Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

The Sirionó in Bolivia 81
The clay tobacco pipes made by the older folk
crack easily because of their poor firing and are
equally hard to sell. A recent project has set up
an artisan center where men and women can
learn woodcarving, ceramics, basketry, and
weaving, but the teacher was hired for only a
short period. The sponsoring NGO overlooked
local master artisans for the position, and presumed
they should offer their skills for free. The
outsider who was hired offers only outside techniques,
and there is no effort to recover or refine
designs based on local tradition.
2.4 Tenure and Resource Rights
The Sirionó are interested in using their
resources to raise income and to ward off outside
claims by showing that the land is already being
used. The recently enacted agrarian reform law
setting up legally established indigenous homelands,
or TCOs, would help consolidate what was
granted through the presidential decree.
Legislators who drafted the law, however, may
have underestimated the difficulty in equitably
administering it. A community must show that it
is culturally intact and has the ability and intent
to manage the ecology of the land in its possession.
In practice, this means showing proof of
ownership and obtaining registered land-use concessions
from the agencies in charge. Even when
a community has title, it is often described in
terms of metes and bounds without meaningful
reference points.
The Sirionó thought they had resolved all doubts
by surveying their land with navigation-quality
global positioning instruments (GPS), which met
the government standards in place at the time.
The Agrarian Reform Institute set up to implement
the law, however, now says it requires the
extraordinarily expensive geodesic GPS survey,
whose accuracy far supercedes that of most titles
already on file. The midstream switch in requirements
has raised concerns among the Sirionó that
the government does not want to issue final
deeds and is stalling until large landowners can
consolidate rival claims. Even if that suspicion
proves unfounded, to comply with the requirements
for a definitive study of even one territory
is daunting, and the flood of applicants for
TCOs, many of which have more tangled claims
than the Sirionó, ensures long processing delays.
Another problem concerns registration of
usufruct with the appropriate government agency.
The presidential territorial decree exempts the
Sirionó from justifying why they need as much
land as they have asked for, but the new forestry
law applies in full force to preexisting as well as
new activities on their territory. It says that
before they can commercially harvest their forest
products—including wood, honey, game, or wild
fruits—the Sirionó must have a written management
plan, produced by a professional forester.
Other strictures apply as well. As the next section
will explore more fully, this creates a sense
of urgency not only because it affects long-standing
sources of income but because forest
resources have value to other interests in the area
who may be able to prepare their own management
proposals more quickly.
Fortunately for the Sirionó, there has been no
discovery of mineral resources in their territory:
Bolivia’s mining law supercedes all other law
and allows those obtaining concessions considerable
leeway in terms of environmental damage.
Other laws presently under review govern water,
hydrocarbon extractions, and biodiversity and
genetic resources. The draft biodiversity law
would give the federal government complete
responsibility for managing the natural flora and
fauna of the entire nation plus all rights to commercial
benefits from the genetic material.
III. Community-Based Resource
Management
The Sirionó are caught in a bind. They have
established legal claim to much of their territory,
but do not control its resources. To secure title to
their land, ward off outside threats, and earn cash
needed to supplement their subsistence economy,
they may feel compelled to choose a course that
will destroy their resource base. Most NGOs
have focused on income generation rather than
sustainable development. Perhaps that is because
community-based natural resource management
that includes the promotion of sound economic
opportunities would require a long-term commitment
of resources to local capacity building.
NGOs with short-term outlooks are often reluctant
to invest in results that are likely to materialize
only down the road on someone else’s books.
This section will look at precursors in wildlife