Threatened Tribesman: The Melayu of Indonesia may lose fishing and hunting grounds to a forest-saving carbon plan.
Image: Courtesy of Forest Peoples Program
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Even as industrial civilization reaches into the farthest corners of the globe to extract resources such as oil, timber and fish, environmentalists are striving to mitigate its deleterious effects on the biosphere. Projects to reduce pollution, prevent climate change and protect biodiversity, however, are drawing criticism that they could drive indigenous people off their lands and destroy their livelihoods.
Conservationists have historically been at odds with the people who inhabit wildernesses. During the last half of the 20th century, millions of indigenous people in Africa, South America and Asia were ousted from their homelands to establish nature sanctuaries free of humans. Most succumbed to malnutrition, disease and exploitation, recounts anthropologist Michael Cernea of George Washington University. Such outcomes—coupled with the realization that indigenous groups usually help to stabilize ecosystems by, for instance, keeping fire or invasive weeds at bay—have convinced major conservation groups to take local human concerns into account. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) now describes indigenous peoples as “natural allies,” and the Nature Conservancy pledges to seek their “free, informed and prior” consent to projects impacting their territories.
Recent incidents, however, have made some observers wonder. “They’re talking the talk, but are they walking the walk?” asks Jim Wickens of the advocacy group Forest Peoples Program, based in Moreton-in-Marsh, England. Wickens cites a “huge cry of concern” by 71 grassroots groups protesting a WWF effort to set up a certification scheme for shrimp aquaculture. Shrimp farms have often been established along tropical coastlines by cutting down mangroves, and their effluents have damaged neighboring fisheries and farmlands. The Mangrove Action Project, an advocacy group based in Port Angeles, Wash., considers intensive shrimp aquaculture impossible to make sustainable.
The WWF counters that less than one third of shrimp manufacturers worldwide are currently achieving the standards that it hopes to set. As such, certification should “certainly make shrimp farming cleaner,” says Jason Clay, WWF’s vice president of markets. Geographer Peter Vandergeest of York University in Toronto worries, however, that the endeavor will falter unless the communities that are affected by shrimp farms have a say in setting standards and enforcement. Given the remoteness of many shrimp farms, he explains, auditors’ checks will be rare, and “you can easily put on a show.”
Perhaps more worrisome to advocates for indigenous peoples, however, are so-called carbon-offset schemes that seek to protect standing forests. Several of the large environmental organizations hold that the carbon saved by preventing deforestation could be sold as offsets, thereby generating funds for conservation and communities. A scheme referred to as REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) may be introduced this December into the United Nations Climate Change Convention, and it could be partly financed by offsets. The Nature Conservancy hopes that three billion tons of such credits, valued at $45 billion, can be generated by 2020.
But Marcus Colchester of Forest Peoples Program comments: “We see a risk that the prospect of getting a lot of money for biodiversity could lead to indigenous peoples’ concerns falling by the wayside.” In particular, increasing the financial value of forests could lead to “the biggest land grab of all time,” claims Tom B. K. Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network, based in Bemidji, Minn. Interpol has warned that unscrupulous entities plan to profit from REDD: their methods could include expelling an indigenous people from their forest to acquire legal title over it. The Nature Conservancy, which supports indigenous peoples’ efforts to acquire legal rights to their territories, counters that “increasing the value of forests through REDD can only provide them benefits.”
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8 Comments
Add CommentSadly, human "rights" seem to always ultimately trump biodiversity concerns. Since overpopulation is the real problem, one may "lose that knowledge when you take the people away", yet it is only by taking people away (or at least trying to check their constant expansion) that the natural environment can be preserved.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to be forgetting that the problem of overpopulation is largely centered on the so-called developed and modern world, not in ancient culture aboriginal tribes. The tribes are much better adapted to their environments and typically use farming / production methods that are indefinitely sustainable, which leaves them in a state of balance with their local ecosystem. They are a natural part of their systems and should be allowed to stay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoint taken, but I'm not proposing any ousters. However, I will suggest that in the 21st century, differentiating between "modern" and "ancient" cultures is a tricky business. If it's simply a game of "who was here first?", then the flora and fauna would always win.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wouldn't say the aboriginal tribes are better adapted and part of the balance. Out of necessity, any surviving population of humans has to have adapted somewhat to their environment, but I doubt that there is a balance in any case. Where "balance" is perceived, it is merely that the population is so low that the overall impact on the environment is negligible. Increase the population a hundredfold with exactly the same strategies and consumption and you will see the same problems experiencing that the rest of us are causing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOverpopulation is the problem, plain and simple, and the ability of the Earth to sustain us is diminishing rapidly as a result of it. The two trends have probably already crossed in a sustainable fashion and we are just too dull to realize it. We'd rather argue about whether climate change is real than to react to save ourselves. And argue about human rights while ignoring that our own right to procreate is the biggest threat to these rights. We could all drive Humvees if there were only 10 million people in the world, but with 7 billion, just breathing in and out is a burden.
Educate women to solve the problem. Educated women do not have time to waste on children. Educated populations always slowly die out, not enough replacement. Poor 3rd world populations are the ones that over populate and emigrate to more wealthy areas. Poor people always destroy their local environment. Only wealthy people can afford to protect the environment. ENVIRO's should prevent their own reproduction to prevent their defective intelligence genes from being past on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor the genius that thinks that a few tens of million humans could maintain our standard of living is dumb as a wood post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe electronic age alone requires the efforts and talents of a half a billion people. Only 1/10 of 1% of the population is smart enough to advance the knowlage base of humanity. For real advancement those people need to work or interact together. that requires large numbers and population density. I'm a country boy and hate cities, but even I know real advancement only comes from cities.
"Only 1/10 of 1% of the population is smart enough to advance the knowlage base of humanity."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiso.k.
Environmentalism is basically anti-human. Such a love for the environment solution that owls and crayfish,etc. have a greater value than human life is hogwash sentimentalism originating in a tangentially skewed perspective of reality. Life and ecosystem evolve, always have, always will. And to believe that everything man does is wrong is wrongheaded and duplicitous. Wake up and smell the coffee!
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