The Indigenous Shades Of Sustainability

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Sarita Lamba
May 07, 2019   •  25 views

“Indigenous peoples have known for thousands of years how to care for our planet. The rest of us have a lot to learn and no time to waste”

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau at 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change


The Brundtland Report defines sustainable development as, “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Thesocial groups ofindigenous peoplepossessingample cultures, traditions, sustenance practices and sociability with the environmentalongwith an organised system of principledbelief and actions, place an extremely high value on protecting the environment and the resources that are important to them and have adopted the practices claimed by thesustainable development goals.

When it comes to development, it is not the financial gain aspect that is first and foremost in thedecision-makingprocess for Indigenous communities.The primary concernof theindigenous social groupsis the assurance that the environment will be protected. Theindigenous knowledge systems share a holistic attitude towardsthe environment that surrounds them.This may mean that activities are traditionally carried out in a way that is sustainable and promotes the conservation of biodiversity.Theindigenous peoplewho live by traditional lifestyles, as part of their ecosystems, have developed ways of living with nature that do not result in over use of the resources upon which they depend. Once such lifestyles are lost, it is most unlikely that they will ever be recreated, though it is most desirable that traditional knowledge, especially of the various uses of species of plants and animals, should be recorded before it is lost.

There are many examples of activitiescarried out by the indigenesthat promote management, conservationand sustainable use of biodiversity.Indigenous communities often have areas that are forbidden or protected, or where hunting and harvesting of wild plants are only allowed in certain circumstancesand the reasons for their protection differ widely. The area may be one of particular social or cultural significance, such as a cemetery or the site of a particular ritual, or a spiritual importance, such as the sacred groves.Many of thetraditional customs in indigenous communities also lead to the protection of specific species of plants and animals. In Zimbabwe certain indigenous fruit tree species such asStrychnosandUapacacould not be cut under any circumstances. In Djibouti some tree species are protected from felling. In Senegal (“in the rural areas”) taboos are common, where a family takes the name of an animal and identifies particularly with it, believing it protects them as long as they don’t kill or eat it.Whilst these practices may not protect biodiversity as a whole, they are still valuable in the conservation of certain speciesand thecollective result is the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.It is therefore relatively straightforward for governments to secure further official protection for these areas byframingthem as national parks, although,protectedareas cancause conflict for indigenous peoples and government officials.Theculture and the ways of lifeof indigenous peoplehaveevolved locally and are based on sustainable use of local ecosystems; the lifestyles which are often at subsistence levels of production and are seldom a part of the mainstream culture of their country, though they do contribute to its cultural wealth.

One of the best recent formulations of this convergence of objectives appears in a paper by Dr Leslie A. Brownrigg entitled "Native Cultures and Protected Areas: Management Options"in which he states,"Native populations and national resource managers are appropriate allies."Brownrigg says,"Given...the close union of the goals of native people to preserve the environment in perpetuity with the goals of the advocates of protected areas, alliance is a logical step."In the same paper,DrBrownrigg delineates the commongoals more explicitly:For resource managers, the benefits of working with native peoples include gaining an additional constituency, recruiting personnel with profound knowledge of local areas and learning about long-term resource strategies which have proven their adaptability for thousands of years. For native peoples, the benefits include legal recognition of ecologically-sound traditional land-use practices, appropriate employment of their traditional lands and new advocates at the national level.

The argument thatIndigenous peopleand conservationists are "natural allies" is made with particular force when strategies to preserve tropical forests (traditional homeland to a variety of isolated forest-dwellers) are discussed. The clash between what might be called the "resource-extractive dynamic" and hitherto isolated or uncontacted peoples seems most acute in regions of dwindling tropical forest cover. A recent issue of The Ecologist, for example, argued thatthemaintenance of primary forest and its use in traditional ways, preserving it for millennia in balance with indigenous life-styles, might well be consistent with the local people's aspirations for an improved subsistence life-style based firmly on their own culture, their own society and on local self-determination.This is not the only area where cooperative possibilities between conservationists and indigenous peoples exist: similar management objectives for mangrove forests, coral atolls or upriver watershed protection may be better served by links with appropriateindigenes.

Sustainable development requires establishing a functional balance between socioeconomic development and environmental protection. The traditional knowledge held by indigenous social groups, including traditional practises of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources not only plays an integral role in achieving global sustainable development goals, but also provides a channel for the sustainable development which has been nurtured for centuries and should be more effectivelyintegratedinto decision- making procedures throughgreater protections for the Indigenous knowledge systemsand local empowerment of the indigenous social groups for governance and equitable benefit sharing.

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