TOO MUCH FOR TOO FEW: Problems of Indigenous Land Rights in Latin America

Stocks, Anthony

doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143844

Cited by 110 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…In Central and South America, many indigenous peoples occupy large territories, even though their populations may be scarce [72]. This fact, coupled with the typical absence of State authorities on the ground and widespread corruption, facilitates the entrance of illegal actors who often operate within indigenous territories [73], sometimes turning communal land into private property through various mechanisms [74,75].…”

Section: Lessons Learnt From Initial Experiences Using Drones With Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassroots Innovation Using Drones for Indigenous Mapping and Monitoring

Paneque-Gálvez

Vargas-Ramírez

Napoletano

et al. 2017

Land

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Indigenous territories are facing increasing pressures from numerous legal and illegal activities that are pushing commodity frontiers within their limits, frequently causing severe environmental degradation and threatening indigenous territorial rights and livelihoods. In Central and South America, after nearly three decades of participatory mapping projects, interest is mounting among indigenous peoples in the use of new technologies for community mapping and monitoring as a means of defense against such threats. Since 2014, several innovative projects have been developed and implemented in the region to demonstrate and train indigenous communities in the use of small drones for territorial mapping and monitoring. In this paper, we report on five projects carried out in Peru, Guyana, and Panama. For each one we describe the context, main objectives, positive outcomes, challenges faced, and opportunities ahead. Preliminary results are promising and have gained the interest of many indigenous societies who envision this technology as a powerful tool to protect their territories and strengthen their claims regarding specific environmental liabilities and justice issues. Based on the results presented here and a review of previous similar studies, we offer a critical discussion of some of the main opportunities and challenges that we foresee regarding the use of small drones for indigenous territorial mapping and monitoring. In addition, we elaborate on why a careful, well thought-out, and progressive adoption of drones by indigenous peoples may trigger grassroots innovations in ways conducive to greater environmental justice and sustainability.

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Section: Lessons Learnt From Initial Experiences Using Drones With Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassroots Innovation Using Drones for Indigenous Mapping and Monitoring

Paneque-Gálvez

Vargas-Ramírez

Napoletano

et al. 2017

Land

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“…These have exclusive rights over natural resource management for traditional use (Government of Brazil 1988), with conservation as an output (Stocks 2005). The government is responsible for guaranteeing protection to the people and their land.…”

Section: Rights To Manage the Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empowering Local People through Community-based Resource Monitoring: a Comparison of Brazil and Namibia

Constantino¹,

Carlos²,

Ramalho³

et al. 2012

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Biological resource monitoring systems are implemented in many countries and often depend on the participation of local people. It has been suggested that these systems empower local participants while promoting conservation. We reviewed three wildlife monitoring systems in indigenous lands and sustainable development reserves in Brazilian Amazonia and one in Namibian Caprivi conservancies, analyzing the strategies adopted and conditions that facilitated local empowerment, as well as potential impacts on conservation. This provided insights into potential avenues to strengthen empowerment outcomes of monitoring systems in Latin America and Africa. We assessed four dimensions of empowerment at individual and community scales: psychological, social, economic, and political. The conditions that facilitated local empowerment included the value of natural resources, rights to trade and manage resources, political organization of communities, and collaboration by stakeholders. The wide range of strategies to empower local people included intensifying local participation, linking them to local education, feeding information back to communities, purposefully selecting participants, paying for monitoring services, marketing monitored resources, and inserting local people into broader politics. Although communities were socially and politically empowered, the monitoring systems more often promoted individual empowerment. Marketing of natural resources promoted higher economic empowerment in conservancies in Namibia, whereas information dissemination was better in Brazil because of integrated education programs. We suggest that practitioners take advantage of local facilitating conditions to enhance the empowerment of communities, bearing in mind that increasing autonomy to make management decisions may not agree with international conservation goals. Our comparative analysis of cases in Latin America and Africa allows for a greater understanding of the relationships between resource monitoring systems, local empowerment, and conservation.

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“…Instead, technicians carrying out field inspections tended to demarcate small areas, leading to the fragmentation of indigenous territories (Dean 2002). By titling only individual community areas, often spatially distant from each other, the law left large gaps for occupation by colonists or for exploitation by logging or mining companies (Stocks 2005). In many cases, by the time technicians arrived to demarcate boundaries, non-indigenous settlers already occupied much of the area between communities, especially in areas with better infrastructure and long histories of colonization such as Peru's central Amazon.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%