Abstracts

Keynote Presentations

THE NATURE OF BIODIVERSITY PROTECTION
Jeffrey A. McNeely, Chief Scientist, The World Conservation Union (IUCN)
This paper gave a broad ranging introduction to current debates on 'biodiversity' and a brief historical introduction to the specific issue of mobile peoples. The paper elaborated on a new approach focusing on "6 Is": Investigation (learning how natural and cultural systems function); Information (ensuring that facts are available to inform decisions); Incentives (using economic tools to help conserve biodiversity); Interaction (promoting a cross-sectoral approach to conserving biodiversity); International cooperation (building productive collaboration for conserving biodiversity); and Indigenous communities (returning management responsibility to those whose welfare depends on the resources managed). The presentations closed with an illustration of the interactions between population growth, conflict, security and sustainable resources use among tribal populations in Siberut off the west coast of Sumatra.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND PROTECTED AREAS: RIGHTS, PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE
Marcus Colchester, Director, Forest Peoples Programme
This paper described how 'Colonial conservation' forcibly excluded indigenous peoples from protected areas, caused serious social problems but provoked a vigorous response. Conservationists, Colchester argues, are now beginning to accept advances in international law which recognize indigenous rights, and have changed protected area categorisation to allow indigenous ownership and control. The paper elaborated on a number of guidelines and principles for recognizing and implementing these rights identifying positive examples of progress which suggest solutions.

Case studies

CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF LIVELIHOOD DIVERSIFICATION AMONG THE MAASAI OF NORTHERN TANZANIA
J. Terrence McCabe, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado
This paper considered the continuing challenge of bringing together the goals of conservation with the creation of sustainable livelihoods for the pastoral people living in the Ngorongoro District of northern Tanzania. The area exhibits a variety of conservation policy options, with Serengeti National Park being managed under the Yellowstone model; the Ngorongoro Conservation Area managed under a dual mandate of protecting resources and the interests of the indigenous people; and the Loliondo Game Controlled Area identified as one of the most important sites for the implementation the new 'Wildlife Management Areas'. The paper gave special attention to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Loliondo area, the diversification of the livestock based economy of these peoples and the new challenges this presents to conservation policy.

BALANCING THE SCALES: CONSERVING HUMAN AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS IN INLAND AUSTRALIA
Graham Griffin, Centre for Arid Zone Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia
This presentation described resource management strategies of aboriginal populations including an analysis of the constant use of fire to make a variable environment more predictable. The presentation highlighted the specific case of arid zones that have extremely low, and highly mobile, human populations. This was contrasted with the establishment of nationals parks, often based on limited biological and geographical aesthetics, which invariably conserve a significantly smaller area than that sustainably used by nomadic people. Implications for the involvement of aboriginal communities were drawn with the help of examples from the western desert regions and Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park.

INTEGRATING CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT: NAMIBIA
Margaret Jacobsohn and Garth Owen-Smith, Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation, Namibia
This case study examined Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) initiatives by semi-nomadic Himba and Herero cattle herders in remote north-western Namibia and hunter-gatherers in the north-east of the country. It showed that conservation and people can both be beneficiaries when a truly community-based management programme is setup. Stressing the need for a long-term approach the papers highlights how the establishment of community-run nature conservancies has lead to wider improvements in rural democracy and grassroots representation. The conservancies provide a model of community land tenure and sustainable shared resource use which integrates traditional systems and embraces an emerging commercial tourism economy. The authors maintained that Namibia's nomads have been advantaged by this conservation approach in the context of a modern, developing African state.

THE TAMSHIYACU TAHUAYO COMMUNAL RESERVE (RCCT) IN PERU
Helen Newing and Richard Bodmer, Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology
This case study focused on a communal reserve that was created through a coalition of local communities and biological researchers in response to large scale fishing, hunting and logging by outside commercial interests. The case highlighted two important issues: firstly, the extent to which reserve management and control has remained in the hands of local communities and secondly, the degree to which communities have moved from their initial aim of restricting access to outsiders to tackling the issue of the sustainability of their own use.

PRESENT MIGRATION TENDENCIES AND RELATED SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS IN MADAGASCAR'S SPINY FOREST ECOREGION
Mark Fenn and Flavian Rebara , Worldwide Fund for Nature ­ Madagascar.
The WWF Spiny Forest Conservation Programme identified the nature of migration behaviours of the Tandroy and Mahafaly ethnic groups to be a principle cause of human pressures on several biologically important sites. It identified the changing factors that motivated people to migrate as well as the human competition for access to natural resources in settlement zones and the impact this has had on WWF conservation planning. This paper proposed strategies for managing related social and environmental impacts in the Spiny Forest Conservation Area.

ETHICS OF ACCESS, BOUNDARY KEEPING, AND FOREST RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN INDONESIAN BORNEO
Reed L. Wadley, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia
Wadley's paper focused on the shifting social and political factors which influence the management and allocation of rights to local resources. The paper dealt with the influence of local-level social-political processes on resource management and its relevance for conservation. It highlighted how the management of the social relations that surround access rules and boundaries can be more important than insisting on well-defined boundaries and rules. The paper illustrated one approach that isolates important variables involved in access decisions. Examples were drawn from non-timber forest product collection in Indonesia.