Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

88 The Sirionó in Bolivia
The main limiting factor of all these income-generating
ideas is the lack of business experience.
The Sirionó run their household economies, but
managing community finances is new territory.
A microenterprise credit program that loans
small groups $50 to purchase apiary materials
could become a model. Whichever option finally
emerges, the community structure (and municipal
government) must play the role of watchdog over
the commons. Here too the Sirionó are anxious
to know more.
That brings us back to the integrated forestry management
plan. The process facilitated by CID-
DEBENI has been a major step forward, but its
development-oriented funders have only committed
themselves to a two-year program, a perilously
short period for a natural resource management
project, even under ideal circumstances. There
has been insufficient time to explore options other
than firewood production, and unless the NGO
finds additional support elsewhere, the sustained
monitoring and feedback effort this complex initiative
needs to take hold and prosper may dry up.
A well-designed, sensitively implemented effort
may fall short because donors were locked into
their own schedule rather than paying attention to
the community’s capacity to absorb and master
needed skills. A succession of short-term projects
is also not the answer since communities take their
own time warming up to a professional, and by the
time they do, the technician is already moving on
to the next stop. This would be particularly
destructive in the case of the Sirionó, who are trying
to master the big picture.
As international conservation organizations think
about working in partnership with indigenous
groups, they need to keep this in mind and commit
themselves to a longer-term process. This
will give indigenous groups like the Sirionó and
their prospective partners time to build a relationship
and explore common interests in conserving
the land.
Endnotes
1. I want to thank the Sirionó people for their
participation and congratulate them on their
excellent efforts towards self determination. I
thank the funders of my research, which stimulated
the process described in this chapter: the
Biodiversity Support Program, World Resources
Institute, The Nature Conservancy, L.S.B.
Leakey Foundation, Scott Neotropical Fund,
World Conservation Society, Organization of
American States, American Association of
University Women, and the University of Florida.
I also thank those funders that have allowed the
work to continue, including Tyresso Peace and
Arbitration Society, International Work Group for
Indigenous Affairs, World Conservation Society,
and Department for International Development. I
want to recognize the contribution of Zulema
Lehm and John Kudrenecky, among others from
CIDDEBENI, and the participation of the local
indigenous organizations such as Consejo
Sirionó, CPIB, and CIDOB.
2. Comparable figures for other rural areas and
urban areas of the Beni are 75 percent and 87
percent, respectively (CIDDEBENI 1996).
3. What would become the Sirionó wildlife project
began as my dissertation research project. It
was supported by small grants from the L.S.B.
Leakey Foundation; the Scott Neotropical Fund
at Lincoln Park Zoo; the Program for Studies in
Tropical Conservation and the Tropical
Conservation and Development Program of the
University of Florida; the Wildlife Conservation
Society; the Organization of American States; the
American Association of University Women; and
the Biodiversity Support Program, a USAIDfinanced
program with WWF-US, the World
Resources Institute, and The Nature
Conservancy.