The Nature Conservancy

and Indigenous Peoples

by Karen Foerstel, The Nature Conservancy

Supporting People and Places

Most of the world’s biodiversity exists in areas inhabited by people. Effective conservation cannot be achieved unless the people who live and rely on those lands are an integral part of the conservation process.

For more than 50 years, The Nature Conservancy has depended upon partnerships with local communities to conserve some of the most biologically critical and threatened ecosystems on Earth.

The Nature Conservancy works in all 50 of the United States, as well as in 28 countries around the world. In more than 30 of those programs – nationally and internationally – the Conservancy is working collaboratively with indigenous and traditional communities to help protect their lands for generations to come.

Included in The Nature Conservancy’s seven core values is a “Commitment to People,” which states that we “respect the needs of local communities by developing ways to conserve biological diversity while at the same time enabling humans to live productively and sustainably on the landscape.”

From the highlands of Colombia, where we have helped the indigenous Kogi, Wiwa, Arsario and Arhuaco tribes reacquire their sacred lands, to the frozen tundra of Alaska, where we are working with Native Alaskans to incorporate traditional knowledge and subsistence activities into conservation plans, Conservancy employees strive to embody that value in everything they do.

Learning the unique cultural complexities of indigenous groups and incorporating them into conservation planning is a continuous process. Each community is unique. Conservation tools, such as participatory conservation, enable local Conservancy staff to listen to community concerns and develop joint solutions that have scientific credibility. We build long-term relationships with communities, continually refine our plans and jointly assess our activities.

Over the years, the Conservancy has built a solid track record working collaboratively with local people around the world to develop tangible conservation solutions for conserving wildlife and local ways of life. In doing so, we have made strong progress, learned some valuable lessons and recognized that more must be done to involve indigenous and traditional peoples in conservation efforts.

Global Outreach

In November 2004, The Nature Conservancy participated in the 3^rd IUCN World Conservation Congress in Bangkok to share ideas and find common ground to advance conservation efforts worldwide. The theme of the Congress, "People and Nature: Only One World", highlighted conservation as an integral component of sustainable development. As a participant in the Congress, the Conservancy supported the creation of a Global Dialogue to address needs of indigenous peoples. The Conservancy also worked at the Congress to promote the connections between conservation and human well-being.

The Nature Conservancy was a key participant in The World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in South Africa in 2002. The Summit sought to develop policies to fight global poverty while ensuring protection of Earth's ecological resources. During the Summit, The Nature Conservancy was a cosponsor of the Equator Initiative, a program that supports community-based conservation projects in developing countries across the Equatorial Belt, which contains some of the highest concentrations of human poverty and also the highest concentrations of biodiversity in the world. As part of the Initiative, the Conservancy awarded 20 community-based organizations $30,000 each in recognition of their work to reduce poverty while conserving and sustainably using biodiversity.

Partnering with People

Alaska

Partnerships with Alaska Native people are at the core of the Conservancy’s work in Alaska. On the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea, the Conservancy has been working for over a decade with the Unangan residents of St. Paul Island and St. George Island to conserve the extraordinary concentrations of fur seals, seabirds and fish on which the native people depend for subsistence and their local economy.

In the Nushagak River watershed in southwest Alaska, the Conservancy is working with Yupik villagers to develop a comprehensive conservation strategy for their 4.5 million acre traditional use area. The watershed supports part of the greatest sockeye salmon runs remaining on Earth, and these salmon are the foundation for Native subsistence in the region.

In the northwest Arctic, the Conservancy is similarly working with the Native Village of Wainwright to develop a conservation strategy for their 18,000-square mile traditional use area. Most of this land is in the National Petroleum Preserve-Alaska and is subject to development. The collaborative effort will combine biological data gathered by the Conservancy and the indigenous ecological knowledge of this Inupiaq community.

In both projects, the Conservancy will work with the local communities to implement their strategy, including working with the state and federal agencies that manage much of these traditional use areas.

Amazon

Nature Conservancy scientists are melding high-tech science and traditional indigenous knowledge to create “ethno-maps” of the Amazon. Satellite images of a one-million-acre region were given to indigenous communities in the Amazon, and community members used colored pencils to highlight landscape features, animal and plant populations, and environmental stress points. The community was able to show conservationists where they traditionally hunted, where they noticed declines in certain animal populations, and where villages had stood and moved to over the years.

The maps will be used by indigenous leaders and the Conservancy to jointly develop management plans that will include areas for protection and sustainable resource extraction. An ethno-map has been completed for the 1.2-million-acre Uaca Indigenous Territory in the north of the state of Amapa on the border between Brazil and French Guiana, and additional project sites have been identified.

Elsewhere in the Amazon, related projects are helping community conservation among the Pemón people of Venezuela and a number of indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon, especially the Ashaninka. Conservancy specialists on indigenous policy and institutional strengthening based in Manaus and Brasilia are working to leverage large-scale funding for conservation and sustainable development in indigenous areas from international institutions, such as the Global Environment Fund.

China

Half a million homes in the Yunnan Province depend on wood for cooking and heating. Indoor air pollution from constant wood burning leads to serious health problems. To reduce the demand for wood and address health threats, the Conservancy and local government agencies are helping rural homes and schools install energy alternatives such as biogas, solar heating and micro-hydropower.

The Conservancy has also partnered with the non-governmental organization, Rare (external site), to build community pride in the Yunnan golden monkey, a species endemic to the area. Such educational programs inspire local unity and help empower the community to have greater involvement in the conservation of their natural heritage.

The Nature Conservancy has also launched the innovative Photovoice project that gives cameras to local communities to allow them to record their daily interactions with nature. The photos, along with personal stories, are given to conservation site planners, public officials and other stakeholders allowing the communities to have a voice in conservation planning. The Conservancy is building a database to archive Photovoice and scientific data that will help guide its conservation efforts in northwest Yunnan.

Colombia

The Nature Conservancy is working in Colombia with the indigenous Kogi, Wiwa, Arsario and Arhuaco tribes to help them reacquire their sacred ancestral lands. The Conservancy also assisted in the creation of the first co-management agreements among Colombia’s National Park Service and indigenous groups.

The Conservancy and its partners have helped protect 946,000 acres of the 4.2 million acre Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park by reaching out to local and state governments, indigenous tribes, subsistence farmers and businesses to ensure that each group understands its stake in protecting the area. The Conservancy is also helping train the tribes how to acquire the resources needed to conserve their land. Under the tribal belief system, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the center of the Earth, so restoring that land restores the entire world. For that reason they are a powerful partner in protecting the area’s amazing diversity.

Indonesia

Through a collaborative project with local communities and an Indonesian timber company, The Nature Conservancy is working to protect Borneo’s threatened forests while also providing economic benefits to the indigenous residents. Under the project, five local communities have teamed with a timber company to jointly manage forest resources where timber extraction overlaps with community land. The community and the timber company are also working together to root out illegal and unsustainable logging activities in the area. The cooperative agreement has resolved long-standing conflicts between the stakeholders by providing increased financial benefits to the communities and allowing the company to resume logging activities in a sustainable manner.

The Nature Conservancy is also working with villages in and around the Komodo National Park to transform Asia’s live reef fish trade from an environmentally-damaging industry to a sustainable economy that supports healthy seas and communities. Village residents are trained to sustainably grow fish from juveniles provided through a hatchery run by the Conservancy. The project enables local communities to continue earning money through the fish trade, but without having to resort to ecologically damaging fishing practices, such as the use of dynamite or cyanide.

Nicaragua

The Conservancy is working with the Mayangna and Miskito people in the 1.8-million-acre Bosawas Biosphere Reserve to combat the threats of colonization, damaging agriculture practices, and deforestation. The Nature Conservancy has assisted the indigenous communities in developing legal claims to gain title of their ancestral lands.

The Conservancy has also worked with the communities to establish a forest guard program and to develop ecological guidelines that define appropriate uses for different zones of the reserve — including rules for hunting, fishing and agriculture in their territory. Last year the Nicaraguan parliament passed legislation outlining how indigenous communities can win title to their land. Much of that language was based on the work the Conservancy and its partners have carried out since the early 90’s.

Papua New Guinea

More than 75 percent of Papua New Guinea’s land area is covered in dense, tropical forest. Unfortunately, more than 60 percent of these forests are under serious threat from logging. In the Adelbert Mountains of Madang Province there is significant pressure from the government to log virtually pristine forests. Since Papua New Guinea does not have a system of legally protected areas and because land is held in traditional ownership by numerous clans, there is currently no way to secure the long-term, legal protection of the country’s important natural areas.

Through meetings with local landowners, The Nature Conservancy found that communities would rather conserve their forests than allow them to be cleared by logging. But many communities were skeptical about the sustainability of conservation projects, and the immediate financial payoffs from logging companies were a tempting alternative to long-term conservation plans.

The Conservancy is now working with local clans to pioneer a new conservation mechanism — Conservation Agreements (essentially long-term land leases) — aimed at securing lasting conservation of Papua New Guinea’s tropical forests. The legal Agreements enforce traditional ownership rights and allow communities to designate biologically rich land for conservation management and protection.

Wisconsin

The Conservancy is working with the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians to maintain the health and biological integrity of the Kakagon/Bad River Sloughs, the largest undeveloped wetland complex in the upper Great Lakes.

Since 2003, The Conservancy has helped purchase and transfer ownership of more than 23,000 acres of traditional land to the tribe for long-term protection and management. Conservancy scientists assisted the tribe in developing an Integrated Resources Management Plan which calls for adequate protection of areas along rivers and streams, water quality, and longer-term management of forest resources.

Protection of these areas also helps safeguard wild rice beds, medicinal plants, trees for maple sugaring, and fish spawning habitat, all of which are important cultural and economic resources for the tribe.

For more information about natural resource management on Bad River and other Ojibwe nation lands, please contact the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.

For More Information About Our Work With Indigenous People

More information about The Nature Conservancy's work with indigenous and traditional communities can be found in the book Traditional Peoples and Biodiversity Conservation in Large Tropical Landscapes.