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Role of indigenous groups in conservation discussed at Brazilia conference Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology July 25, 2005 Below are papers discussing the role of indigenous communities in conservation submitted for the conference. All descriptions are excepts from the official "Book of Abstracts" from the meeting. More abstracts. Villas-Boas, André; SANCHEZ, ROSELY; Junqueira, Paulo. Instituto Socioambiental, Av. Higienópolis 901, 01238 São Paulo, SP, Brasil. vboas((AT))socioambiental.org (AVB, RS, PJ). The Xingu Indigenous Park, 2.6 million ha., inhabited by about 4,700 people of 14 distinct indigenous peoples, is the only remaining large-scale example of the transitional forest of Northern Mato Grosso. Expansion of cattle ranching, and soybeans eliminated about 30% of the original vegetation cover in the headwaters of the Xingu River outside of the Park, and severely fragmented much of the rest. Over the last 15 years, the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) has built partnerships with the Associação Terra Indígena do Xingu (Atix) (the Xingu peoples' indigenous association) and the communities of the Park to ensure the reserve's territorial and ecological integrity and create the basis for long term sustainability and increasing autonomy. Joint initiatives include monitoring and protection of boundaries, mapping of regional land use change, capacity building, and institutional strengthening of the association, as well as training health and education monitors. After mapping severe environmental degradation of the Xingu headwaters, ISA and Atix last year negotiated an unprecedented agreement with regional and national ranchers' organizations for the restoration of riparian forests in the headwaters. Long-term partnership and investment has resulted in a robust alliance, capable of instigating environmental protection at a regional scale RORAIMA'S INDIGENOUS RESERVES AND THE FATE OF THREATENED Synallaxis kollari. VALE, MARIANA; Jenkins, Clinton. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Box 90328, Durham, NC, USA, mmv3((AT))duke.edu. Hoary-throated Spinetail (Synallaxis kollari) is a passerine bird endemic to gallery forests of Roraima, extreme northern Brazil, and adjacent Guyana. Its tiny range and ongoing forest loss have meant that S. kollari is considered a globally threatened species. Nonetheless, the species is poorly known, and none of its known range is formally protected. A supervised classification of Landsat imagery was conducted to map the species' habitat. The map was tested using presence/absence field data collected in July 2004. We found a large proportion of the gallery forest within 0.5 km of river margins to be still intact and rice plantations to be the main source of habitat loss. The gallery forest along rio Surumu appears to be especially affected. Importantly, we found most of S. kollari 's habitat to be within São Marco and Raposa-Serra do Sol indigenous reserves. The fate of S. kollari will be necessarily tied to the fate of these reserves and any attempt to preserve the species should involve their communities THE KAYAPO VISION OF THE FUTURE OF KAYAPO LANDS AND CULTURE. TXUCARRAMAE, MEGARON. FUNAI, Colider, Mato Grosso, Brazil, fefi59((AT))brturbo.com. The Kayapo have fought for generations to rule their territories and maintain their culture. The result of the Kayapo struggle has been the protection of more than 10 million hectares of largely pristine forest and savanna (cerrado) and an indigenous culture in the highly threatened southeastern Amazon, a region continuing to experience relentlessly high rates of deforestation. The development frontier increasingly surrounds Kayapo lands and theABSTRACTS Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, July 2005 Kayapo require more means to continue to defend their territorial and constitutional rights. Kayapo communities need investment in the development of sustainable economic enterprises that can generate income without degrading ecosystems on which culture depends INTERETHNIC ALLIANCES FOR CONSERVATION AND LOCALLY BASED DEVELOPMENT IN THE XINGU. TURNER, TERENCE. Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, 261 McGraw Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA, tst3((AT))cornell.edu. In November 2003, a meeting of the indigenous peoples of the Xingú was held at the Kayapó village of Piaraçú with financial provided by conservation NGO's. With this aid, more than 200 members of 14 of the 24 indigenous peoples of the Xingú valley were able to attend. They pledged their communities to a mutual effort to stop the construction of hydroelectric dams on the Xingu. They also supported one another's struggles to stop the deforestation and pollution of the headwaters, and to secure the demarcation of the Kayapo area of Kapotnhinore on the Middle Xingu. The chiefs of the Upper Xinguano communities formally promised to cease making sorcery against the Kayapo, who in turn foreswore any intention to raid the Xinguanos. Meanwhile, Brazilian activists of the Lower Xingu, through their organization, the Fundação Viver, Produzir, Preservar, initiated direct contacts with the Kayapo, and now speak of an alliance of "the peoples of the Xingú" including the indigenous peoples of the area as well as themselves. A possible future action of this interethnic alliance is the holding of a joint rally against the dams at Altamira, reminiscent of the successful rally of 1989 THE APPLICATION OF ETHNOECOLOGICAL RESEARCH FOR IMPROVED CONSERVATION: A CASE STUDY FROM THE TRANSFLY REGION OF NEW GUINEA. TOMASEK, ADAM J. World Wildlife Fund; 1250 24th St., NW, Washington, DC 20037, USA. The Transfly ecoregion traverses the southern savannas and wetlands of Papua New Guinea and Papua, Indonesia. Located in the heart of the TransFly is Papua New Guinea's largest protected area, the Tonda Wildlife Management Area. Land conversion for agriculture, indiscriminate logging, cross border trade and water extraction are the major threats to biodiversity in Tonda. To date, spatial and thematic priorities for biodiversity conservation have been defined mostly through expert-driven processes and academic research. They often do not incorporate indigenous or traditional knowledge of biota, ecology and natural systems. A systematic rapid assessment of local knowledge and management issues in three villages. The underlying values and perceptions of landscapes and species for local communities were identified and combined with expert-defined, scientifically-based priorities for conservation in the TransFly as decision-making factors for reserve selection and resource management policies. Totemic species and their relationship to local people's contemporary life were defined. New records for certain bird and reptile species were also documented. This investigation has resulted in the creation of new customary conservation zones. The project has revealed that ecological and customary knowledge had become highly fragmentary. Local people are having increasing difficulty finding a balance between conservation and development as the pressure of modern life increases. This study suggests that conservation planning inXIX Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology ABSTRACTS areas under customary tenure regimes are likely to be more successful if they incorporate local knowledge and values of landscapes COMMUNITY CONSERVATION AGREEMENTS WITH INDIGENOUS AND TRADITIONAL COMMUNITIES. BRUNER, AARON; Neisten, E.; Rice, Richard. Conservation International, 1919 M Street, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA (a.bruner((AT))conservation.org). Conventional conservation mechanisms like national parks cannot be applied to areas inhabited by traditional and indigenous communities. CI's Conservation Economics Program is engaged in several projects that seek to address this shortcoming through the use of community conservation agreements (CCAs). Under a CCA, resource users agree to protect natural ecosystems in exchange for a steady stream of structured compensation from conservationists or other investors. In its simplest form, an agreement might be modeled after a timber concession, whereby a logging company pays for the right to extract timber from an area of forestland. Rather than log the concession area, the conservation investor would pay for the right to manage the forest for conservation. With objecti ves including both long-term protection of biodiversity and stimulation of economic development, this new mechanism offers a land-use alternative that conservationists, development agencies, governments, and local communities alike can support. In this symposium, we will elaborate on the rationale and application of the community conservation agreement approach, drawing from our experiences with indigenous communities in the Andes and Mesoamerica regions DEVELOPMENT AND BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION INITIATIVES WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF THE UPPER RIO NEGRO. CABALZAR, ALOISIO. Instituto Socioambiental,901 Avenida Higienópolis, Higienópolis, São Paulo, SP 01238-001, Brazil, beto((AT))socioambiental.org. The upper Rio Negro region is home to 22 Amerindian ethnicities (~30,000 people) that inhabit an extensive mosaic of terra firme forest and scrub forest (Catinga) and whom remain distant from the economic development frontier of Amazonia. The distribution of natural resources determines in large part the location of indigenous communities. The non-predatory use of natural resources by Amerindian groups of the upper Rio Negro has guaranteed until now the integrity of ecosystems. Five ratified Indian (Terras Indígenas) reserves of the upper Rio Negro encompass 10,610,538 hectares of which only 0.5% has been deforested for village sites and gardens. Although the overall situation of the upper Rio Negro Indian reserves appears ecologically sus tainable, there are foci of population growth where ISA (Instituto Socioambiental) and FORIN (Federação das Organizações Indígenas do Rio Negro) are proposing new forms of resource management. This initiative involves development of methodologies for monitoring biodiversity with the particpation of indigenous groups. Inventory methods form part of an effort to conserve fish stocks and agricultural biodiversity BUILDING A COMMON GROUND: RAINFOREST CONSERVATION AND INDIGENOUS TERRITORIAL AUTONOMY. CHERNELA, JANET. Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, 1111 Woods Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA, chernela((AT))umd.edu. A common ground for the goals of indigenous peoples and conservation is not found, it is created through a collaborative process. Inclusion and partnering are complex processes, carrying potential for mutual misunderstanding. The complexities are compounded if the goals of the entities are not the same and systems of meanings differ. If international conservation NGOs mistakenly assume universal values and dedicate too few resources to considering the positions, values, and sets of meanings that indigenous entities bring to the negotiating table, they will fail in fair and effective partnering. Shared understandings and mutual benefit between participants are contingent achievements accomplished through a collaboratively constructed common ground. The exercise requires investment in time, finances, and intellectual resources RECONCILING THE NEEDS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WITH THE MANAGEMENT OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY. CHO'C, GREGORIO. P.O. Box 127; Jose Maria Nunez Street; Punta Gorda Town; Toledo District; Belize Central America Tel: (501) 722-0103; Fax: (501) 722-0124. The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) is a community based indigenous environmental organization working in the far south of Belize, in a region in the Toledo District that lies between the Sarstoon and Temash Rivers. SATIIM co-manages, with the Belizean Forestry Department, the 42,000 acre Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP). The national park was declared by government in 1994 on lands traditionally used by the Garifuna and Maya communities who live in the area. There was no community consultation process before the creation of the park. What is now SATIIM began in 1997 as the Sarstoon Temash National Park Steering Committee, which was formed after the comm unities around the park came together to stake a claim in the management of the land and natural resources in and around the park. Many villagers opposed the declaration of the park and viewed it as confiscation of their lands, but others saw the creation of the park as an opportunity for the indigenous communities to continue to safeguard and manage the area. Residents who saw this opportunity formed the steering committee and began a long process of discussion with their neighbours, slowly persuading people that the communities could benefit directly and indirectly from the national park if they organized and controlled its management USING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE FOR CONSERVATION: BAREFOOT CONSERVATION EDUCATORS OF INDIA. DUTT, BAHAR; Kaleta, Rachel; Hoshing, Vikram. Wildlife Trust of India, A 220 New Friends Colony, New Delhi- 65. India, bahardutt((AT))yahoo.com. Wildlife conservation laws in India have been in direct conflict with the livelihood needs of many communities. The 'Jogi-Nath' snake charmers are one such community. In this paper we present the results of a multi-disciplinary survey conducted with the community along with recommendations that will help resolve this tension between biodiversity conservation and livelihoods. The research results show that nearly three quarters of the community is still dependent on snakes to earn a living. We then examined the condition of the snakes held by them in captivity and found as many as eight different species of snakes were used of which two species of conservation concern were the Royal snake and the Indian Python but these were observed only in a small percentage of the households. The main results of this paper thus show that traditional use of wildlife still continues, despite the introduction of regulatory conservation laws. It is urged that the indigenous knowledge of the community be used through training and employment as 'barefoot conservation educators', to educate people about venomous and non-venomous species of snakes. This would not only provide a livelihood but also assist in the protection of snakes killed by ignorant people CONSERVATION ALLIANCES WITH AMERINDIAN PEOPLES OF THE AMAZON. ZIMMERMAN, BARBARA. Conservation International, 1919 M Street NW, Washington DC, 20036, USA, b.zimmerman((AT))conservation.org. Ongoing alliances between indigenous peoples and conservation organizations in the Brazilian Amazon have helped achieve the official recognition of ~1 million km² of indigenous lands. The future of Amazonian indigenous reserves is of strategic importance for the fate of biodiversity in the region. The Kayapo people's consolidation and protection of their > 100,000 km² territory provides an instructive example. Like many Amazonian indigenous peoples the Kayapo have halted the expansion of the agricultural frontier on their lands, but also allowed selective logging and goldmining. Prospects for long-term conservation and sustainability on these lands will depend both on indigenous peoples' understandings of their resource base, and on available economic alternatives. While neither tenure security nor indigenous knowledge guarantee forest conservation, Amerindian societies' egalitarian common-property resource management regimes, with adequate incentives and longterm partnerships with conservation organizations can achieve this result IMPLEMENTING CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS WITH AMERINDIAN COMMUNITIES. MORSELLO, CARLA. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciência Ambiental, University of São Paulo, Rua do Anfiteatro, 181 - Colméia Favo 14, Cidade Universitária, SP,05508-900, Brazil, morsello((AT))uol.com.br. This paper examines the implementation of integrated conservation and development projects with Amerindians, and highlights the nature of the challenges within the context of the Brazilian Amazon. Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) aim to link biodiversity conservation and development of local communities. Absorbing a considerable proportion of funds available for conservation, ICDPs emerged in response to the recognition that approaches insensible to local people's needs are largely inefficient in development countries. ICDPs employ a set of to ols, among which economic instruments based on providing income-orientated incentives to local populations, by implementing handicrafts trade, ecotourism and marketing of non-timber forest products. The conservation importance of indigenous territories in the Amazon is resulting in the growing implementation of ICDPs, particularly by conservation organisations. However, besides the fact that a number of assessments have concluded that many ICDPs have not achieved their objectives, evidences suggest there are numerous challenges in the context of Amazonian societies when markets are developed. Although ICDPs may represent an important approach, their implementation has to consider several aspects such as the linkage between conservation threat and proposed activity, the collective nature of Amerindians work, and the cultural impacts of disrupting traditional systems of common property resource use SUSTAINING LINKS AND BUILDING BRIDGES WITH INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES: TOWARDS THE MUTUAL GOAL OF CONSERVING BIODIVERSITY AND ETHNODEVELOPMENT IN THE AMAZON. FORLINE, LOUIS. Department of Anthropology/096, University of Nevada - Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA, forline((AT)) unr.edu. Amerindian peoples, researchers, NGOs, and government institutions have forged functional partnerships in some cases. In other cases, partnerships become difficult when other players such as loggers and miners intervene. Expectations and goals can differ among the different partners yet objectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As indigenous peoples strive to maintain their livelihoods, many find that this objective can be met without undermining conservationist goals. Two examples are used to illustrate the resolution of differing sets of goals. The first example is the Guajá Indians of Maranhão State who currently share two reserves with members of other ethnic groups but prefer their own reserve. The establishment of a separate reserve would preserve headwater areas and biodiversity, in addition to extending security and resources to the Guajá. The second example riverine indigenous communities of the lower Xingu river near Altamira, Pará State. The establishment of new reserves for the Xipaia and Curuaia groups and the urban Indians of Altamira would halt ecosystem degradation in addition to providing these people with security and improved means to sustain their livelihoods. Conflicting claims by third parties will also be analyzed to better comprehend the potential for establishing indigenous reserves INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND BIODIVERSITY IN BRAZIL. SANTILLI, MARCIO. Instituto Socioambiental, SCLN 210, Bloco C, sala 112, Brasilia, DF, 70862-530, Brazil, msantilli((AT))socioambiental.org.br. Indigenous reserves cover 12.5% of the territory of Brazil and 21% of the Brazilian Amazon. The size of Indian territories is almost double the size of all state and federal, use and non-use protected areas. Some indigenous areas encompass ecological transition zones that are known for their high biodiversity and dozens of locations within Indian reserves have been identified as priorities for biodiversity conservation. Indigenous territories located at the agricultural frontier along the "Arc of Deforestation" are acting as barriers to deforestation. There is no legislation for the management of biodiversity with Indian reserves but 13 million hectares of protected areas are superimposed upon Indian territories in Amazonia. However, these superimposed protected areas were created without consulting the local indigenous inhabitants and their regulation as protected areas (Unidades de Conservação) is incompatible with the constitutional usufruct rights of Amerindian peoples in Brazil. Indian reserves (Terras Indígenas) are a fundamental part of national strategy for biodiversity conservation not only for the purpose of protecting biodiversity itself, but also for protection of the traditional knowledge held by more than 220 Amerindian groups in Brazil. Amerindian territories as conservation strategy will require a leading role for the indigenous inhabitants and respect for their constitutional rights.ABSTRACTS Universidade de Brasília, Brazil, July 200 APPLIED ETHNOECOLOGY AS A TOOL IN THE PARTICIPATORY MANAGEMENT OF INDIGENOUS RESERVES: CASE STUDIES FROM PERU AND BRAZIL. SHEPARD JR., GLENN. School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, UK; Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, Manaus, Brazil, GShepardJr((AT))aol.com. Whether hard-core preservationists like it or not, indigenous areas account for more than half of Amazonian reserves by acreage. Indigenous societies are thus literally stewards of half or more of the Amazon's protected biodiversity. Nonetheless, many indigenous reserves in the Amazon face immediate or impending crises in resource availability. It is time to move beyond "noble savage" debates and begin thinking seriously about how indigenous communities can better participate in and benefit from conservation policies and projects for their lands. Indigenous and folk knowledge about the environment represents a vast and underutilized database about habitat diversity, species distributions, ecological interactions among organisms, economically important species, and sustainable management practices. Participatory ethnoecological research methods are especially appropriate for carrying out rapid ecological evaluations and implementing local resource management strategies. Ethnoecological research can serve to build bridges of mutual understanding and respect between local people and Western scientists and conservationists, and may prove crucial in advancing international conservation goals. This presentation will provide case studies of applied ethnoecological research in conjunction with local conservation and resource management strategies in indigenous territories of Peru and Brazil.XIX Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology ABSTRACT WHAT MAKES COMMUNITY-BASED CONSERVATION WORK? BERKES, FIKRET. Natural Resources Institute, Dysart Road, Uinversity of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2, Canada, berkes((AT))cc.manitoba.ca. Commons research evolved through the critique of the "tragedy of the commons" model to document self-organization and selfregulation capabilities of communities. Common property theory can make robust predictions about conditions for management success in isolated communities. However, it is limited in its ability to deal with most cases of community-based conservation in which the local community is impacted by a diversity of outside factors. How well local-level institutions perform depend on external drivers and linkages with institutions at other levels. Thus, building theory for community-based conservation requires an understanding of commons as complex systems, with attention to scale, self-organization and other characteristics of complex adaptive systems. An international program wi th hundreds of cases, the UNDP Equator Initiative (EI), provides a set of examples to explore conditions of success for integrating conservation with development. We have been examining EI cases for lessons learned, with particular attention to linkages and networks. In particular, we pay attention to institutional interplay in which institutions at different levels interact horizontally (across space) and vertically (across levels of organization). The preliminary results indicate that successful conservation/development projects typically involve partnerships across four levels of organization and a multiplicity of partners with different functions. CONSERVATION OF NICOBAR FLYING FOX BY INITIATING THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS, INDIA. AUL, BANDANA. Department of Animal Behaviour and Physiology, School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamraj University, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, bandana_aul2002((AT))yahoo.com. The Nicobar flying fox is an endemic flying fox found in the Central Nicobar Islands. Already extinct from the northernmost island in the Nicobars, this species is facing serious threat due to hunting and habitat loss due to unsustainable forest practices. If current practices persist, the species will face extinction. The present project is working to ensure the survival of the species with research aimed at two main objectives: 1.) a community based conservation initiative that will emphasize indigenous people's participation in the conservation of this threatened species through education and awareness campaigns near roost sites and areas with high hunting pressure, and 2.) an intensive research program to identify ecological requirements for the species involving identifi- cation of roost sites, foraging patterns and range, inter-island migration and habitat use. This would further allow the researchers to establish community-based roost adoption, protection and subsequent monitoring of flying fox populations. Post tsunami, a long term plan is being initiated to help people decide where to settle and how best to sustainably use forest resources. The team cannot begin education campaigns until islanders regain their homes and a source of income, but researchers are in the process of helping them do this. THE INSTITUTIONS, DYNAMICS AND IMPACTS OF COMMUNITY-BASED AVI-TOURISM CONSERVATION DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES. BIGGS, DUAN. Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology. University of Cape Town. Private Bag, Rondebosch, 7701. Cape Town, South Africa; Conservation and Ecotourism Development, BirdLife South Africa and the Endangered Wildlife Trust Blue Swallow Working Group. Integrated Conservation and Development Projects (ICDPs) with a strong community and birding (avi)-tourism component have become increasingly numerous in Sub-Saharan Africa, and particularly in South Africa in recent years. These projects attempt to strengthen conservation and add value to biodiversity by training and developing local birding and eco-guides. The author developed an institutional framework and conducted an analysis of the dynamics and key drivers of two of these initiatives in South Africa. The presence of a motivated individual/s who drive/s and supports the project in the long term is a critical driver of success. Projects were shown to be potentially negatively impacted by external forces, such as projected global climate change impacts and shorter term economic drivers such as exchange rate volatility. An assessment of the economic viability of one such project in South Africa indicated an annual demand of US$ 16189.60 for the services of guides at a site from 2197 potential visitors. An exploratory analysis eight projects in Southern and East Africa indicated an overall perception among stakeholders, project workers and beneficiaries that these projects are successful in achieving the integrated objectives of biodiversity conservation (76.46%), sustainability (92.59%) and empowerment (94.44%). 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