Sub-theme 3. Indigenous peoples and globalisation
Panel 3.5.
What 'Territories of life' have in common: Exploring linkages between ICCAs and the commons under threat
Indigenous Peoples and local communities play a central role in the governance and sustainable use of what is perceived as the world’s biodiversity and ‘nature’. They actively protect, maintain by wise use and conserve an astounding diversity of globally relevant species, habitats and ecosystems, providing the basis for clean water and air, healthy food and livelihoods. The basis of their governance is their form of collective ownership of territories that is rooted in their deep relation and identity with their land and sea. It is more than a material relation but the link to past and future generations as well as with other species and the spiritual world, with which they co-exist. Together, territories and areas conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities are abbreviated as “territories of life”, or as “ICCAs” in international law and policy. While ICCAs include many elements of the common property institutions debate, Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ visions of institutions are broader and based on views of the more than human and the spiritual environment.
However, mainstream conservation policies and the capitalist expansion of industrialisation pose a main threat to ICCAs and their inhabitants as well as to biodiversity. Nevertheless, Indigenous Peoples and local communities try to counter these violent processes. They show an astonishing ability to resist by different strategies of adaptation and claiming self-determination against what can be called commons grabbing. Many of them also demonstrate or are considering radical alternatives in political, economic & social spheres, towards direct and bioregional democracy, sustaining or reviving production and exchange based on caring and sharing instead of profits such as cooperatives, and equity in gender-sexuality relations.
In dialogue and collaboration with local and indigenous grassroot movements and the ICCA consortium (an association supporting the movement for territories of life) we look for papers that discuss a) differences and similarities of ICCAs and the commons, b) relationships between ICCAs and NGOs/civil societies and commons researchers who seek to support them and c) strategies of collective responding, legal property rights recognition and radical futures against commons grabbing of capitalist expansions and new conservation attempts affecting ICCAs.
Panel 3.5. A
1. Protecting nature, our global common. An indigenous ontological perspective
Indigenous Maya woman
The knowledge of Indigenous Peoples (IP) has provided information, methods and practices for the conservation and sustainable use and management of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide. Scientific and policy spheres are framing actions while seeing the potential for conducting research and strengthening collaboration with IP, portraying them as the stewards of our planet and exploring how our Indigenous Knowledge (IK) complement scientific endeavors. Vast opportunities exist since our knowledge can contribute to understanding current environmental change, support societies in the search for solutions and to reach global goals and visions. One example is the establishment of global agreements, sufficiently ambitions, with the aspiration vision of living in harmony with nature, which was set by the CBD and was due for adoption at CBD 15th conference of the parties COP15 2021. This vision entails a world where by 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved restored and wisely used; maintaining ecosystems services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people. Having this and similar visions are necessary but, unfortunately there are not comprehensive since, despite scientific and policy practices helping to advance the integration of our IK, they have not been able to acknowledge value, respect and embrace our indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, methods, values and, in general, our different perspective to reinterpret nature. This is of concern for humanity because erosion of our IK can contribute to further erosion of global commons and the destruction of nature. Hence, I argue that the only way to be successful in the achievement of global goals and the vision of living in harmony with nature, will require protecting our IK. This is, our IK if heeded, accepted and understood as it
is, can help to ensure the wellbeing of our planet.
2. A Transformative Impact Assessment Module (TIAM) for Biological and Cultural Diversity in Territories of Life
Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
Large infrastructures pose significant risk to biological and cultural diversity in territories of life. The vast majority of such projects are informed by one-fits-all solutions that threaten the richness of local social-ecological relations and marginalize possibilities for strong sustainability. This logic is mainstreamed by environmental and social impact assessments (IAs). While on principle IAs should provide a fair, accurate, and open-ended evaluation of projects, in fact they are often instrumental to ensure smooth implementation of decisions already taken elsewhere.
Yet IAs are a fundamental window of opportunity for social-ecological awareness, agency, and accountability, as shown by a vast repertoire of activism practices. We intend to enable this potential, by inoculating a transformative logic in IAs. Our work addresses 3 major flaws of conventional IAs: (a) a deeply rooted pro-development bias; (b) a short-sighted vision of sustainability; (c) the lack of meaningful participation by humans and more-than humans.
This presentation introduces the outcomes of a trans-disciplinary retreat held in Cansiglio Forest in Autumn 2022, where 12 academics, practitioners, and activists designed a Transformative Impact Assessment Module (TIAM), based on 2 archetypal cases in Kenya and Laos. TIAM incorporates (a) process-oriented components, to re-construct the rationale of an IA from being a tick-box exercise, to becoming a meaning-full process, open to diverse outcomes; and (b) measurement-oriented criteria, covering aspects that are systematically overlooked in IAs (ethics, emotions, esthetics, different ways of knowing). At the end of this presentation, we will engage the audience to explore TIAM applications for practice and research.
3. ICCAs as sacred communal sites: The case of Tharaka, Eastern Kenya
Global Tapestry of Alternatives (GTA), Society for Alternative Learning and Tranformation (SALT), The Kithino Learning Centre, and Gaia Foundation, UK
Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) living around these ICCAs receive a number of benefits. These range from cultural, ecological and spiritual benefits. The ICCAs are found in many forms such as forests, waterfalls, springs, wetlands etc. are a local commons but more than that: From an ecological perspective, ICCAs make an important contribution to species conservation as they are the places with huge biodiversity and ecosystems. They also act as reservoirs in case of loss of certain biodiversity species for both plants and animals. And from a cultural and spiritual perspective, ICCAs are places of worship and for connecting with ancestral realm. Through the performance of ritual ceremonies, ICCAs create space for humans to commune with their ancestors, cement and even restore broken relationships between the living and metaphysical. Ritual performances are an important ingredient as they make the ICCAs more potent, vibrant and active. It is the role of the custodians of different ICCAs and SNS&T to perform rituals as necessary and especially when these ICCAs are desecrated.
The presentation will illustrate this aspect of spiritual ICCAs and commons in Tharaka, an indigenous community located in Eastern Kenya. This ICCA plays an important role in regulating sustainable use of the ecosystem services in the Arid and Semi-Arid Area (ASA). Tharaka community ecological communal governance systems are established through the relationship and responsibility for ICCAs/SNS&T. These ICCAs/SNS&T are the sources of law and centres of knowledge and inter-generational learning.
4. From colonial commons grabbing to ICCAs alternative for restoring the commons: Cases from India
Kalpavriksh and ICCA Consortium, India
‘Conservation’ as a need emerged in India with a noticeable decline in wildlife in the early 20th century due to extensive extraction of wild species, resources and species by the colonial state to power industrial capitalism. Imperialism necessitated takeover of the common property resources leading to the breakdown of local traditional governance, institutional and knowledge systems and consequent tragedy of the commons. The ‘solution’ offered was creating exclusive ‘spaces for nature’ devoid of humans, further annihilating their customary access and rights of the Adivasi and other traditional local communities. Struggles against these injustices and for recognition of rights including right for self-determination are as old in India as the colonial ingressions. However, colonial laws, policies and practices have continued and further strengthened post-independence. This paper premises that, any proposal for structural alternative to current colonial conservation will emerge from politicizing dominant conservation paradigms; that an inclusive and rights-based approach (including rights to self-determination and self-rule) is likely to be much more successful at conservation of the commons; and a more ecologically sustainable and secure future depends on understanding, learning from, helping restore, reviving and strengthening customary governance, institutional and knowledge systems, in particular by recognising ICCAs (territories and areas conserved by indigenous peoples and the local community). India continues to have a huge diversity and spread of ICCAs, which remain invisible, unrecognised, legally unsupported or co-opted and consequently facing numerous threats. The paper describes a number of policy and non-policy actions that need to be taken to support ICCAs in India.
Panel 3.5. B
1. Strengthening and reinterpreting customary Indigenous institutions and property rights in current day Sarawak, Malaysia
SAVE Rivers
The Sarawakian Indigenous Peoples’ past practices and beliefs that their environment houses spirits and their practice of communicating with them through signs and omens has set the basis of how they relate to it as likened to a living entity. Although this belief has given way to more institutionalized religions, this past narrative sets the premises on how their definition of land and environmental ownership is unconventional and much more robust than any existing law surrounding land tenure and land status. The Adat’(a system of Indigenous customary law) provides strong guiding principles that govern this symbiotic relationship of land and communities.
It is within these robust definitions surrounding land that we note that there are practices within the Sarawakian Indigenous communities that subscribe to concepts similar to the commons, for example communal forests, Tagang (river-life conservation) and more. These traditional practices are currently even revived and adopted beyond their original ethnic groups.
In Northern Sarawak, several territories of life are currently joining together under the umbrella of the Upper Baram Forest Area/Baram Peace Park supported by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). The challenge is to base it on customary practices in a common law context that is not inclusive of Indigenous practices and rights.
In the hope to establish a strong constitutional recognition of ICCAs locally and globally, these quoted practices and experiences from Sarawak can contribute to a constructive discussion of the similarities and differences of ICCAs and the commons in the panel.
2. Development Induced Displacement and Alienation from Commons in Uttarakhand: Rethinking Resettlement and Rehabilitation policies in the light of emerging community dynamics
School of Liberal Studies UPES, Dehradun, India
This paper will analyse the existing Resettlement and Rehabilitation policies implemented by the government vis a vis the acquisition of common land and resources for development projects in Uttarakhand, India. In doing so, the paper will engage with the social, cultural and political meanings associated with common property resources (CPR) in the tribal indigenous communities in Uttarakhand and how those feature in people’s resistance and demands in response to their alienation from CPRs. It will also examine the shift in land ownership patterns from common landholding to individual landholding and its gendered implication in the light of the state’s push towards the formalisation of individual land and how that has led to a disintegration of the traditional social structure of the already marginalised tribal communities that traditionally sustained on commons.
3. How can private law protect indigenous knowledge?
1University of Notre Dame, Australia, 2University of Technology Sydney, Australia, 3International Institute for Self-governane, Australia
Non-indigenous Australians are degrading the homelands of all Australians to jeopardise the wellbeing of everyone. Instead of insidiously degrading indigenous culture and their knowledge of eternal sustainability, modern society urgently needs to follow their practices based on distributed decision-making. This practice, that enriches democracy, was described by Elinor Ostrom in her Nobel prize acceptance speech as “polycentric governance”. Such distributed locally based decision-making, without “markets or State”, introduces self-governance at the local, bioregional, and national level. However, there is no university in the world that provides education in the science, architecture, practices, and art of self-governance that indigenous Australians have practiced for longer than any other existing culture. The purpose this article is to explore how it may be possible to embed this approach into the constitutions of corporations to make them what Ostrom described as “Common Pool Resources” providing wellbeing to all stakeholders. In this way indigenous knowledge could make a global contribution on how a modern society could achieve eternal sustainability. Even if a catastrophic down-sizing of humanity occurs it could become critical in sustaining survivors over the next millennium
4. Networks of resistance: developing a network of ICCAs across Senegal
1ICCA Consortium regional coordinator for West Africa, 2local community representative of Bliss Kassa ICCA, Casamance, Senegal
There is a strong and active network of ICCAs across Senegal. Realising that their strength and future viability relies on collaboration and cooperation, local communities sustaining ‘territories of life’ from all across Senegal have joined together to establish a dynamic network of ICCAs. Following the well-documented successes of Kawawana, in 2016 Salatou Sambou (co-founder of Kawawana) and other active members of the ICCA community in Senegal, decided to establish Kabeka – an acronym for Kamaloor Bekafankante – meaning ‘working together to protect ourselves’. The association is dedicated to supporting and developing a powerful network of ICCAs across each region of Senegal. The majority of this work involves organising and running workshops for local communities and their ICCAs.
Another concrete demonstration of Senegal’s network of ICCA is the more recent creation of ANAPAC, Assemblée National des APAC de Senegal – the Senegal national assembly of ICCAs – which held its first national assembly in 2019.
This part of the ICCA event will be presented by Salatou Sambou, the ICCA Consortium’s regional coordinator for West Africa, and Joseline Syna, an active member in Senegal’s network of ICCAs.
