Connecting With Indigenous Cultures In Eco-tourism
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Benji Jones is a senior environment reporter, covering biodiversity loss and climate change. Prior to joining, he was a senior energy reporter at Insider. Benji previously worked as a wildlife researcher.
Connecting With Indigenous Cultures In Eco-tourism
In the lush greenery of the tropical forest on the east coast of Mindanao, the Philippines’ second largest island, you might glimpse or – if you’re lucky – hear the brilliant plumage of the rare rufous-lord kingfisher. The Greater Philippine Eagle, a critically endangered species.
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Wildlife is abundant here, but not because the area has been left a protected area or protected by an international environmental organization. This is because the area known as Pangasanan has been occupied for centuries by the Manobo people, who have long depended on the land to cultivate crops, hunt and fish, and gather herbs. They use many techniques to protect the land, from restricted access to sacred areas to wildlife sanctuaries and offseasons for hunting, due to a traditional belief that nature and its resources are protected by spirits.
Pangasanan is one of the many areas around the world that remain ecologically intact due to the conservation practices of indigenous tribes or local communities. Although these places have not been extensively documented by researchers, they cover an estimated 21 percent of the Earth’s total land area. A new report by the ICCA Consortium, a group that advocates for indigenous and community-led conservation.
This means that indigenous peoples and local communities protect more of the earth than national parks and forests. (Protected and protected areas overseen by countries—some of which overlap with indigenous territories—account for only 14 percent of the Earth’s land area, according to the report.) The consortium says its report is the first attempt to measure the extent of the areas. Protected by indigenous peoples and local communities, known as ICCAs or Living Areas.
Manobo community leaders erected a sign at the entrance of a local ecotourism park around the popular waterfall to inform visitors that it is part of the Pangasanan area.
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Despite the great role that indigenous peoples play in nature conservation, their contribution is often overlooked. As environmental journalist Michel Niezuis writes, the modern conservation movement was built on the misconception that nature begins as “pristine” and untouched by humans. This put many of the movement’s early efforts, including protected areas, at odds with indigenous land management—activities that created many of the landscapes that countries are now racing to protect.
“We’re exempt,” said Reno Keoni Franklin, president emeritus of the Kashia Pomo Tribe of California. “Tribal wisdom is often used and cited in land conservation, but rarely matters unless told by a white person. Unfortunately, this has only been true of the last 100 years of land conservation in the United States.”
The stakes couldn’t be higher today. More than 50 countries, including the US and other wealthy nations that make up the G7, have committed to conserving at least 30 percent of their land and water by 2030. Some tribal activists fear that reaching that goal, called 30 by 30, could come at the expense of tribal land rights.
But they also see an opportunity to change the conservation paradigm in which the greater contribution of indigenous peoples is recognized and supported. The consortium’s report can help advance that change. It found that if you consider areas protected by indigenous and local communities, in addition to formally protected and protected areas, more than 30 percent of the world’s land is already protected.
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A large amount of land is owned or governed by indigenous peoples or local communities, defined by the Consortium as groups whose culture and livelihoods are deeply embedded in the land. Estimates vary, but according to the consortium, that number is at least 32 percent globally.
Most of those areas are protected and in “good ecological condition,” according to an analysis by the consortium and the UN’s World Conservation Observatory.
To indigenous peoples and their allies, this quest is intuitive. “We see ourselves as part of [nature] because it’s life-sustaining,” said Aaron Payment, president of the Salt Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan. “Our lives depend on living in ecological balance with our natural resources.”
New estimates suggest that indigenous peoples and local communities protect at least a fifth of the Earth’s land.
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“Potential ICCAs” cover a fifth of the Earth’s total land area, the report found. That number is about 17 percent if you include only ICCAs that are protected or protected by countries and private organizations outside of protected areas. Some of them ICCAs are documented.)
Academic research supports the idea that much of the natural habitat within Aboriginal lands is protected. One study, for example, found that indigenous areas contained more biodiversity than protected areas in Brazil, Australia, and Canada. Another found that at least 36 percent of the world’s remaining intact forest landscapes—continuous tracts of forests and other natural ecosystems—are found in tribal areas.
Research has also shown that in some areas, tribal control of land reduces deforestation as much as, or even more than, formal conservation. “Biodiversity is declining more slowly in areas managed by [indigenous and local communities] than elsewhere,” more than 20 researchers argued in a recent Perspectives article in the journal.
While different tribal and local groups have different cultures and practices, they share a holistic and human-inclusive view of nature imbued with cultural or spiritual value. It is this view, in part, that forms the basis for tribal land management, which often includes the protection of sacred lakes or forests, or rules against exploitation of certain species.
Figure 2 From Measuring Sustainable Indigenous Tourism Indicators: A Case Of Mah Meri Ethnic Group In Carey Island, Malaysia
This does not mean that indigenous peoples do not change habitats and reduce animal populations, or that they bear responsibility for wildlife protection. But in general, the concept of conservation seems to be more embedded in tribal traditions than in Western cultures.
That certainly seems true in the old Manobo word pangasanan, which means “a place to get food, medicine and other necessities,” according to Glaiza Tabanao, a consultant at the Philippine Association for Intercultural Development who contributed to the ICCA consortium report. It has served as a living refuge for years. During World War II, for example, local families retreated to the forest to escape Japanese soldiers. And in recent times, they depended on it for food as some of their livelihoods collapsed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is what we get from protecting our territory and its forests,” said Manobo leader Houdon Sunkuan Nemesio Domogoy. “We will surely survive this epidemic.”
However, the value that these communities provide to global conservation efforts – protecting their land with their lives, in some cases – is often overlooked.
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“Their many contributing efforts go unrecognized and denigrated,” wrote Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, a member of the Philippines’ Kankana-Aigorot people and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, along with several co-authors. In an article published last year
Franklin, Kashia Pomo tribal leader, described a local example of this problem. In a recent call to discuss conservation efforts in Sonoma County, a county official (whom he declined to name) mentioned the activities not of the Kasia Pomo tribe but of two local conservation organizations. His tribe has protected thousands of acres of land through parks and easements, Franklin said. “She completely ignored us,” he said.
In general, environmental organizations do not consider at length how much land on earth is protected until most of the areas protected by indigenous peoples fall into formal protected or protected areas. And where these areas overlap with protected areas, indigenous peoples are often the de facto custodians of resident biodiversity—but rarely do they formally govern the areas, according to the ICCA Consortium.
“Indigenous people and communities are conserving more than state protected areas, they are doing better than state protected areas,” said Holly Jonas, Global Coordinator for the ICCA Consortium. “It’s absurd for them not to have clear recognition.”
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Hawudon Danao and his wife, Victoria, on their farm in the Pangasananan region, they let fall so that the nutrients of the soil can be regenerated.
Indigenous knowledge of land management is also often overlooked, said lead author Victoria Reyes-Garcia, a research professor at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.
Perspective. In countries such as Australia, India and Bali, local people and local communities have long used tools such as controlled burning, grazing and canal construction to sustain themselves and maintain ecosystems. However, formal protected areas sometimes put an end to these activities and ecosystems, as they begin to disappear, Reyes-Garcia said. In some cases, this can create problems such as the spread of invasive species.
Spoiling things,
Pdf) A Potential Offer Demand Problem In Ecotourism: Different Perspectives From Eco Tourists And Indigenous People
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