Indigenous people and the Nature they protect

 

Human race comprises only 6% indigenous people or about 476 million and interestingly manage or oversee about 80% of global bio-diversity within their living space. This contains one quarter of the carbon stored in the world’s tropical forests. According to indigenous history, about 70,000 years ago some fearless and adventurous groups of people from Afro-Asian landmass or the continents of Africa and Asia left for the unknown lands scattered over the worldscapes like Australia, Americas(North & South) and the Arctics and settled down. It is believed they were the first people on those vast and empty lands and were in awe of the nature of the lands they arrived. Their relationship with nature stemmed from that awe which they regarded as sacred, places where the spirits of their ancestors went and the future of the present and the young lay in trust. They believed the nature had to be worshipped and nurtured sacredly so that it could reward the indigenous people generously to live with it in harmony. These groups or the tribes of the indigenous people flourished with the bounty the nature provided in the form of various harvestings, pure water lakes, medicinal trees etc to sustain their lives peacefully for centuries. The tribes acknowledged nature with joy, expressed in wonderful crude arts, mystical stories woven around the nature and dances of gratitude. They saw nature as supreme and respected it with utter devotion.  But, this harmony was broken when colonizers arrived on these landmasses at different periods with the sole intention of acquiring the wealth of the nature to enrich their greed and ambition in the name of adventure. They saw nature as a commodity to exploit and saw these indigenous people as obstacles to their quest and unleashed untold brutalities with brute force either to enslave or eliminate them. Sadly, these people who loved the Earth and its nature were defeated by arms and pushed off their lands to subsequently begin vanishing from the face of earth. Thus began the gradual destruction of the earth’s biodiversity and now has intensified to an extent of ultimate climate crisis threatening the very survival of humans. Today, ironically, these very human beings lead by some enlightened groups are turning to indigenous communities the world over who hold ancient wisdom about the Earth, seeking survival strategies.

 

Who are we talking about when we refer to indigenous peoples; and what do we mean when we say that land is traditionally owned, managed or occupied? A single definition would not capture the full range and diversity of the indigenous peoples and local communities of the world.

 

According to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, indigenous peoples  have “historical continuity or association with a given region or part of a given region prior to colonization or annexation; identify themselves as indigenous and be accepted as members by their community; have strong links to territories, surrounding natural resources and ecosystems; maintain at least in part, distinct social, economic and political systems; maintain, at least in part, distinct languages, cultures, beliefs and knowledge systems; are resolved to maintain and further develop their identity and distinct social, economic, cultural and political institutions as distinct peoples and communities; and often form non‐dominant sectors of society.” When land is owned, managed or occupied in a traditional way, the word “traditional” refers to a knowledge that stems from centuries-old observation and interaction with nature. This knowledge is often embedded in a cosmology that reveres the one-ness of life, considers nature as sacred and acknowledges humanity as a part of it. And it encompasses practical ways to ensure the balance of the environment in which they live, so it may continue to provide services such as water, fertile soil, food, shelter and medicines. Indigenous Peoples worldwide embody and nurture 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity, and occupy 20% of the world’s land surface. The Indigenous Peoples of the world are very diverse. They live in nearly all the countries on all the continents of the world and form a spectrum of humanity, ranging from traditional hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers to legal scholars. In some countries, Indigenous Peoples form the majority of the population; others comprise small minorities. Indigenous Peoples are concerned with preserving land, protecting language and promoting culture. Some Indigenous Peoples strive to preserve traditional ways of life, while others seek greater participation in the current state structures. Like all cultures and civilizations, Indigenous Peoples are always adjusting and adapting to changes in the world. Indigenous Peoples recognize their common plight and work for their self-determination based on their respect for the earth. Despite such extensive diversity in Indigenous communities throughout the world, all Indigenous Peoples have one thing in common - they all share a history of injustice. Indigenous Peoples have been killed, tortured and enslaved. In many cases, they have been the victims of genocide. They have been denied the right to participate in governing processes of the current state systems. Their plight has been akin to the Mother Earth’s who is the victim of identical crisis!!

What role do indigenous people all over the world play in developing, managing and protecting natural spaces and ecosystems?

Considering their attachment to native lands, indigenous peoples’ contributions are essential in designing and implementing solutions for ecosystems. Environmental experts believe that traditional knowledge and heritage can contribute to environmental assessments and sustainable ecosystem management. For example, the sustainable production and consumption of indigenous and traditional food has invaluable benefits for natural resources and ecosystems, contributes to a sustainable and healthier diet, and helps mitigate climate change. On a policy level, if we can ensure that indigenous people are included in decision-making and management of ecosystems, it will be of immense utility since they can provide the ground level information about the lands they inhabitated. Just as we all seek and recognize Rights of Earth, The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires that free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples be obtained in matters of fundamental importance for their rights, survival, dignity, and well-being. Moreover, consultations to obtain this consent must respect local governance and decision-making processes and structures; must occur in indigenous languages and on indigenous peoples’ time frames; and be free of coercion or threat. They are as much essential to the nature as we all are. 

The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People are important policy instruments for indigenous peoples to voice their concerns and advocate for policy change within the UN. At national and local levels, however, indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized. In response, UNEP has established a policy to promote the protection of environmental defenders through which it will denounce attacks, torture, intimidation and murder of environmental defenders; advocate for better protection of environmental rights and the people standing up for them; support responsible management of natural resources; and request accountability for events in which environmental defenders have been affected. Many indigenous groups have their own concepts of respect for nature and stewardship long before the conservation movement began. They have been observing environmental changes for generations and have recognized patterns. And this is exactly the kind of knowledge and expertise we need, to tackle climate change and mitigate its harmful impact. 

According to Eli Enns, co-chair of the Indigenous Circle of Experts, which is advising the Canadian government on how to use an indigenous approach to conservation, the present international way to protect nature has traditionally paid little attention to indigenous people.  Protected areas and national parks have been created by taking land from indigenous peoples and evicting them. Indigenous people are excluded from conservation programs and even forcibly evicted from the land. They are seen as obstacles to conservation and nature protection, and their knowledge is ignored or dismissed. Further, speaking at Luc Hoffmann Institute in Vienna, he said the global collapse of biodiversity stems from a dominant western worldview that separates humans from nature and encourages the excessive exploitation of natural resources. Indigenous knowledge is about the interconnectedness of things. It tries to increase abundance. The Western approach is to see the world in pieces and to profit from it.

Back in India, where diverse indigenous peoples inhabit large parts of biodiversity, Biologist Debal Deb, who works with these communities in India to protect fast-disappearing plant species, observes, indigenous communities respect nature more because they rely on a knowledge system distilled from generations of observation and practice. The whole community possesses the land, forest and water bodies as commons, with a set of user rules. Their worldview (including the governance of the commons) does not differentiate the forest/land from themselves — unlike the Judeo-Christian-Islamic worldview of hierarchical view of human and (the rest of) nature. Many indigenous societies summarize their knowledge “in the forms of folklores and folk institutions like ‘sacred groves,’ ‘sacred ponds’ and ‘sacred species’ — that prohibit the destruction of certain resource species and their habitats. Re-planting of trees after felling and prohibition of pollution of rivers upstream are a part of such traditional practices, based on the ancient experience of profligate use of resources. “It took years for indigenous knowledge to get known. Now we are relying on it to deliver biodiversity. Indigenous peoples have been delivering for all these years but have been quite unappreciated,” says Jon Hutton, director of the Luc Hoffmann Institute and former head of the U.N.’s  World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, U.K.

 

Other studies describe some of the sophisticated natural resource management systems that indigenous peoples traditionally use and which are now being adopted more widely. They include a 1,200-year-old way to grow fish and rice together in China that greatly reduces the need for pesticides and chemical fertilizers; Aboriginal fire management techniques developed thousands of years ago to protect Australian landscapes; indigenous knowledge of reindeer herders in the Arctic; and traditional ways to allow Pacific fish stocks to recover. Other practices from which Western society could benefit include 3,500-year-old rainwater harvesting techniques in India, indigenous farming methods in the highlands of Tanzania, and practices that tribal groups have traditionally used  to adapt to climate change in Polynesia. A 2013 study of people living near the Kpashimi forest in Rivers state, Nigeria, by geography lecturer Jinbrin Abdullahi of Ahmadu Bello University and colleagues, detailed how a traditional society protected its environment by following cultural and ecological rules. Taboos and beliefs forbade the killing of some animals at certain times, fire was used to increase the regeneration of trees, human impact was restricted in designated sacred places, and harvesting had to be limited. To promote biodiversity and conservation, hunting was restricted to certain species in specific seasons to allow breeding. Fruit could only be picked from the ground and fruit trees could not be cut down; medicinal plants could only be debarked on one side.

 

People and governments must now move away from the narrow thinking that the Western style of science is the only science there is. From this viewpoint, the vast body of scientific expertise developed in diverse societies and cultures is discounted and ignored. There are ways to use forests and keep them. We can use resources and maintain them. Indigenous knowledge includes knowledge accumulated over thousands of years. Communities have vetted solutions and knowledge systems over time. Throughout the world, indigenous peoples are on the front line of destructive development and are paying with their lives. If it was not for them, a lot more forests would have been felled by now and much biodiversity would have been lost. They are the only ones defending the forests in the Amazon and India.

 

Humans and climate change are driving species to extinction at unprecedented rates. To slow or eventually reverse these declines, we need to better manage our land to preserve habitats and secure biodiversity – the variety of life on Earth. To that end, a study published confirms what many communities have known for years. To preserve biodiversity, we must turn to indigenous peoples for guidance and management. The success of collaboration depends on government agencies understanding and recognizing indigenous relationships to the environment and involving them in conservation efforts from an early stage. Attention to these and other factors like intergenerational involvement and cross-cultural education can lead to environmental success. With the climate crisis in full effect, governments must recognize the unique and impactful perspectives that indigenous communities bring to environmental conservation, and include these communities to collaborate on solutions.