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The Sirionó in Bolivia 75 Map 5.1 Borders of the Sirionó Territory of Ibiato According to Decree 22609 Sirionó Territory of Ibiato Savanna Forest Borders according to Decree 22609 Road Casarabe-El Carmen Road Trinidad-Santa Cruz Cocharca River Waterholes (not marked when near road) BOLIVIA IBIATO Trinidad La Paz Sucre Ibiato Santa Cruz Tarija Source: Townsend 1996. Insert map: Cartesia Software. of the law quickly surfaced when ambiguities in the legislation were interpreted narrowly. Some of the rules changed in midstream, imposing burdens that low-income communities would have difficulty meeting and putting them at a disadvantage with large landowners or businesses competing for the same resources. Even as the Sirionó wrestle with the question of usufruct, a new threat of outside colonization is looming. The new government is distracted by problems with coca growers in the Chapare region at the foot of the Andes, and has suggested moving some of them to the Beni. Such an invasion would chill consolidation of territorial demands by all the indigenous peoples of the state, but the Sirionó are particularly vulnerable because the dirt access road that connects Ibiato to the Trinidad–Santa Cruz highway is an arrow through the heart of their territory. So the victory the Sirionó won with the march can still be reversed. The more than 500 Sirionó who live on High Hill face a dual challenge as they look to the future. First, they must develop a resource management plan to consolidate tenure and protect their land from outsiders. Second, as their population rises and the impact of market society intensifies, the Sirionó must look inward to organize their own resourcefulness if the resource base is to be sustained. The external and internal challenges are intertwined but have different timelines. A management plan is needed quickly, but building social institutions to reach consensus and make it stick takes much longer. This task is complicated by
76 The Sirionó in Bolivia more than half a century of dependence on “benevolent” outsiders and by the influx of NGOs that have descended on High Hill since the presidential decree. Many have come with their own agendas, offering services that sound good but do not necessarily meet the needs of the Sirionó or prepare them to run their own projects once the short-term funding runs out. This case study looks at a long-term effort that is under way to help the Sirionó develop an integrated forest management plan to hold on to their land and use its resources wisely. This effort is still in its early phases, and some of its components, including wildlife management, are focused on research to help the community recover its knowledge of the environment and adapt scientific concepts, when appropriate, to meet local needs. The story of this effort to put the Sirionó in charge of their own destiny is broken into three parts. The first gives a brief overview of local ecosystems, social organization, and resource-use patterns, and the implications of new tenure and usufruct legislation. The second looks more closely at the forest management initiative and its wildlife component. Finally, lessons are offered that may be of use to others. The Sirionó are a small group, their territory is modest, and it sits on the far fringes of the more biodiverse parts of Bolivia’s Amazon Basin. But the Sirionó are fortunate to have what so many other groups in those areas lack—a presidential decree that allows them to begin turning the dream of a homeland into a lasting reality. They are part of a much larger indigenous movement, and what is learned in Ibiato can be applied elsewhere and become a precedent for persuading a reluctant government to give others the same opportunity. Lessons are also being learned about how conservation NGOs can build a sustained dialogue with indigenous peoples to build partnerships in which economic viability and environmental stewardship go hand in hand. II. An Overview 2.1 Ecosystems of the Sirionó Territory Sirionó ancestors chose their foraging grounds wisely. As nomads who roamed a wide belt east of the Andes, they knew that the transition zone between the forested Chiquitano highlands and the savannas of the Beni Basin was rich in the motacú palm (Attalea phalerata), which was their principal carbohydrate source (Holmberg 1969). The area is abundant with game, as wildlife also feed on the palm, which produces fruit year-round. The density of these palms is not accidental, but is a sign of intensive pre- Columbian activity by indigenous peoples (Balée 1987, 1988, 1989), who nurtured the plant as a wild crop. Confirmation of that presence can be seen in the many human-made hills and canals carved across the region (Denevan 1966; Townsend 1995, 1996). The village of Ibiato is built on one of these hills, rising about 80 meters above the surrounding floodplain. Visible reminders of past human habitation are evident in the pottery shards littering more than 20 other hills elsewhere in the territory. The Sirionó do not remember the people who once inhabited this zone and are probably not descended from them, since the Sirionó language is linked to those of the great Tupi–Guarani migrations entering the area prior to the arrival of the Spaniards (Holmberg 1969). Although they have roamed the zone for much longer, the Sirionó have been rooted to the patch around Ibiato for little more than half a century, some three generations. Nonetheless they know it intimately, as their names for the mission’s 36 landmarks indicate. Some of the names refer to relatively recent events: Ama Nguichia is where “the woman was struck by lightning.” Other names come from the particular resource endemic to the spot: Tambatá savanna bears the moniker of the walking catfish (Hoplosternum thoracatum) that is common there. The accumulated knowledge crystallized in the language includes an ability to describe the great diversity of habitats found in this region. The area of the San Pablo Forest that has yet to be demarcated is less well known by living Sirionó. The landscape delineated by the presidential decree is primarily of two types. Some 46 percent is flooding forest, and 48 percent is flooding grassland or swamp. The remaining patches consist of artificial hills, gallery forests, and related agricultural land. Even though soils may be variable, over 70 percent of the territory floods for two to six months a year. Some forested areas only flood in peak rainfall years, and the water may drain in only days or weeks, making agriculture possible most of the time.
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Indigenous Peoples and Conservation
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Support for this publication was pr
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iv Acknowledgments The editors woul
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PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
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4 Conservation and Indigenous Peopl
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6 Conservation and Indigenous Peopl
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8 Conservation Partnerships populat
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10 Conservation Partnerships hostil
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18 Conservation Partnerships Refere
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CHAPTER 3 Indigenous Federations an
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The Runa in Ecuador 23 Loreto Chont
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Page 34 and 35: The Runa in Ecuador 27 Figure 3.1 I
Page 36 and 37: The Runa in Ecuador 29 game animals
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Page 40 and 41: The Runa in Ecuador 33 Pacto Sumaco
Page 42 and 43: The Runa in Ecuador 35 DINAF and it
Page 44 and 45: The Runa in Ecuador 37 agement cost
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134 The Ju/’hoan in Namibia Endno
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PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS
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140 Signposts for the Road Ahead we
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144 Signposts for the Road Ahead tu
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Contributors JOHN BUTLER holds a Ph
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Indigenous Peoples and Conservation
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Annex 151 Indigenous Peoples 1 and
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Annex 153 19. WWF seeks out partner
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Annex 155 31. WWF commits itself to
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World Wildlife Fund 1250 24th Stree
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