Traditional Knowledge Bulletin |
- This week in review … UN rights experts raise alarm on land development mega-projects
- Meeting prep: UNESCO regional meeting on the role of local communities in the management of UNESCO designated sites
- Resource: Manual on visual techniques for dealing with conservation and development trade-offs
- This week in review … Elders in Peruvian Andes help interpret climate change
- Resource: RRI paper on forest tenure reform since Rio 1992
- Meeting review: Indigenous wisdom/modern science summit
This week in review … UN rights experts raise alarm on land development mega-projects Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:47 AM PDT South-East Asia / Agrofuel: UN rights experts raise alarm on land development mega-projects GENEVA, SWITZERLAND: The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter, and the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, James Anaya urged South-East Asian states not to sideline the human rights of communities across the region when assessing large-scale land acquisitions for export-led crops and agrofuel production. "Governments must step up their vigilance in regard to large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that the fundamental rights of these communities are not violated, be they small-farmers, fishers, hunters, foragers or craftsmen," they said, highlighting acute cases of competing land interests in South-East Asia, where agrofuel developments are rapidly expanding. "These are mostly indigenous families whose traditional livelihoods are rooted in their local environment," Anaya warned. "Communities are often ancestrally tied to the areas in question and may not possess official deeds to the land, making their tenure highly vulnerable in the face of land conversion deals.""Converting bio-diverse forest land to intensive monocropping can entail wide environmental impacts, from the loss of forest-dwelling game species in Meruake, to reduced resistance to flooding and landslides in Isabela," the Special Rapporteurs noted. "We must also be sensitive to the impacts of sudden influxes of workers on local food access, traditions and ways of life." The UN experts expressed concerns about an apparent lack of adequate consultation and transparency in both land acquisition processes. In neither case are indigenous communities believed to have been sufficiently informed and consulted about the land acquisitions and their repercussions on local life. Read the release … |
Meeting prep: UNESCO regional meeting on the role of local communities in the management of UNESCO designated sites Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:45 AM PDT UNESCO meeting for South East Europe: the role of local communities in the management of UNESCO designated sites This year, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention celebrates its 40th anniversary under the theme "World Heritage and Sustainable Development: the Role of Local Communities in the Management of World Heritage Sites." In this context, the UNESCO Venice Office, in cooperation with the national authorities of Montenegro, is organizing this regional meeting to share experiences, good practices and planned activities concerning the management of World Heritage and other UNESCO designated sites such as MAB Biosphere Reserves in South-Eastern Europe, with a strong focus on the role of communities in the identification, management and conservation of such sites. Community involvement and engagement are now recognized as one of the major strategic objectives for the implementation of the World Heritage Convention and of the Man and the Biosphere Programme, as well as of any sustainable heritage protection. This meeting will therefore serve to share reflection on strategies to face global challenges in the sustainable management of these sites. Further information … |
Resource: Manual on visual techniques for dealing with conservation and development trade-offs Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:42 AM PDT Visualizing Sustainable Landscapes: Understanding and Negotiating Conservation and Development Trade-Offs Using Visual Techniques This manual aims at strengthening the community of practitioners who are using an innovative range of visual techniques in dealing with conservation and development situations. The need for such a manual arose from work with facilitators from different institutions (NGOs, University researchers, government agencies, and small local community associations), who all showed an interest in using visual methods. They saw potential applications in planning and in simply understanding the complexity of the situations and conditions of the places where they work or live. Landscapes scale programmes confront the full complexity of the interactions between conservation and development. They deal with peoples' livelihoods, biodiversity, climate change, the diversity of culture and languages, and the constant transformations in peoples' ways of life. One has to deal with different ethnic groups, different levels of education and literacy and different interest groups. The value of visualization is to get a picture of the way various individuals and groups understand the landscape and how they would like it to evolve in the future. The visualization activity itself allows different people to share their views and begin negotiations about different and sometimes conflicting objectives. Download the manual [pdf] … |
This week in review … Elders in Peruvian Andes help interpret climate change Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:39 AM PDT Elders in Peruvian Andes Help Interpret Climate Changes LIMA, PERU: A unique response to the challenge of global warming is happening in rural areas of Peru, where a network of indigenous elders is working out how to adjust weather forecasts in the flight of climate change, while taking measures to safeguard their crops. Read the article … |
Resource: RRI paper on forest tenure reform since Rio 1992 Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:37 AM PDT Respecting Rights, Delivering Development: Forest Tenure Reform since Rio 1992 Over the twenty years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro set sustainable development as a key global objective, Indigenous Peoples and local community management of forests has proven to be one major area of progress among the many unmet goals and aspirations. This report takes stock of that progress and presents new finding as well as examples from China, Brazil, India, Nepal, Cameroon and Mexico. The amount of forest recognized as owned or controlled by Indigenous Peoples and forest communities has increased from 10 to 15% globally and from 21 to 31% of developing country forests. The amount of legislation recognizing or strengthening local peoples' forest and land rights have also increased dramatically – with over 50 new laws since 1992 recognizing tenure rights of forest communities and Indigenous Peoples. And a new slate of rigorous research makes clear that the recognition of rights results in strong, positive impacts in social, economic and environmental terms – delivering on the global goals of sustainable development. Where Indigenous Peoples' and local community rights are recognized territories and community-managed forests have outperformed public protected areas in preventing deforestation and ensuring conservation. They have also proven more effective than state controlled forests in sequestering carbon and increasing household incomes. And clear property rights for local people have played a central role in enabling countries to achieve national-level forest restoration. The recognition of rights has also clearly played a key role in saving and strengthening many Indigenous Peoples and forest communities – helping prevent the further loss of the unique human and cultural expressions that is not only worthy of celebration on their own, but central to achieving any definition of development. Read the paper … |
Meeting review: Indigenous wisdom/modern science summit Posted: 06 Jun 2012 03:35 AM PDT Indigenous Wisdom/Modern Science Summit The recordings of this virtual meeting are available online, free of charge until 8 June 2012. Panel topics addressed interconnection and practical implications for sustainability; greening the body-heart-mind; greening organizations and communities; and honoring the Earth. Listen to the recording … |
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