Sub-theme 3. Indigenous peoples and globalisation
Panel 3.7.
Indigenous autonomy and the global commons: pathways for appropriate recognition and support
Indigenous peoples’ territories constitute bundles of interrelated commons, governed and managed through complex institutional arrangements in constant evolution. By exercising governance over common lands, waters and forests, indigenous peoples and local communities are at the forefront of the defense of life on earth. The importance of indigenous autonomy as an effective way to preserve biodiversity and carbon storage is increasingly recognized. However, decades of colonial dispossession, racist oppression and ethnocidal policies have undermined its viability. The ongoing expansion of extractivist enterprises in indigenous and local peoples’ territories is an existential threat to these bastions against biodiversity loss and climate breakdown.
For the global movement in defense of the commons, the challenge is to find effective ways for the appropriate recognition and support of autonomous indigenous and local communities’ governance institutions – given that well-intentioned but badly executed schemes risk to further undermine them. For this panel, we seek contributions from researchers, practitioners, and indigenous and local community representatives about positive experiences as well as challenges in building mutual solidarity and support between commoners across the globe, between urban and rural settings, North and South, etc. We further invite reflections on how such experiences can contribute to emerging notions of local-to-global commons.
1. Sumak kawsay Alli kawsay in the indigenous movements of Colombia – Ecuador vs. the exclusion by the big mining development, contribution to the Rights of Mother Nature from the global south in middle of climate change
University Nariño, Colombia
The purpose of this research is to present the urgency of listening to indigenous epistemologies of Sumak Kawsay (in kichwa language: Buen vivir-Good Living) and also to accompany the care/defense of the biodiversity-rich indigenous territories of the Andean region. As a research question: How is the anthropocene affecting the indigenous territories and with it the threats of the epistemologies of the Sumak Kawsay/Buen vivir?
This ethnographic research has been carried in the last 7 years, in Republics of Colombia and Ecuador, in Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca CRIC, and The Indigenous Confederation of Ecuador CONAIE. Theoretical references: epistemology of indigenous communities, indigenous intellectuals.
The anthropocene affects considerably the species of flora and fauna, the glaciers, water reserves, páramos understood as places where the water is born for the species. With it the territories Pan Amazonas region of native communities are strongly affected in their cosmovision to know.
Due to its high impact in high mountain areas, climate change affects the melting of glaciers, strong droughts, seasonal changes for food production, water shortages and with this the displacement of animals and indigenous people and with it affects their traditions and cosmovisions due to geographical relocation and spatial – socio-cultural changes.
2. Can REDD+ safeguards ‘do better’ for Indigenous Peoples and local communities? Perspectives from a literature review
CIFOR-ICRAF, USA
Safeguards for the UNFCCC’s REDD+ mechanism arose in response to concerns voiced by forest-dependent communities over its potential to infringe upon their rights and territories. Since then, several institutions have also developed voluntary standards for carbon markets, in addition to safeguards guidelines adopted by multilateral funding institutions. Across these standards and guidelines, safeguards are conceptualized and articulated in different ways: as bulwarks against the impacts of interventions (“do no harm”); as means to achieve sustainable development outcomes (“do good”); or as mechanisms to catalyse the transformation of forest-dependent communities (“do better”).
It is urgent to clarify and understand the role of safeguards as the climate crises prompts interest on the part of countries and corporations in ‘nature-based solutions’ to meet their emissions reduction targets and commitments to biodiversity. This influx of investments in tropical commons can bolster sustainable development objectives, but also poses risks to communities, including the creation of perverse incentives and the deepening of existing social and economic inequities.
This paper will present the results of a literature review of safeguards experiences in REDD+ to understand when safeguards work, for whom, and why. We found that while safeguards have become a mainstay of REDD+ discourse and practice, there is considerable variation in their underlying objectives, the ways in which they are formulated, and the extent and effectiveness of their implementation. Thinking through safeguards, we will present a typology to understand their potential for change, as well as synthesised factors to support and protect community rights.
3. Kawawana: The story of Kawawana, a ‘territory of life’ (ICCA) in Senegal: positive experiences, challenging future
Bristol University, United Kingdom
In 2010, Kawawana became the first formally documented ICCA – or ‘territory of life’ – in Senegal. Following a concerning depletion of their fish populations, the local community realised they needed to remobilise the traditions and customs cultivated by their ancestors to restore the ‘good life’ to its territory. Accordingly, Kawawana now relies not only on more modern surveillance techniques to govern their commons, but also the restoration of sacred areas, which are guarded by fetishes, intricate objects indicating the presence of powerful spirits and widely revered by the community. The restoration of this ancestral knowledge is complemented by Kawawana’s ability to negotiate complex webs of state institutions and international conservation discourses – all of which have ensured the continued successful autonomy of the community’s commons.
In the last ten years, Kawawana has become internationally recognised – largely through its role within the ICCA Consortium, but also through international prizes such as the UNDP’s Equator Prize in 2012 at the Rio + 20 sustainable development summit. Kawawana’s work has not stopped here, however. They have also been the driving force in developing a network of ICCAs across Senegal, which in 2019 held its first national assembly.
This presentation, led by Salatou Sambou, the founder of Kawawana, will outline the positive responses to the work of Kawawana, as well as the distinct challenges it faces in negotiating a world that remains hostile to Indigenous local community commons and the ways of knowing and being that emerge out of these socio-ecological systems.
4. The Brazilian concept of Traditional Peoples and Communities (PCTs) and its contribution to the international establishment of Local Communities
1Mamirauá Institute, Brazil, 2Mupan – Focal Point ICCA Consortium, Brazil
There is an important debate about the consequences of the global negotiations on biodiversity and climate for the rights of populations that have unique worldviews and material relationships with nature such as Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The conceptualization of Indigenous Peoples as native peoples is somewhat appeased to the detriment of the concept of local communities, which still summarizes many disagreements about its characterization. There are both positions that are against the coupling of both social groups in the same acronym, and others that defend this coupling based on a better characterization of what these local communities are, as in the case of the ICCA Consortium. Brazil, which has great cultural diversity, with numerous Indigenous Peoples, but also other communities that have unique social configurations, can contribute to this discussion. The diversity of autochthonous social arrangements generated collective identities that are, on the one hand, tools of struggles for rights and, on the other hand, generalist categories used by institutions for the construction of specific public policies. The legal and theoretical framework around the concept widely used in Brazil of “Traditional Peoples and Communities” (PCTs, in Portuguese) go in this direction. Brazil recognizes several categories of PCTs such as: quilombola communities, terreiro peoples, coastal and marine extractivists, caiçaras, faxinalenses, geraizeiros, catingueiros, veredeiros, gatherers of evergreen flowers, riverside people, caboclos, among many others. This Paper Abstract seeks to discuss the concept of PCTs and their practical consequences to a better conceptualization of “local communities” at an international level.
