Biodiverse forests and reefs are ecologically linked. The health of reefs depends on the health of forests. Forests mitigate global climate change. Reefs nurture global fisheries. The Peoples, Forests & Reefs program is enhancing the capacity of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations to manage millions of hectares of threatened forests and coral reefs worldwide. The preservation of biodiversity within these regions is critically linked to the physical and cultural survival of the peoples who have lived there for generations. Yet, few donors are meeting this global need.
The USAID-funded Biodiversity Support Program, through PeFoR, provides support to Indigenous Peoples and is reversing biodiversity loss through a mix of small grants, technical assistance, and outreach programs.
For further information about this program, please contact:
Peoples, Forests & Reefs
Dr. Janis Alcorn, PeFoR Director
Biodiversity Support Program
c/o World Wildlife Fund
1250 24th Street NW
Washington, DC 20037, USA
Tel: 202-861-8313
or 202-778-9697
Fax: 202-293-9341
Email: janis.alcorn@wwfus.org
The world’s last great remnants of biologically diverse forests, deserts, grasslands, rivers and coastal areas are under the stewardship of Indigenous Peoples. These groups are struggling for rights to continue to sustainably manage and benefit from the biological diversity in their care.
Peoples, Forests & Reefs (PeFoR) aims to:
PeFoR focuses on biologically diverse areas where traditional ethnic identities and institutions are still strong. By working with Indigenous Peoples to manage biodiversity, PeFoR supports the rights of Indigenous Peoples and promotes sustainable economic and social development.
In critical regions throughout the world, PeFoR promotes low-cost mapping techno-logies in response to requests for assistance in mapping community lands. PeFoR offers technical assistance to indigenous resource managers, strengthens Indigenous Peoples’ capacity to communicate effectively with government agencies, and supports appropriate policy reforms. Lessons learned are shared with hundreds of NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations through apprenticeship programs, workshops and publications.
The types of activities Peoples, Forests & Reefs supports include:
On the island of Borneo, timber interests threaten the future of biologically diverse forests and their indigenous stewards, including the Bentian Dayak of East Kalimantan. The Dayak practice rotational gardening, which conserves rainforest ecosystems, meets subsistence needs, and generates cash income through the sale of rattan.
Since 1993, Peoples and Forests has supported PLASMA, an Indonesian NGO, to help the Dayak map their forests and document traditional resource management practices. Loir Botor Dingit, Paramount Chief of the Bentian Dayak and 1997 winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, used their maps to persuade government officials to exclude Bentian forests and rattan gardens from conversion to timber plantations. This policy change is keeping over 100,000 hectares of forest intact under Dayak stewardship and creates a precedent for government recognition of indigenous resource rights and management practices.
The waters around Coron Island in the Philippines have sustained generations of Tagbanuas, who consider the entire area sacred. Even without government intervention, the Tagbanuas have protected these waters and preserved the country's last remaining island with closed canopy forest. In recent years, migrant fishermen have settled on the Tagbanuas’ ancestral lands and are competing for the island’s marine resources. The migrants’ fishing methods, which include the use of dynamite, threaten the future of both humans and marine species in the area.
The Tagbanuas asked PAFID, a Philippine NGO, to help them protect their sacred fishing grounds by documenting their right to these ancestral waters. With PeFoR funding, their unique claim, and the mapping project they used to support it, led to national debate and the addition of ancestral waters into the new Ancestral Domains Act. Their effort provides a model for other Indigenous Peoples whose physical and spiritual survival depends on the land and waters they protect.
Over 50 million indigenous people in India depend on Minor Forest Products (NTFPs) for their livelihood. In Orissa, PeFoR supported Vasundhara’s studies of the social and economic impacts of pricing, marketing, and processing policies covering tendu, sal, mahua, and other NTFPs. Resulting public awareness led to policy changes that nearly doubled forest-dependent families' income from sal oilseed sales in 1997. This is an incentive for forest protection.
The area set aside as the Thung Yai Huay Kha Khaeng World Heritage Site in western Thailand has been home to the Karen for over two centuries. Karen culture and economic practices, which support rotating cultivation and forbid the killing of endangered species, are quite compatible with the preservation of the forests’ biodiversity.
In 1992, the Thai government planned to resettle the Karen, unless they could demonstrate their ability to live in the forest sustainably. With support from PeFoR, Wildlife Fund Thailand used community mapping and population surveys to help the Karen communicate their ecological knowledge and commitment to conservation to government officials, as well as important allies among the press in Bangkok. The project also identified miners living in and around the protected area as threats to the biodiversity. The Karen have been allowed to stay in Thung Yai, where their future, and the future of the forests, depends on their effective stewardship.
After denying Indigenous Peoples’ rights for centuries, Latin American countries are now creating innovative ways to recognize indigenous groups as Protected Area managers. In Bolivia, the Izoceño people have been designated the managers of a globally important protected area — Kaa-Iya.
PeFoR provided support to WCS, CSNL, and CABI for a community-based mapping process that provided essential information for Protected Area management plans and trained participants for future wildlife survey work. PeFoR's support provided strategic momentum for Project Kaa-Iya, a new USAID/Bolivia initiative.
In the Peruvian Upper Amazon, Aguaruna communities claim rights over some of the most biologically rich forests in the world. With support from PeFoR, a tropical botanist, Peggy Stern, and the Flora of Peru team assisted one Aguaruna community to define and physically demarcate their borders in order to compare them to official maps. An Aguaruna team learned to map vegetation types and conduct ecological surveys. By documenting names and knowledge of local plants, members of the Aguaruna community expect to profit from economically valuable species in their forests and preserve the unique habitats identified by the survey.
Indigenous Peoples occupy the remaining forests of Central America. They share concerns over land rights, sustainable development, protected areas and cultural survival. Following the First Indigenous Conference on Land, Environment, and Culture in Central America, sponsored by CSNL, CAHDEA and MOPAWI in 1996, participants requested further discussions to help build consensus among indigenous organizations and to create alliances among Indigenous Peoples, environmentalists, governments, and development organizations. PeFoR responded to this request by supporting two thematic workshops leading to the Second Indigenous Conference to be held in 1999. The workshops are linked to technical apprenticeships on environmental issues. These networking activities are strengthening both democracy and indigenous organizations' capacity to influence environmental debates. As a result, the future of Central American biodiversity is more secure.