Paper short abstract:

UN-REDD promises forest conservation based on carbon trading, raising questions about the ownership of forest land. The study of native Amazonian concepts of ownership offers ways to reflect upon local and global perspectives on the role of property in conservation.

Paper long abstract:

Forest conservation has received a new impetus from international climate-change politics, giving rise to UN-REDD, which promises to evolve into a giant international 'payment for ecosystem services' scheme. Many scholars and activists are concerned about potential social costs in the absence of forest peoples' land rights (or of respect for such rights). Meanwhile, other skeptics question the creation of forest carbon ownership rights on the grounds that the commodification of nature is merely a further expansion of capitalism: as Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, recently said, 'some propose to commoditize forests on the false argument that only what has a price and owner is worth taking care of' (2010). I suggest that native property regimes can help reflect on the dilemma imposed by these two criticisms of REDD. Among the Trio of southern Surinam, contrary to received ideas about indigenous peoples of Amazonia as living in egalitarian collectivities free from property, the ownership and appropriation of (in)dividuals pervades inter-human relations and kinship. These property relations form the basis for human interactions with the non-human actors who constitute the living environment, and they can be seen as a concrete articulation of the 'disequilibrium' characteristic of Amerindian thought according to Claude Lévi-Strauss (1991). In this paper I describe the Trio's perspective on their involvement in the commodification of the living environment through a conservation project promoting market-based conservation. I offer conclusions about the implications for larger-scale attempts to achieve forest conservation through ownership and commodity trading.

Paper short abstract:

In the Brazilian Amazon, the development of NRM plans represents a significant indigenous people attempt to find endogenous solutions to cope with the social and environmental changes affecting their lands, by combining indigenous ecological knowledge with new management practices.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past forty years, the socio-environmental situation of the Western Brazilian Amazon has greatly changed. Migration from the forest interior towards the riverbanks and the progressive settlement near urban areas, population increase, the evolution of the relationship between local communities and the national society, the growing pressure and dependence from the external market, are all elements that attest the on-going changing process within indigenous lands. Today, one of the main challenges indigenous peoples are facing is to find adequate and endogenous solutions to manage their territories for copying with new environmental conditions and conservation policies, without compromising their cultural values. In this framework, the development of Natural Resource Management (NRM) Plans of Indigenous Lands, represents one of the most interesting indigenous people attempts to adapt traditional NRM practices with new land management requirements, combining indigenous land use activities and innovative techniques in order to face the rapidly changing reality.

This paper describes some of the NRM activities carried out by Kaxinawá communities of the State of Acre, drawing attention to the dynamic nature of indigenous management systems, as result of the progressive combination of traditional and new environmental knowledge and practices. However, several factors can affect the incorporation of new skills and information within the local knowledge system. In this framework, the paper analyses why some management practices are easily integrated into the body of local knowledge, whilst others struggle to be experimented and incorporated, as they clash with indigenous cultural values and local ways of perceiving the environment.

Paper short abstract:

Nova Itapecirica is a rural community in the state of Bahia in Brazil, located in an ecosystem of extreme importance, the Atlantic Forest. It is a community that goes through immense um process of transformation and modernity, but it does not mean favorable conditions and decent life.

Paper long abstract:

Nova Itapecirica is a rural community composed of about 95 families located in the municipality of Itanagra in the state of Bahia in Brazil, located in an ecosystem of extreme importance, including the Atlantic Forest remains today only 95000km ² the natural environment, or 8% of its original size. These people are surrounded by fragile and important biome, with its economy as the basis for the 'Extrativisme' (the extraction of palm fiber), an activity that has been transmitted to several generations and held a large traditional knowledge. The village women extract from the forest piaçava, a palm high cultural and economic value used for making baskets that are sold in nearby villages. This community and surrounded by three separate variables: on one side by public policies aimed at the development of the region by supporting projects of tourism activity, by corporate pressure reforestation which drastically reduce their use of space and life and a high mobility of its members.

Paper short abstract:

The claim of collective identity based on ethnobotanical knowledge will be analyzed as a process where biodiversity and traditional knowledge protection are intertwined with herbal medicines market demands, pharmaceutical research, local development, eco-tourism and sustainability concepts.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an introduction to a case study on the construction of collective identity in a small village known as "Terra das Ervanárias" (Land of Herbology), on the surroundings of a Portuguese National Park (Serra d'Aire and Candeeiros).

The claim of tradition in the gathering of plants and herbs used in folk medicine and its marketing process by the local industry of herbal products will be framed as a strategy to insure the intellectual property of traditional knowledge, contextualized in the increasing demand for natural therapies.

That claim is also an attempt to involve local subjects in the development of "legitimate" knowledge about a native species of sage (Salvia) in Serra d'Aire and Candeeiros which is potentially useful for drug development for Alzheimer's therapy.

Underlying these processes are the management of communal lands (baldios) and the establishment of a management council (2006), that has assumed promoting the Land of Herbology as one of its main projects, in order to restore and protect the traditional knowledge as a strategy for local development. This project involves the certification of specific qualities of the plants that grow there spontaneously which, along with the ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological knowledge, the local industry of herbal products and the research on Salvia conducted by the College of Agriculture of Santarém, intends mainly to promote eco-tourism.

Paper short abstract:

Mitakuye oyasin, the ecosystemic worldview of the Lakota Sioux, sums up the cultural revivalism as means of appropriation of nature conservation and sustainable programs by indigenous people, as well as followers of Neo-Shamanism and Paganism around the world.

Paper long abstract:

How revival of the traditionally existing engagement between some human societies, animal societies and their surroundings has helped local populations to understand better the objectives of environmental protection and thus, help local sustainable development projects. Since the 1990's, the Lakota Sioux (South Dakota, USA) have been involved in sustainable development programs to recuperate lands lost years ago and to become once more « the Keepers of the Earth » by bringing back biodiversity to the Great Plains. Restoration of native animals and plants will help « mend the Sacred Hoop of the Indian Nations », as together with human beings, animal societies and some medicinal plants have been acting as partners during the creation and re-organization of the Universe. This renewal of the links between humans and non-humans will strenthen cultural and social identities, and has great potential economic and social advantages for the young generations of local populations.

Cultural sustainability relate to ecological, social and economic dimensions of sustainabilitiy thanks to the revival of local Shamanisms which have been influenced by New Age practices. Today, connections between New Age, Neo-Paganism, Neo-Shamanism and traditional Shamanisms are quite often becoming inextricable. A few anthropologists together with Indian holy men have played an important part in the creative processes of Neo-Shamanisms. And ever since the 1970's, the revival of the ecosystemic worldviews and traditional beliefs of North American Indians, have been adopted by followers of Neo-Shamanism and Neo-Paganism all around the world.

Paper short abstract:

Our presentation will show how the San Juan River has been seen and lived in other times and how it is seen and read today according with ways of naturalization-culturization usefull to the actual diferent uses and practices and the actors who make them

Paper long abstract:

In the last decades environmental protection policies have been implemented in the San Juan River basin, that is the border region between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Parallel to this process of conservation and patrimonialization, and largely connected with it, is producing the development of tourism in the area, which leads to new uses and readings of the environment. Activities like gathering and hunting, agriculture, livestock, fisheries or forestry and transportation have developed and changed historically in the San Juan River by different factors, but now these activities are directly or indirectly linked to nature protection and tourism, generating new definitions of the environment. In our paper we analyze this new reality, showing the evolution of the practices, appropriations and perceptions of the different biophisical elements of the river, making particular reference to the connection, exchange, contrast and conflict between the actions and discourses of different local social sectors, different types of global tourists, and state agencies and NGOs.

In this connection we will underline the different forms of naturalization-culturization that are made with regard to the river and its various spaces and places, depending on the uses and the actors who are elaborating, promoting and performing them.

Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the impact of scientific discourse in protected areas, which acquire new meanings through ecotourism. We approach cases in the region of Madre de Dios (Peru) and Andalusia (Spain).

Paper long abstract:

Science as an interpretative discourse, and scientists as social actors, have played a key role in the process of redefining protected natural areas. 'Nature' has become the characteristic and distinguishing feature of these areas, and a global idea that transforms the meaning and guides the management of local places. Which criteria and consequences underlie this phenomenon? Using a comparative analysis of protected areas in Andalusia (Spain) and Madre de Dios (Peru), we aim to reflect on how, in these case studies, the scientific discourse has utilized Nature as a tool of legitimacy, a moral discourse, an aesthetic representation, and, increasingly, a commodity for economic activities such as ecotourism. In doing so, it has imposed a new set of 'game rules' within these areas, which involves: 1) the translation and re-interpretation of the meaning of local resources; and 2) a process of estrangement and peripheralization of the local population. As a result, a particular knowledge has been given precedence over other ways of understanding and interpreting the environment, and certain human-environmental relations have been favoured, affecting the livelihood of those who inhabit these places.

Paper short abstract:

Alentejo is a Portuguese region with a great tourism potential and natural patrimony, with beautiful scenes and great biodiversity. This paper will evaluate the current tourism practices in Alentejo in comparison with ecotourism definition.

Paper long abstract:

Ecotourism consists in the realization of a responsible trip to natural zones that preserves the environment and promotes the well-being of the local community. The Ecotourism minimizes its own impact in the environment, promotes a positive experience for guests and hosts. It promotes financial benefits for the environment preservation and protects the ecosystem as a legacy to next generations. In others words the practice of tourism with the ideal of environmental preservation, experience exchange and sustainability.

However, many times the definition of ecotourism is used without any relationship to its own meaning. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate the current tourism practices in Alentejo in comparison with ecotourism definition. To confirm if the current local practices are sustainable and if respect the patrimony and the local people and to contribute to the local cultural and financial development.

Alentejo has been chosen as a case study because its great tourism potential, and its rich natural patrimony. In spite of that the last past years the region is suffering with the migration of local citizens the urban centres.

Paper long abstract:

Environmental protection policies have found resistance from local farmers that are not identified, nor with the objectives of these policies nor with new ways to manage their territories. Especially when the legitimacy of the land and resources have been historicalh cuestioned. In the Natural Park of the Los Alcornocales expropriation of public property (19 th-20 th centuries) managed communally, condemned entire population to become landless laborers and different response were articulated through political action and association. The intensity of in the claims and the strategies designed to restore what was seen as a social injustice varied in relation to certain factors (public property expropriated has., existing system of political freedoms, etc.), However, no acceptance of the new situation was a constant.

This communication talks about practices and attitudes that how farmers expressed their discontent at present in this protected natural area of Andalusia. The text sives a syinthesis od the expropration process and shows the keys about the political and trade union action in the agricultural sectors of those territories, in contexts with a predominance of livestock and forest harvesting. We focus on the analysis of perceptions, representations, and everyday practices among local groups today, question the legitimacy of the current owners in a context of natural heritage. Finally, we analyse the significance of these representations attitudes and practices for local populations in a global context.