the blame for the destruction of the rainforests. Creating reserves has sometimes evicted these traditional peoples from their lands and in some places national park rangers unfairly restrict their activities. Less so today, but frequently in the past, tribal peoples were disregarded when national government granted concessions to foreign oil, mining, and logging firms on their traditional lands. Indigenous people have missed out on most of the benefits garnered by forest developers.

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Articles on Indigenous people and conservation

To tackle climate change cheaply, first secure Indigenous forest rights (11/17/2015)
‘Catastrophic failure': World’s Indigenous communities lack rights to 75% of their land (10/02/2015)
Amazon tribe creates 500-page traditional medicine encyclopedia (06/24/2015)
Brazilian Indigenous populations grow quickly after first contact devastation (02/18/2015)
Deforestation puts cultural survival of forest-dependent peoples at risk (12/10/2014)
What we can learn from uncontacted rainforest tribes (11/26/2014)
Indigenous communities demand forest rights, blame land grabs for failure to curb deforestation (03/25/2014)
Helping the Amazon’s ‘Jaguar People’ protect their culture and traditional wisdom (02/11/2014)
Land conflicts complicate effort to spare forests from palm oil in Borneo (01/17/2014)
In landmark ruling, Indonesia’s Indigenous people win right to millions of hectares of forest (05/17/2013)
Report: corruption in Sarawak led to widespread deforestation, violations of Indigenous rights (03/10/2011)
Amazon tribe establishes first Indigenous forest carbon fund (12/04/2010)
Taking back the rainforest: Indians in Colombia govern 100,000 square miles of territory (05/10/2010)
The real Avatar story: Indigenous people fight to save their forest homes from corporate exploitation (12/22/2009)
How rainforest shamans treat disease (11/10/2009)
Google partners with Amazon tribe (10/29/2009)
Companies benefit from reducing conflict with local people (07/08/2009)
Indigenous people serve as guardians of forest carbon, must be involved in climate solutions (04/22/2009)
Carbon conservation schemes will fail without forest people (10/16/2008)
An interview a shaman in the Amazon rainforest (07/28/2008)
Heavily-populated Amazon was decimated by old world disease (06/09/2008)
REDD will fail if needs of forest communities aren’t addressed (12/07/2007)
Amazon Indians use Google Earth, GPS to protect forest home (11/15/2006)

Indigenous people news feed

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Indigenous people have intimate knowledge and perspectives of the forest ecosystem around them. Instead of looking as them with condescension, scientists, environmentalists, and conservationists must come to view Indigenous people as an asset to forest use and conservation.

Oscar Mishaja, rainforest guide in the Tambopata region. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Review questions:

What can we learn from Indigenous people about rainforest conservation?

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