People, Parks, and Power: The Ethics of Conservation-Related Resettlement
... The study was undertaken within the Vhembe biosphere reserve in South Africa (Masisi, Bende Mutale, Dovho villages), and the northern Chiredzi district (Chitsa, Mahenye & Mutandahwe) and southern Chiredzi district (Chipise, Chibavahlengwe, Malipati, Maose-Xini & Sengwe) in Zimbabwe (Fig. 1). These communities were purposefully selected because they are located adjacent to the two major protected areas that form part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) and on the land where local indigenous people were forcibly removed for conservation reasons [37]. Additionally, these sites form part of the GLTFCA conglomerate, which was established as part of a peace treaty between the two countries, to create environmental corridors in which animals could roam freely [38] and promote vegetation regeneration [39]. ...
... Findings show that people are fully aware of the ESs that were presented to them but were not familiar with the scientific concept of the term. This is consistent with [9,37,51], who reported that people are normally aware of the ESs that directly benefit them, but not the scientific term. Our study also showed that there were differences in the levels of local people's perceptions of various ESs' categories, however, people are most aware of the cultural and provisioning services as they provide direct material and non-material benefits to meet their broader needs and desires. ...
Nature plays a crucial role in providing ecosystem services (ESs) essential for human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation in rural areas. However, existing paradigms often lack an integrative approach towards rural livelihoods and wellbeing, highlighting the need for a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between human wellbeing (HWB) and ESs. The area around the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) offers such ESs to indigenous people who rely heavily on these natural resources. Thus, this study aimed to quantify indigenous people's perceptions of cultural and provisioning ESs and their link to human wellbeing in villages adjacent to the GLTFCA. Key informant interviews were initially conducted to identify ESs as perceived by the participants. Subsequently, face-to-face surveys were carried out in 9 wards across South Africa and Zimbabwe, involving 350 participants. Respondents were asked about the availability of ESs, their levels of degradation, drivers of change, and the impact on their wellbeing. Responses were captured using Likert scales, and multiple regression models analysed the relationships between socio-demographic characteristics and ESs. Results indicated that indigenous people perceived both cultural and provisioning ESs to be available but degrading, with provisioning services degrading more rapidly. Climate change, legislation/policies, and poverty were identified as key drivers of this change. Socio-demographic factors such as gender, nativeness, and employment level influenced perceptions of both ESs. Overall, participants reported that both ESs contribute to their human wellbeing and livelihoods through life satisfaction, happiness, living standards, safety, security, and good health. Finally, this study's findings uniquely offer a baseline for these ESs accounting, demonstrating their direct and indirect benefits to indigenous communities' livelihoods and well-being.
... Colonialism and colonization are embedded in mainstream conservation science and practice (Domínguez & Luoma, 2020;Eichler & Baumeister, 2021), including human-wildlife conflict (HWC) mitigation, which has historically involved top-down exclusionary or extractive methods of separating people from nature (i.e., fortress conservation) (Chu, 2021;Sapignoli & Hitchcock, 2023). These dominant narratives often promote dispossession (Braverman, 2021;Mamers, 2020), exploitation (Kennedy et al., 2023;Vuola, 2022), and dehumanization of Indigenous and local peoples (de Jong & Butt, 2023;Kolinjivadi et al., 2023). ...
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) is a critical challenge to human development and well‐being and threatens biodiversity conservation. Ideally, HWC mitigation should benefit both wildlife and communities and limit the costs associated with living alongside wildlife. However, place‐ and context‐dependent realizations of conflict are often overlooked in HWC mitigation. Social and systemic dimensions of human–wildlife relationships often receive limited consideration in HWC as a concept and in mitigation strategies implemented globally. In recognizing our collective symmetries as a diverse group of researchers, we pose the idea of constellations of coexistence, based on Atallah et al.’s “constellation of co‐resistance.” Building on literature and our interdisciplinary and cross‐sectoral experiences of working with diverse species inhabiting different sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic landscapes, we considered evidence of cultural nuances (e.g., sociocultural dimensions of human–elephant and human–lion interactions in East Africa and India) in HWC mitigation and argue that failing to incorporate them in mainstream practices poses a myriad of ethical and practical consequences. Locally situated but globally relevant, participation of local and Indigenous communities in HWC mitigation activities produces better conservation outcomes. Centering communities in the ideation, implementation, and evaluation of HWC mitigation promotes more equitable and sustainable management strategies for long‐term human–wildlife coexistence.
... Relocating people out of PAs is a common approach to improve conservation around the world (West et al., 2006;Vanclay, 2017;Peng et al., 2020;Sapignoli and Hitchcock, 2023), and is generally advocated in China (Documents 13,23,25,44,47,49). Official documents about the reform indicate that the issue of people in PAs should be resolved in an orderly manner through a gradual relocation of people out of PAs (Documents 44,49). ...
Protected areas are important for biodiversity conservation. However, they also create many social impacts on local communities, both negative and positive. The effectiveness of protected area management influences the environmental and social impacts that are created and the attitudes of local people towards conservation initiatives. Given the considerable awareness of the social impacts of protected areas around the world, in China there has now been growing interest in this topic, partly because China is a megadiverse country with over 11,800 protected areas. Based on a document analysis of official documents and a literature review of academic papers, we examine how Chinese policies and the Chinese academic literature consider social impacts and local communities in relation to protected areas. We found that the social impacts most discussed related to the income and livelihoods of local communities, while intangible social impacts, such as culture and the rights of local communities, were neglected or ignored. Negative social impacts were reported more frequently than benefits. The persistent lack of consideration of the potential role of local communities in the management of protected areas has resulted in communities generally being disengaged. We suggest that the role of local communities in protected areas should be further considered, and that community engagement and benefit-sharing arrangements should be improved.
Wildfire severity is increasing in the western United States. Simultaneously, many recognize that fire is a natural process and advocate for learning to live with fire. Indeed, the naturalness of fire can be an important reason provided to increase the amount of fire on a landscape. However, “naturalness” can be interpreted in incommensurate ways, such as the historic range of variability of a system or the absence of human influence. What makes wildfires feel natural or unnatural to the people who experience them, and how naturalness affects reactions to wildfires is underexplored. Using social representations theory, we examine the 2023 Lookout Fire at the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest (HJA). We use semi-structured interviews (n = 40) to explore how the research community associated with the HJA mentally constructs and uses naturalness to emotionally process and make meaning from the wildfire. We find even in a community with advanced training in ecology, respondents use a variety of metrics to determine naturalness, including ignition source, fire behavior, and pre-fire landscape characteristics and fire history. Respondents consider a variety of factors, and there was not consensus on whether the Lookout Fire was a “natural” fire. In general, respondents who described the fire as more natural were able to come to a state of acceptance and excitement for future research opportunities sooner than respondents who described the fire as largely unnatural. This has important implications for wildfire risk
communication for scientists and practitioners who want to restore fire as a natural process. While fires perceived (or framed) as natural may be more readily accepted, fires perceived as unnatural may take longer to process. Fires perceived as human-caused and especially as climate-exacerbated may be the most difficult for people to process after and during the fire, and may have the most resistance for being managed for purposes other than full suppression.
Intact tropical forests have a high conservation value.¹ Although perceived as wild,² they have been under long-term human influence.³ As global area-based conservation targets increase, the ecological contributions of Indigenous peoples through their governance institutions and practices⁴ are gaining mainstream interest. Indigenous lands—covering a quarter of Earth’s surface⁵ and overlapping with a third of intact forests⁶—often have reduced deforestation, degradation, and carbon emissions, compared with non-protected areas and protected areas.⁷,⁸ A key question with implications for the design of more equitable and effective conservation policies is to understand the impacts of Indigenous lands on forest integrity and long-term use, as critical measures of ecosystem health included within the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.⁹ Using the forest landscape integrity index¹⁰ and Anthromes¹¹ datasets, we find that high-integrity forests tend to be located within the overlap of protected areas and Indigenous lands (protected-Indigenous areas). After accounting for location biases through statistical matching and regression, protected-Indigenous areas had the highest protective effect on forest integrity and the lowest land-use intensity relative to Indigenous lands, protected areas, and non-protected controls pan-tropically. The protective effect of Indigenous lands on forest integrity was lower in Indigenous lands than in protected areas and non-protected areas in the Americas and Asia. The combined positive effects of state legislation and Indigenous presence in protected-Indigenous areas may contribute to maintaining tropical forest integrity. Understanding management and governance in protected-Indigenous areas can help states to appropriately support community-governed lands.
Notwithstanding the adoption of various anti-poaching strategies, rhino and elephant poaching levels are increasingly growing in Southern African. To protect wildlife, the government of Botswana has devised and implemented controversial ‘shoot to kill’ policy against poachers. This strategy appears to be working in reducing poaching which is thought to be ‘virtually non-existent’ in Botswana. Thus the neighbouring countries have resorted to relocate their rhino populations to Botswana. This paper discusses the militarisation of conservation generally as a policy alternative. It makes an in-depth assessment of Botswana’s shoot-to-kill policy. This article adopts an exploratory research method to review the relevant literature in investigating the effectiveness of Botswana’s shoot-to-kill policy. It investigates whether this policy can be adopted by other countries particularly South Africa to combat poaching. This policy analysis is important for South Africa as it has been forced to transfer or migrate a substantial number of rhinos to Botswana.
Natural ecosystems globally have been disrupted by anthropogenic activities, and the current biodiversity extinction rate exceeds the natural extinction rate by 1000-fold. Protected areas (PAs) help insulate samples of biodiversity from these human-induced threats; however, assessments of the factors threatening biodiversity in PAs are scarce in South Asia-one of the key global epicentres of human population growth. Here, by synthesizing published literature and analysing the current configuration of the PA estate, we discuss the trends and biases in existing knowledge, identify research gaps, measure the level of PA coverage and growth patterns, and discuss the threats to South Asian biodiversity inside PAs. We showed that published studies focused mainly on documenting species distributions in PAs, were heavily biased toward vertebrates, and had been mostly conducted in India. Nearly 70% of studies focused on the distribution of organisms, while only 9% performed conservation assessments or devised strategies to manage PAs; 70% of studies cover vertebrates, while only two studies focused on marine fauna; 50% of studies focused on India, with only a handful from Afghanistan. Only three (Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka) of the eight countries already meet a terrestrial PA representation target of 17%, while no country meets a marine representation target of 10%. Most PAs were very small, with nearly 80% below 100 km 2 , and 22% below 1 km 2. We identified that South Asian PAs are facing a broad range of anthropogenic threats-about three in five studies reported threats inside protected areas. Due to extensive anthropogenic pressures , biodiversity in South Asia is facing an existential crisis, and society-wide collaborative efforts are needed to arrest and reverse the declines. We hope this review will stimulate efforts to capitalise on the opportunity for efficient PA growth in the region on the eve of the post-2020 global biodiversity targets.
This file is the entire book manuscript, with a few uncorrected bits here and there. It would have been too expensive to publish as a hard copy. The book is an introductory guide and streamlined history (and prehistory) of Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, famous for its elephants and other wildlife. There are 10 chapters, a lengthy bibliography, and many color illustrations
Wolves (Canis lupus), a once widely distributed species, were systematically removed from many temperate zone ecosystems due to conflicts with humans. A change in human attitudes and cultural norms has brought about a recovery in some suitable areas, yet reintroductions are still controversial. Two notable reintroduction areas in the United States were Yellowstone and Isle Royale National Parks. Both proposals caused polarization and debate. In Yellowstone opposition focused on outside the park effects, mainly wolves killing livestock and wild game also desired by human hunters. At Isle Royale, opposition was mostly about human interventions into nature and impairment of wilderness values contrary to the spirit of 1964 Wilderness Act. Both locations had periods in the 20th century with and without wolves and the presence of wolves had a dampening effect on ungulate population fluctuations. Most outcomes of reintroduction at Yellowstone were predicted as the Environmental Impact Statement written beforehand correctly predicted 78% of the 51 outcomes that were examined. Wolves were too recently reintroduced to Isle Royale to make similar comparisons, but we conclude that intervention is not contrary to the Wilderness Act, nor author Howard Zahniser's vision, partially because wolf reintroduction was a mitigation for human actions. Also, not intervening, or inaction, often perceived as safer, would have had more damaging impacts to ecosystem functioning. Wolves (Canis lupus), a once widely distributed species, were systematically removed from many temperate zone ecosystems due to conflicts with humans. Two notable reintroduction areas were Yellowstone and Isle Royale national parks. Both locations had time periods in the 20th century with and without wolves and the presence of wolves had a dampening effect on ungulate population fluctuations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought profound social, political, economic, and environmental challenges to the world. The virus may have emerged from wildlife reservoirs linked to environmental disruption, was transmitted to humans via the wildlife trade, and its spread was facilitated by economic globalization. The pandemic arrived at a time when wildfires, high temperatures, floods, and storms amplified human suffering. These challenges call for a powerful response to COVID-19 that addresses social and economic development, climate change, and biodiversity together, offering an opportunity to bring transformational change to the structure and functioning of the global economy. This biodefense can include a “One Health” approach in all relevant sectors; a greener approach to agriculture that minimizes greenhouse gas emissions and leads to healthier diets; sustainable forms of energy; more effective international environmental agreements; post-COVID development that is equitable and sustainable; and nature-compatible international trade. Restoring and enhancing protected areas as part of devoting 50% of the planet’s land to environmentally sound management that conserves biodiversity would also support adaptation to climate change and limit human contact with zoonotic pathogens. The essential links between human health and well-being, biodiversity, and climate change could inspire a new generation of innovators to provide green solutions to enable humans to live in a healthy balance with nature leading to a long-term resilient future.
In the last three decades, southern African governments and non-profit organizations, following the narrative of poverty alleviation and integrated rural development, have initiated a variety of development interventions targeting the hunter-gatherer San people. Despite these interventions, the southern African San groups, like many other Indigenous Peoples, remained economically, politically, and socially marginalized.
In this doctoral dissertation, I have examined how such interventions have impacted on the contemporary livelihoods of a Namibian San group, the Khwe San. Based on a 15-month-long ethnographic field study with the Khwe community living in the eastern part of Bwabwata National Park (BNP), this thesis is compiled of four peer-reviewed articles and a summarizing report. The summary introduces the background and context of the study, outlines its theoretical and methodological framework, and discusses the main findings presented in the four articles.
The study builds on decolonial and post-development research theories and looks at hunters and gatherers through the lens of the ‘foraging mode of thought’ concept. Based on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework and the notion of community capitals, this study provides a critical analysis of both the practice and impacts of development interventions on local livelihoods and socio-cultural dynamics. The study focuses on three key domains of development interventions affecting contemporary foragers: rural income-generating interventions, protected area management and formal education.
The ethnographic fieldwork in BNP was carried out between 2016 and 2018 and involved data collection through participant observation in various settings, as well as semi-structured interviews with local community members and a wide range of other stakeholders. In addition, a study-area-wide socio-economic census was undertaken, and the participatory photography (PhotoVoice) method was used in the case study community.
This study shows that the contemporary livelihood strategies of the Khwe San people do not currently provide adequate benefits for maintaining a sound livelihood inside the national park. Restrictions due to strictly-imposed biodiversity conservation regulations limit the options for locally available livelihood activities, while community development projects initiated by external actors to date have been unable to alleviate extreme poverty or provide any substantial benefits. Most projects have failed due to dismissing local cultural, social and economic realities and disregarding proper community consultation and involvement in decision-making. The state’s formal education system, as currently practised, suffers from the same neglect of local cultural characteristics. The standardized curriculum and teaching practices, coupled with the negative stereotyping of San children and parents by the educators, are far from providing a safe and effective learning environment.
Despite the above challenges, the findings demonstrate that the social life is still largely governed by principles of egalitarianism, their traditional kinship system, and the practice of sharing. The Khwe San’s traditional knowledge and skills, especially in relation to wild food gathering, still plays an important role in maintaining their livelihoods and contemporary cultural identity. However, Khwe adults and elders regard traditional knowledge far more important than do the youth, and this knowledge transmission is rapidly fading.
The study also analysed exemplary initiatives that have provided some positive contributions to Khwe livelihoods. The Devil’s Claw harvesting collaborative project is a leading example of a culturally-responsive initiative contributing to several domains of local well-being, while the recently-established Biocultural Community Protocol is a model community-led legal instrument encompassing customary laws, institutions and crucial building blocks of local identity.
The study indicates that further diversification of livelihood options is essential, and should be community-led, culturally inclusive and sustainable. The predominantly externally-driven interventions to date have disempowered the Khwe San and ignored the addressing of fundamental human rights issues. The Khwe and other hunter-gatherer communities now find themselves at a critical time and in need of support to self-strengthen their own capabilities and agency in order to realize self-determination and accomplish long-term positive social change for themselves, their communities, and their future generations.
(from: https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/318403)
Many governments and conservation organisations have argued that hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists are responsible, in considerable part, for environmental degradation and biodiversity losses in southern Africa. Particular attention has been paid to alleged wildlife losses, especially elephants in Botswana. This article considers
some of the issues surrounding hunting bans and protected areas with a view to conserving elephants. In Botswana, local people were removed from protected areas after being blamed for declines in wildlife numbers. Utilising government and other scientific wildlife data, the hunting ban cannot be shown to have had any significant impact on the conservation of elephants and other game species. Local people argue that many of their activities are sustainable, maintaining that they are generally not responsible for biodiversity losses and environmental degradation. Population growth, the expansion of agricultural, livestock and mining activities, the construction of veterinary cordon fences and increases in water point distribution have led to localised environmental degradation.
The ‘great elephant debate’ became an important political issue during the run-up to the Botswana elections of October 2019. Local communities sought to ensure that they would be able to obtain benefits from wildlife tourism which had been denied them during the hunting ban.
Background. South America faces strong environmental pressures as a result of agriculture and infrastructure expansion and also of demographic growth, demanding immediate action to preserve natural assets by establishing protected areas. Currently, 7.1% of the (sub)continent is under strict conservation categories (I to IV, IUCN), but the spatial distribution of these 1.3 × 10 6 km 2 is poorly understood. We evaluated the representation of nature within the networks of protected areas, map conservation priorities and assess demographic, economic or geopolitical causes of existing protection patterns. Methods. We characterized nature representation by looking at two components: the extent and the equality of protection. The first refers to the fraction of territory under protection, while the second refers to the homogeneity in the distribution along natural conditions of this protected fraction. We characterized natural conditions by either 113 biogeographical units (specifically, ecoregions) or a series of limited and significant climatic, topographic and edaphic traits. We analyzed representation every ten years since 1960 at national and continental levels. In the physical approach, histograms allowed us to map the degree of conservation priorities. Finally, we ranked the importance of different economic or geopolitical variables driving the observed distributions with a random forest technique. Results. Nature representation varied across countries in spite of its priority in conservation agendas. In Brazil, Peru and Argentina there are still natural conditions with no formal protection, while in Bolivia and Venezuela, protected areas incorporate the natural diversity in a more balanced manner. As protected networks have increased their extent, so did their equality across and within countries over time. Our maps revealed as top continental priorities the southern temperate, subhumid and fertile lowland environments, and other country-specific areas. Protection extent was generally driven by a low population density and isolation, while other variables like distance to frontiers, were relevant only locally (e.g., in Argentina).
The chapter concerns the specific context of the Namibian case of the Hai||om peoples’ recent court battles seeking a legal remedy for the dispossession of their ancestral land that took place in the 1950s.
The chapter demonstrates how bringing ancestral land rights claims in front of
a court of law can be a means to enforce the rights of indigenous peoples and shed
light on the different issues these communities face after being removed from their
ancestral lands.
This study contributes to the documentation and description of the
diversity of Kalahari Khoe languages in eastern Botswana. Kalahari Khoe languages have highly complex pronominal systems with extensive paradigms of portmanteau morphemes encoding person, gender, and number categories. This study focuses on Thabala Tchoe, an entirely undocumented Kalahari Khoe language. Features of the Thabala Tchoe pronominal system set it apart from descriptions of closely and more distantly related languages. In this paper, I offer a formal and functional analysis of these features, which include honorific and focus sensitive pronouns, and innovative forms which offer contemporary evidence for the historical development of the complex pronominal system. This analysis is explored against the background of historical contact patterns between different Kalahari Khoe speech communities and Tswana merafe, or ‘clans’, in region.
American bison (Bison bison) numbers in northern Yellowstone National Park increased during the last two decades, while those of elk (Cervus canadensis) decreased. We undertook this study to assess the potential effects of bison on woody vegetation and channel morphology in the park's northern ungulate winter range. Based on differences in the number of elk and bison, body mass, and the amount of time each utilizes the northern range, foraging pressure from bison began to exceed that of elk in 2007 and is currently ~10 times greater than that of elk. In the Lamar Valley study area, stand structure data (i.e., tree frequency by diameter class) for aspen (Populus tremuloides) and cottonwood (P. spp.) indicated that the growth of seedling/sprouts of these species into tall saplings and trees has been extensively suppressed by bison herbivory. For streams that crossed the valley floor, woody riparian vegetation was absent along their banks and channels were relatively wide and deep, conditions sustained by high levels of bison use. Overall, our findings indicated that the elevated numbers of bison, via herbivory, trampling, and tree bark effects, are limiting the structure, composition, and distribution of woody plant communities in the Lamar Valley, affecting the character of the valley's stream and river channels, and, in turn, influencing habitat and food-web support for terrestrial and aquatic wildlife species. The conservation success of bison recovery now may be adversely affecting another conservation goal, the restoration and maintenance of woody riparian vegetation and riparian ecosystems.
As former mobile foraging peoples, the indigenous Hai//om San of Namibia lost most of their land – including Etosha National Park and Mangetti West – to other groups and the state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. After independence (1990), the government redistributed some of this land to various expropriated groups. In the following overview, we delve into this complex history to argue that the recent decision by the Hai//om (2015) to file a collective action lawsuit against the government of Namibia over Etosha and Mangetti West must be seen in a context of ongoing, often subtle, processes of land dispossession simultaneously taking place as a result of marginalisation and structural disempowerment.
This book presents a long-term study of the activist campaign that contested the Botswana government's much-publicized removal of the San and Bakgalagadi people from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Sapignoli's multiple points of observation and analysis range from rural Botswana to the nation's High Court, and a variety of United Nations agencies in their Headquarters, focusing on rights claimants and officials from NGOs, states and the United Nations as they acted on the grievances of those who had been displaced. In offering a comprehensive discussion of the San people and their claims-making through formal institutions, this book maintains a consistent focus on the increased recourse to law and the everyday experience of those who are asserting their rights in response to the encroachments of the state and the opportunities inherent in new indigenous advocacy networks.
Proposed by Greenberg (1950, 1963) as a language family, the currently available evidence indicates that ‘Khoisan’ in a linguistic sense can be viewed, at best, as a negative entity. It comprises a diverse range of languages in southern and eastern Africa which share the typological feature of phonemic clicks, yet cannot
all be related genealogically to each other or any established lineage. This makes them different from other languages with a similar areal and typological profile which belong to the Bantu (Niger-Congo) and Cushitic (Afro-Asiatic) language families. This chapter attempts to give the state of the art about the inventory of Khoisan languages and the different types of linguistic classifications applied to them, namely within typological, areal, and historical-comparative linguistics. In addition, this introduction serves to provide a general background for the other contributions to this volume. Since these all address outstanding issues of genealogical and areal relations between Khoisan languages and peoples of southern Africa in particular, they are also embedded by the introduction within the complex problem of evaluating the population history
of the Kalahari Basin before the Bantu expansion from a linguistic, anthropological, and genetic perspective.
Genocide is one of the most pressing issues that confront us today. Its death toll is staggering: over one hundred million dead. Because of their intimate experience in the communities where genocide takes place, anthropologists are uniquely positioned to explain how and why this mass annihilation occurs and the types of devastation genocide causes. This book explores a wide range of cases, including Nazi Germany, Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
Tshwa San live primarily in western Zimbabwe in Tsholotsho District of Matabeleland North and Bulilimamangwe District in Matabeleland South and are one of two groups in Zimbabwe who self-identify as indigenous people. Recent surveys indicate that the population size of Tshwa is approximately 2,800. The vast majority of Tshwa today are subsistence farmers, though some of them work for other groups including Kalanga and Ndebele as cattle and goat herders, agricultural field hands, and domestic workers. Many Tshwa supplement their subsistence with gathering of wild plants and insects. After their forcible relocation from what is now Hwange National Park in the late 1920s, Tshwa moved to commercial farming areas and worked as field hands. Some Tshwa worked at the colliery in the town of Hwange, and a few were employed by the wildlife department in the park. Currently, most live in communal areas. This chapter documents the colonial and post-colonial issues facing the Tshwa, including government policies, environmental factors, and economic stress. In the past decade, the Tshwa have engaged in cultural empowerment and revitalisation efforts and are organising themselves to promote social justice and human rights in the Zimbabwe nation-state.
Area-based conservation measures, including protected areas (PA) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM), play an important role in biodiversity conservation. In the Brazilian Amazon, even though Conservation Units and Indigenous Lands have been shown to reduce deforestation, few studies have addressed Quilombola Territories, and none of the above-mentioned areas were evaluated according to their role in promoting native vegetation regrowth. Here, we used a matching analysis to show that Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Lands, Quilombola Territories, and two types of protected areas (Conservation Units of Restrict Use and Sustainable Use) contribute to reduced native vegetation conversion, when compared to their control areas. Indigenous Lands and Conservation Units of Restrict Use lost respectively 17 and five times less native vegetation cover than their unprotected control areas, between the years of 2005–2012. Similarly, Quilombola Territories had native vegetation loss rates 5.6 times lower than in matched controls. Importantly, our results demonstrate for the first time that between 2012 and 2017 Indigenous Lands and Quilombola Territories contributed two and three times more to native vegetation regrowth – a critical process for safeguarding biodiversity in many, if not all, parts of the world. Our results underscore the importance of areas beyond the formal protected areas system in conserving biodiversity and promoting forest regrowth.
Indigenous communities worldwide share common features that make them especially vulnerable to the complications of and mortality from COVID-19. They also possess resilient attributes that can be leveraged to promote prevention efforts. How can indigenous communities best mitigate potential devastating effects of COVID-19? In Bolivia, where nearly half of all citizens claim indigenous origins, no specific guidelines have been outlined for indigenous communities inhabiting native communal territories. In this Public Health article, we describe collaborative efforts, as anthropologists, physicians, tribal leaders, and local officials, to develop and implement a multiphase COVID-19 prevention and containment plan focused on voluntary collective isolation and contact-tracing among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon. Phase 1 involves education, outreach, and preparation, and phase 2 focuses on containment, patient management, and quarantine. Features of this plan might be exported and adapted to local circumstances elsewhere to prevent widespread mortality in indigenous communities.
I was appointed in 1997 at the start of the World Bank’s independent International Environmental and Social Panel of Experts for the Nam Theun 2 Dam. I made over 20 visits to Laos to carry out our analyses, before resigning in March 2014. This article concentrates on the Nakai Plateau resettlement and, where relevant, the dam’s Watershed Management and Protection Area, which included a large area between the future reservoir and the Vietnam border. It includes what I consider the main mistakes that were made during the resettlement process on the Nakai Plateau.
With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community committed to address a great number of challenges. Among those emphasised by the SDGs, some are highly relevant for indigenous groups. Education, poverty, access to justice and climate change are only a few of the issues affecting indigenous people's lives. Yet, indigenous groups are not passive actors. Despite being at the mercy of climate hazards and misleading political decisions, the knowledge system they have developed throughout the centuries has helped them to successfully respond to ecological and development challenges. By exploring indigenous cultures and their knowledge systems in greater depth, this article aims to understand how the sustainable development agenda can benefit from these different forms of traditional knowledge. More particularly, it will attempt to explain the main notions in which traditional knowledge is rooted and analyse means of knowledge maintenance and transmission. It will then explore the relationship between indigenous knowledge, sustainable practices and land and resource management, as well as climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction strategies. These ideas will be supported by a discussion on the need to guarantee indigenous people full access to land and justice in order for them to fully realise their rights. The conclusion reflects on the importance of fostering an integrated system of knowledge in which indigenous groups are involved in knowledge sharing practices and decision making processes.
Loss of biodiversity is one of the great environmental challenges facing humanity but unfortunately efforts to reduce the rate of loss have so far failed. At the same time, these efforts have too often resulted in unjust social outcomes in which people living in or near to areas designated for conservation lose access to their territories and resources. In this book the author argues that our approach to biodiversity conservation needs to be more strongly informed by a concern for and understanding of social justice issues. Injustice can be a driver of biodiversity loss and a barrier to efforts at preservation. Conversely, the pursuit of social justice can be a strong motivation to find solutions to environmental problems. The book therefore argues that the pursuit of socially just conservation is not only intrinsically the right thing to do, but will also be instrumental in bringing about greater success. The argument for a more socially just conservation is initially developed conceptually, drawing upon ideas of environmental justice that incorporate concerns for distribution, procedure and recognition. It is then applied to a range of approaches to conservation including benefit sharing arrangements, integrated conservation and development projects and market-based approaches such as sustainable timber certification and payments for ecosystem services schemes. Case studies are drawn from the author’s research in Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Laos, Bolivia, China and India.
In the UN, indigenous peoples have achieved more rights than any other group of people. This book traces this to the ability of indigenous peoples to create consensus among themselves; the establishment of an indigenous caucus; and the construction of a global indigenousness.
The indigenous people of the Amazon Basin known as the Huaorani are one of the world's most intriguing peoples. The community of just under four thousand in Ecuador has been known to the public primarily for their historical identity as a violent society. But Laura Rival reveals the Huaorani in all their humanity and creativity through a longitudinal ethnography, bringing a deeper perspective beyond the stereotype. Rival's intimate knowledge of Huaorani culture spans twenty-five years. Here in a collection of broad-ranging essays, she offers a fascinating and provocative study. The first section, "Among Forest Beings," shows that the Huaorani have long adapted to life in the tropical rain forest with minimal reliance on horticulture, yet have developed a complex relationship with plants. In "In the Longhouse," the second section, Rival focuses on the intimate relations that create human persons and enact kinship relations. She also discusses women's lives and perspectives. The third section, "In the Midst of Enemies," considers how Huaorani society fits in larger political and economic contexts, illustrating how native values shape their encounters with oil companies, the state, and other external forces. Rival carefully analyzes insider/outsider dialectics wherein Huaorani people re-create meaningful and valued worlds in the face of alien projects, such as petroleum development, carbon trading, or intercultural education. Capitalizing on the author's decades-long study and interactions in the community, Huaorani Transformations in Twenty-First-Century Ecuador brings new insights to the Huaorani's unique way of relating to humans, to other-than-humans, and to the forest landscape they have inhabited for centuries.
