Forest Dependent Peoples

Diverse Communities

An estimated 1.6 billion of the world's poorest people (those surviving on less than US$2 per day) rely to some extent on forests for their welfare and livelihoods [1]. These people include subsistence farmers, economic migrants and ‘extractivists' such as rubber tappers, small-scale loggers, gold miners, hunters, and harvesters of nuts, berries, fruits and medicinal plants. Cattle ranchers, soy farmers and palm or timber plantation owners are also part of the wider community linked to rainforests. However, indigenous peoples have a particularly close relationship with rainforests and can play a vital role in protecting them.

Indigenous Peoples

The World Wildlife Fund estimates that 60 million indigenous people depend on forests for their subsistence [2]. The Amazon River Basin is home to over 300 different tribes alone, of which around 70 have had no contact with the outside world [3]. In Brazil, officially-demarcated indigenous territories, comprising 140 separate peoples, cover 20% of the Amazon region.

These distinct populations have unique cultures, ways of relating to the environment and social, cultural, economic and political characteristics. As inheritors of the forest, their understanding about the environment in which they live, the natural resources on which they depend, and most importantly, how to protect them, is invaluable.

Knowledge accumulated over generations, much of which has global relevance, is passed down orally through the community. Medical research, for example, has benefited from the rainforests - sampling of flora can uncover some drugs, but working with healers in indigenous tribes is far more effective [4]. Although small in number, indigenous cultures embody great wisdom and diversity within the human family.

Threats to Indigenous Cultures

In many rainforests, indigenous communities have suffered catastrophic decline. Outside interest in their lands has brought high mortality rates from "new" diseases such as flu, measles and smallpox, and despite being safeguarded by law they have suffered a lack of recognition of their rights, institutions and way of life.

Usually a minority within national populations, indigenous rainforest people have experienced genocide, land theft and the destruction of large areas of forest, as well as cultural and legal discrimination. Some tribes, for example in Papua New Guinea, have been convinced of the benefits of selling their land without understanding the long term consequences, particularly if they cannot read the contracts they sign [5].

Local Communities and Forest Preservation

Rainforests can only be preserved with the full participation of local communities. This includes farmers, loggers and other individuals and enterprises active on the forest frontier, but indigenous peoples can play an especially valuable role in monitoring and protecting forests.

For example, the Yanomami Indians of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela responded to an influx of miners and prospectors in the 1980s by raising their plight to international attention and persuading the Brazilian and Venezuelan governments to designate large areas as protected biosphere reserves [6].

The fate of the rainforest and its indigenous peoples are irrevocably linked. Their rights to land, dignity and development at a pace of their own choosing need to be respected.

Source
1 World Bank (2004)
2 http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/globalmarkets/forests/item3574.html (accessed May 2008)
3 www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/indigenous/locate_focus.asp (accessed May 2008)
4 http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0320-drugs.html (accessed May 2008)
5 http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/background/png.htm (accessed May 2008)
6 http://www.ypte.org.uk/docs/factsheets/env_facts/rainf_tribes.html (accessed May 2008)