Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

140 Signposts for the Road Ahead
were concerned about the decline in wildlife
populations not only because game is the most
desired food, but also because hunting is a central
aspect of their social life.
Conservation organizations, on the other hand,
want first and foremost to conserve the biodiversity
of important ecosystems around the world.
To achieve this goal, they support a variety of
strategies including strict protection, sustainable
natural resource management and related socioeconomic
activities, policy reform, partnerships,
and capacity building.
Yet there are a number of areas where the interests
of the two parties intersect. Geography is a
powerful force binding indigenous groups and
conservation organizations together. As discussed
in the first two chapters, much of the biodiversity
that conservation groups want to
conserve is in areas where indigenous people
live. Conservation organizations can benefit
from the fact that indigenous groups are committed
to living on and protecting the land over the
long term. In turn, by collaborating with conservation
organizations, indigenous groups can gain
additional skills and resources to help them protect
their lands and their ways of life. Mapping
and other activities related to documenting
resource management, for instance, can be
important in establishing and maintaining legal
tenure. Beyond tenure, both parties want to prevent
environmental damage from large-scale economic
and infrastructure development, and to
develop sustainable alternatives. Finally, both
have important knowledge to share about conservation
and resource use. These common interests
can form a foundation for collaboration, and set
the stage for lasting partnerships.
Where this confluence of interests sometimes
splits is in setting resource management priorities,
such as which species are most important to protect,
appropriate levels of resource use, and what
strategy will be most effective. Differences also
tend to emerge regarding the degree to which
conservation organizations should support economic
development activities. Geographically,
conservation organizations are increasingly interested
in conserving large regions containing multiple
ecosystems that often go beyond the
boundaries of indigenous territories.
In some cases, differences that seem deep-seated
are actually the result of misunderstanding. For
example, while indigenous groups are generally
not familiar with the term biodiversity, they are
concerned with conserving a diversity of
resources to maintain healthy subsistence
economies, to protect important aspects of their
cultures, and to benefit future generations. If
their respective priorities are better understood
through creative planning and compromise, the
two groups can collaborate to achieve their goals.
In the case study from Ecuador, the objectives of
the government, donors, NGOs, and the indigenous
federation and its community members
overlapped, but did not completely coincide. The
Runa wanted to secure their land and livelihoods
over the long term. Beneath this unity of purpose,
however, the federation and the participating
communities had their own agendas, which
were not thoroughly aired before the project got
under way. Development agencies and conservation
groups were promoting a sustainable forestry
enterprise that would help put the market to work
conserving habitat. They did not ask whether the
model chosen was appropriate to communities
that had never worked together or had prior experience
running an economic enterprise. Funding
was short-term and tightly scheduled so that
basic questions about local capacity to carry out
the project once outsiders withdrew were not
asked or answered. Insufficient attention was
also paid to the federation’s capacity to help not
only these but other communities once the funding
ran out. The government, meanwhile, moved
forward on its own and established a park in
which Runa communities would have no decision-making
role but would serve as a cost-effective
buffer to prevent encroachment by colonists.
As a result, much of the community now sees the
park not as a protective shield but as a loss of
control over their ancestral territories. If the
stakeholders had discussed and reconciled their
objectives at the outset, a different project design
might have emerged that would have been more
sustainable and had wider impact.
While indigenous people and conservationists
may have common interests, the time frames for
achieving their respective goals are often different.
Conservation groups are often bound to a
three-to-five-year project cycle established by