Local Indigenous Stewardship Can Support Conservation

There is more attention being paid to Indigenous land management, but it isn’t universal and it isn’t always effective. There are lots of examples around the world on both ends of success. Many of the models that are successful have a common trait, local level management and control. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the approach.

Haenssgen and colleagues (2023) looked at forest conservation in Thailand and found clear challenges. Indigenous people are generally excluded from conservation areas and thus prevented from carrying out cultural practices and traditions. There has been subsequent pressure to contribute to or participate in the global economy. This pressure can result in habitat degradation to participate in activities like cash crop farming or poaching.

Unfortunately, when Indigenous people are involved in conservation in Thailand it is often done in ways that are patronizing and tokenistic. The local people are given no authority and often discussed as having to be incentivized to participate in conservation.

The authors identify several recommendations including promoting Indigenous control over land and support for Indigenous cultures while recognizing that their cultures are not static and continue to change and grow overtime.

All of this made me think of a really cool project in British Columbia, Canada. Coast Funds and the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement. I know of this story from the source Mongabay, which is a non-profit news service about conservation and environmental science. The article, by Raman (2023), discusses how the Agreement and the funding model established long term funding and situated control of the funds with the local Indigenous Peoples. As a result, the groups have helped grow and diversify the local economy.

Unlike in the regions studied in Thailand, the Indigenous People in the area under the agreement are able to set conservation targets, fund research and projects, and grow the economy through industries like ecotourism. This local ownership and control has had a big influence on the area, contributing to the goal of protecting 85% of the rainforest from logging.

One of the big differences that I see is trust and the respect of non-Western ways of knowing. In the BC example, the Indigenous People are able to establish their own priorities based on knowledge and teachings across time. On the other hand, it looks like the approach in Thailand has been for science or government to tell the local people what they need to do. This creates a huge difference in commitment as we are more likely to commit to projects that we have a personal stake in. Not to mention the benefits of following knowledge that has been gathered across generations.

Indigenous protected areas are becoming more common. But these examples show that there are important steps that have to be taken for the projects to be successful. To do this, we need to break down the hierarchical beliefs that western science and governance hold the only opportunities for conservation. Indeed, they might actually hold no more than a handful, with the rest potentially better off in the hands of the people who have been on that land for time immemorial.