En français
Sustainable Use of Biodiversity
| The Challenge
The Earth's biological clock is ticking and with each passing second, more microorganism, plant, and animal species disappear. It is estimated that 100 species become extinct every day. Entire ecosystems are in jeopardy from habitat destruction, pollution, overharvesting, and the introduction of non-native species. Globalization has added to these losses by contributing to the erosion of knowledge about biodiversity among local communities and indigenous peoples in the South, where biological resources are greatest.
We all depend on biodiversity — for food, for medicine, and for environmental equilibrium. Without varied genetic resources and equitable access to their benefits, our ability to adapt to change is compromised and our well-being threatened.
The Response
The Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (SUB) program initiative supports scientific research on local and indigenous knowledge, protection, and management of biodiversity. By promoting conservation, this research is designed to help communities that rely on biological resources for life's necessities: food, shelter, good health, and a secure livelihood. Beyond the community level, the SUB research program aims to influence national, regional, and global policy debates. For example, the SUB program initiative has helped to bring the perspectives of indigenous people to international meetings on the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, an agreement signed by 175 governments that commits them to action to conserve biodiversity.
Biotechnology to botany, cultural practices to cultivation techniques — biodiversity issues cut across many fields. A network of projects on medicinal plants in Asia reflects the multidisciplinary nature of SUB-funded work; it involves research on the production and processing of medicinal plants, the safety of plant-based remedies, income opportunities for communities, and trade practices. SUB's projects also try to incorporate methods of analyzing the different ways women and men use biological resources. Promoting access to, and fair control over, these resources is another key research goal: to ensure that the variety of life on the planet serves a common future.
The Objectives
Promote the use, maintenance, and enhancement of the knowledge, innovations, and practices of indigenous and local communities that conserve biodiversity.
Support the creation of models for policy and legislation that recognize the rights of indigenous and local communities to genetic resources and to the benefits derived from those resources through intellectual property regimes.
Develop incentives, methods, and policy options that facilitate community participation in the design and implementation of strategies for the conservation and development of agricultural and aquatic biodiversity.
Support the development of sustainable livelihoods and incentives for the sustainable use of natural products, especially medicinal plants.
The Results
Residents of a biosphere reserve in Guatemala have signed an agreement with the government that allows them to use forest resources for their livelihood while being responsible for sustainable forest management. (Featured project)
More than 20 million seahorses are harvested annually as a source of traditional Chinese medicine. Researchers in Canada, the Philippines, and Viet Nam are studying the seahorse trade as a means to address the larger issue of the conservation of marine medicinals through resource
management and community development.
Laos's 40 major ethnic groups, each with different cultural traditions, have helped foster genetic diversity amid the country's extensive array of flora and fauna. The University of British Columbia has worked with the Laos government to draft legislation that will help protect and manage these genetic resources while ensuring domestic returns on any commercial development.
Cuba, Nicaragua, and Panama have incorporated IDRC-supported research on medicinal plants into their national primary health-care programs.
|
Under new management
 | Guatemalan villagers assume control of a section of tropical forest reserve and discover new ways to earn income based on the sustainable use of the forest's resources. |
The Government of Guatemala created the Maya Biosphere Reserve in 1990. It protects Central America's largest freshwater wetland. |
Francisco Zepeda was skeptical. The 52-year-old had spent much of his life scaling trees in the forests of Petén to harvest chicle, a tree latex used in chewing gum. Now, an organization called ProPetén had come to his village, Carmelita, in the heart of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala. It proposed that Zepeda continue to work as a chiclero but as part of a community-managed forest concession. How could such an arrangement possibly benefit him and other Carmelita residents?
Today, two years later, 70% of the villagers are employed and have formed a cooperative. They have bought a car for communal use and are building a school. They continue their tradition of harvesting forest products, but in ways that don't deplete local resources. Deforestation around the village has slowed dramatically. A fledgling ecotourism industry is developing, with visitors drawn by tropical forest canopies, flashes of rare birds, and ancient Mayan ruins.
All these gains stem from an agreement signed in 1997 with the Guatemalan government that created one of the largest forest concessions in Central America. The agreement gives the Carmelita villagers exclusive rights to use the resources in 54 000 hectares of the government-owned reserve. ProPetén, which was originally established as a local branch of the Washington-based Conservation International, helped the villagers to define the concession and draw up a management plan. The plan identifies areas for harvesting traditional renewable resources, such as chicle, allspice, and xate, an ornamental palm. Logging is allowed, but only selectively. The plan also sets aside critical habitats that must remain untouched. A community committee oversees the management of the concession; its first president was Zepeda. |
Farmland is replacing forest as the population of Petén grows by 10% each year, two-thirds of that from migration. |
Carmelita illustrates the crux of ProPetén's work in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, namely that the conservation of biological diversity can be balanced with the economic needs of communities. The lessons that can be drawn from Carmelita are of critical importance for Petén, Guatemala's northernmost department and an area of rich biodiversity that is experiencing uncontrolled exploitation. With the end of the 36-year civil war in 1996, settlers flocked to uninhabited land in Petén, considered Guatemala's "final frontier." Oil and gas exploration resumed and pipelines and roads to oil sites became conduits for land-hungry migrants and repatriated refugees. Many of the migrants brought with them a slash-and-burn farming system that is ill-suited to the area's climate and soils. Cattle ranching and illegal logging are also responsible for clearing swaths of forest land.
To counter these threats, ProPetén focuses its efforts in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a 1.6-million-hectare area in Petén that represents 19% of the country's land base and 50 % of its existing forests. ProPetén looks for economic alternatives to the ongoing destruction of the reserve's biodiversity and is currently active in eight villages. Many people living in these communities now earn a significant portion of their income from environmentally sustainable businesses, which are based on forest resources and low-impact tourism. ProPetén hopes that these businesses, coupled with local control over the resource base, will provide communities with an economic incentive to protect the reserve and deter new settlement.
 Peténeros have harvested chicle, a tree latex used in chewing gum, for the last century. New monitoring tools, developed with IDRC support, can help ensure that the harvest of this and other forest products is sustainable.
ProPetén has helped to establish some 40 microenterprises, known as ecoempresas. Products include traditional sources of income, such as chicle, as well as new "product lines" — organic honey, potpourri, mushrooms, and medicinal plants. EcoMaya, a commercial and marketing arm of the ecoempresas, helps communities reach new international and national markets with their products. One of its early successes was an agreement with the UK-based The Body Shop to supply forest botanicals for its Christmas potpourri. EcoMaya also negotiated with an international ecotourism operator to book tours on locally operated forest trails.
Ecotourism is a particularly promising venture in the reserve. Tourism is Guatemala's second most important economic activity and ecotours off the beaten track appeal to a growing number of adventurous travellers. There are currently three low-impact tourist trails in the reserve, each one managed and operated by community ecotourism committees. Local people provide the equipment and pack mules, and act as guides, cooks, and interpreters.
The involvement of tourists in monitoring the ecology of the reserve is a novel feature of ecotourism activities. While hiking the trails, tour participants are asked to record animal sightings, trail conditions, and signs of human activity. Based on this data, communities and ProPetén can assess the impact of changes in the reserve and take action to reduce any encroachments.
Such monitoring and evaluation programs, developed with IDRC support, are standard features of all the ecoempresas. They help to determine the
economic viability of each business, as well as its long-term sustainability. For example, a potpourri microenterprise found that the bark it harvested
for dye could not survive large-scale commercial exploitation so it switched to another source.
ProPetén's work has not been without setbacks. In 1997, migrant farmers burned down a biological field station on one of the forest trails and held several staff hostage. Conflicts have eased with the introduction of greater consultation but there is still pressure from illegal settlers. In Laguna del Tigre, part of the reserve that is a national park, there are more than 4 000 squatters. ProPetén has started a new nongovernmental organization to help protect the park, which includes important freshwater resources. The organization's name sums up most of ProPetén's work in the reserve — it is Canan Kax, or Guardian of the Forest. |
In 1997, Carmelita struck a deal with the Guatemalan government that gave the community formal resource rights to 54 000 hectares of land within the Maya Biosphere Reserve. |
|
Future Directions
ProPetén is negotiating a forest concession agreement in another section of the reserve that will be double the size of the Carmelita concession. Future activities in the reserve are expected to concentrate on ecoenterprises, particularly ecotourism, and scientific research. The ultimate goal of the project is to become self-sustaining, with local communities assuming full responsibility for the management and use of the forest resources without outside technical and financial assistance.
The SUB program initiative will continue to focus its support on research networks and the integration of gender into biodiversity research. An important policy initiative is the Crucible II Project, a forum that brings together representatives of agricultural research institutions, indigenous people, nongovernmental organizations, academia, and industry. It is entering a new phase in developing policy options for the next round of global negotiations on intellectual property rights to genetic resources.
Further Reading
|
Copyright 1999 © International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada
info@idrc.ca | 15 August 1999
Contents < Previous section - Top of page
- Next section >
|
