Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

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.