Indigenous Peoples, National Parks, and Protected Areas: A New Paradigm Linking Conservation, Culture, and Rights

Chapter 3. Community-Oriented Protected Areas for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities: Indigenous Protected Areas in Australia - Marcia Langton, Lisa Palmer, and Zane Ma Rhea

84 chapter three Community-Oriented Protected Areas for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Indigenous Protected Areas in Australia Marcia Langton, Lisa Palmer, and Zane Ma Rhea Across the globe, community-oriented protected areas have been recognized as an effective way to support the preservation and maintenance of the traditional biodiversity-related knowledge of Indigenous peoples and local communities (chapters 1 and 2). Our research on the federal Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) program in Australia shows that guaranteed land security and the ability of Indigenous and local peoples to exercise their own governance structures are central to the success of communityoriented protected area programs.1 We examine the conservation and community development outcomes of the IPA program established in 1996 by the Federal Department of Environment and Heritage. This program is based on the premise that Indigenous landowners should exercise effective control over environmental governance, including management plans, and have effective control of access to their lands, waters, and resources . Most IPAs thus meet the IUCN’s criteria for ICCAs (chapter 2) that are included in the national protected area system at Indigenous peoples ’ request and without undermining their self-governance and control over their territories.2 Community-Oriented Protected Areas • 85 We also examine the ways in which programs such as IPAs can contribute to supporting the lifeways of Indigenous peoples and local communities , assist in the preservation and maintenance of their traditional biodiversity-related knowledge, and enable Indigenous peoples and local communities to participate in both customary subsistence and market economies. In contrast to many critiques of community-based conservation elsewhere, we argue that community-oriented protected areas are delivering significant benefits to Indigenous peoples in Australia. Along with the strengthening of traditional modes of governance and sustainable land management regimes, we argue that the benefits accruing to Indigenous peoples and local communities from participation in community-oriented and, most crucially, community-controlled protected area initiatives can include the preservation, renewal, and maintenance of the knowledge systems upon which Indigenous livelihoods and environmental security depend.3 Traditional Livelihoods and Biodiversity A growing literature has recognized the role of traditional knowledge and practices in preserving biodiversity (Nietschmann 1992b; Ghai 1994; Mathias 1994, 1995; Matowanyika et al. 1995; Maundu 1995; Richards 1995; Maffi 2001; Ferarri 2003; Posey 2003). For Indigenous peoples and local communities, concern about the preservation and maintenance of traditional knowledge is not only motivated by the desire to conserve biodiversity as an end in itself but also by the desire to live on their ancestral lands, to safeguard local food security, and, to the extent possible, to exercise local economic, cultural, and political autonomy (see, for example, Langton 2003). In economically developed nations such as Australia, a significant proportion of Indigenous peoples in rural and remote areas are dependent on traditional knowledge and practices in caring for their traditional territories and for harvesting wild food and animals, medicines, water, and other basic needs. Hunting, gathering, and fishing continue to contribute a substantial part of the diet and basic needs for populations in rural and remote areas of Australia. Elsewhere, for example, most economically developing nation-states of the Asian region do not have the capacity for all of the people who live within their borders to fully enter the market economy. Without attention paid to the protection and preservation of the lands and waters of local communities and Indigenous peoples and 86 • Protected Areas and Indigenous Peoples to their continuing subsistence knowledge, management, and practices, these nation-states would be unable to feed their populations. In relation to what are commonly termed hunter-gather societies, Western literature generally emphasizes “the subsistence role rather than the productivity of hunting (the production of social cohesion, the communication with the mythic countryside, and the gathering of healthy foods for the human body)” (Povinelli 1993: 60). We agree with Povenelli’s contention that “hunting and gathering contributes to local cultural, economic, and sociological well-being” (1993: 62), and support for this can be found throughout the literature. We also agree with Povinelli (1993: 24) in her contention that “discussions of the Fourth World have as yet failed to describe adequately the dense network of economic, political, and cultural motivations that account for indigenous practice (in particular indigenous struggles to produce economic and cultural well-being in the postcolonial nation) or to theorize the relationship between the productivity of indigenous practice and the production of cultural identity.” These points are well...