Facts and Figures - Water and Indigenous Peoples: International Year of Freshwater 2003

Facts and Figures - Water and Indigenous Peoples
The International Day of the World’s Indigenous People was held on the 9th of August. Celebrated since 1995, it marks the day of the first meeting in 1982 of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, a subsidiary of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

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Date Added: 2003-07-11 9:25 am
Date Modified: 2004-01-14 7:15 pm

Since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, environmental and water-related conferences have often highlighted the role of indigenous peoples in their proposals for action – they possess a precious knowledge, and for centuries have been developing ways of living in harmony with their environment, and as such they have little by little been recognized, as major players in ensuring sustainable development at the local level.
But where do we stand today? Have these conference outcome papers had real-world impacts? What rights do indigenous peoples have over the water resources they have been using and protecting for generations? Are their voices reflected in the national water-related policies?

Who are indigenous peoples?

Definition
Also called ‘native’ or ‘tribal’ people, indigenous peoples live in every continent, and have ancient ties to the land, water and wildlife of their ancestral domain. The UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations adopted the following definition:
‘Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems' (Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations, J. Martinez Cobo, United Nations Special Rapporteur, 1987).

Te Wahipounamu, New Zealand, an area of
great spiritual and cultural importance
for the Ngāi people, who settled the area
over 900 years ago.

Where?
Indigenous peoples number about 300 million, representing over 5,000 languages. They live in more than 70 countries in all of the world's regions, from the Arctic to the Amazon, from the Sahara to the Pacific Islands. The majority - more than 150 million - live in Asia, in countries such as Bangladesh, Burma, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Around 30 million indigenous peoples live in Latin America. In Bolivia, Guatemala and Peru, indigenous peoples make up over half the population.

The guardians of biological diversity
Many of the areas of highest biological diversity on the planet are inhabited by indigenous peoples. The ‘Biological 17’, the 17 countries that are home to more than two thirds of the Earth’s biological resources, are also the traditional territories of most of the world’s indigenous peoples.
Their lifestyles provide valuable lessons for the conservation and sustainable consumption of biological resources. Various studies have shown that biological and cultural diversity are intricately linked: it is language that contains and transmits the ecological knowledge accumulated by indigenous people.

The confrontation of two visions: local and indigenous systems vs global and modern market

Indigenous knowledge vs modern sciences
Indigenous worldviews, contrary to scientific thought, do not oppose Culture and Nature, nor separate the rational from the spiritual. People, plants and animals are interconnected by webs of relations and obligations that are both ecological and social. The World Conference of Science, held in UNESCO in 1999, proposed a special forum on this issue, called Science and other systems of knowledge.

The increasing power of globalization
The global market has a view of man’s relationship with his environment that is diametrically opposed to indigenous ways of life: guided by gain, it sees nature as utilitarian, whereas the relationship between indigenous people and their environment is more symbiotic. More and more, this global market gets the upper hand over local systems.
Because they live in fragile or lush ecosystems, indigenous people have often been impoverished, displaced or even decimated by intensive agriculture, industrial logging and infrastructure developments. Here are a few examples from different parts of the world.

Intensive farming

Southern Africa - Centuries ago, the San, or Bushmen, were the only inhabitants of the semi-arid Kalahari area in southern Africa. Living in family groups as hunter-gatherers on their territorial areas calle N!ore, they were semi-nomadic and moved only when their water source was drying up. When food became scarce in some areas, they assisted each other by allowing other San tribes to visit their N!ore. They devised ways to access and protect water, without depleting its scarce reserves.

The Kalahari bushmen

When new settlers appeared with their livestock, the fragile balance the San had established with their environment was destroyed - ironically, their custom of sharing dispossessed them. New settlers introduced new technologies such as boreholes, pumping masses of water from deep within the ground; the ever-increasing livestock herds depleted water and food resources. Finally, the San were dispossessed from their land: designated as nomadic, no land or services were allocated to the Bushmen. [Watch the video produced by Swynk - ZIP format]

Asia, Thailand - According to the Karen people, living in Northern Thailand, ‘if you eat from the forest, you must protect it, and if you drink from the river, you must conserve it.’ Their land use strategy is based upon the maintenance of four categories of land, distinguished by their use, location and pattern of ownership: rice paddy fields, swidden cultivation, community forest and watershed forest. Fields are cultivated for only one or two seasons before being returned to fallow. Cultivation of plots is rotated every 7 to 10 years. Thus the Karen people maintain a high level of biological diversity – even the fallow plots are used for supplying medicine plants, food in the form of mushrooms, tubers and shoots. But today, commercial plantations and state policies encourage permanent and intensive agriculture, shortening fallows and depleting soils. This imported occidental model of agriculture has already had negative impacts in other Asia Pacific countries, such as Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Viet Nam, where tropical forest has been replaced by Imperata cylindrica grasslands, which is an extremely difficult weed to control by hand labour alone and has an adverse effect on crop yields, often resulting in the field being abandoned.

Industrial logging

Latin America -

Building of a road giving access to Amazonia.

The Amazon River Basin, a rainforest extending into nine Latin American countries, is home to over 300 indigenous peoples. The governments of Brazil, Ecuador and Peru use the land and resources to increase the income of their countries; transnational corporations extract raw material such as gold, tin, iron, and oil. Other major ‘development’ projects include construction of dams and roads. Because of such intensive exploitation, millions of acres of forest have been cleared or destroyed. Indigenous people are still struggling to preserve their lands.

Reversing the trend : development projects based on indigenous knowledge

Although the above ‘failures’ subsist, local and indigenous knowledge have been internationally recognized as vital to sustainable development and biodiversity management. With their holistic approach to nature, we have lot to learn from them to develop sustainable ways of managing water. Today, water experts agree that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), which is also based on a holistic approach, is the model to follow to ensure sustainability. Some international programmes are dedicated to strengthening the dialogue between indigenous people and scientists – for example UNESCO's LINKS project (Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems), that addresses the different ways indigenous knowledge, practices and worldviews can transform development and resource management processes.

Asia, China – Involving local people
The Qiang people live in the valleys of the Minjinga River, a main branch of the Yangtze, in China. This region, important for its mountain forests, has suffered from large-scale deforestation over the last four decades, leading to erosion and desertification. A project to rehabilitate this watershed has integrated the Qiang people and their practices of forest management, taking into account their main source of income, cultivation of plants for herbal medicines. Trees have been planted on terraces: horizontal strips of original vegetation, alternated with strips of tree seedlings. Indigenous species are thus preserved, preventing soil erosion, maintaining local traditions, local incomes, as well as involving and motivating Qiang people in the conservation project. [Read more in the UNESCO Database of Best Practices on Indigenous Knowledge.

Latin America, Chile – Local initiatives yield efficient results

Mistnets in Chugungo

The inhabitants of Chugungo, a small village of Chile, suffered from water shortages for years, and thus had to carry water from distant sources, and to pay for it. But they have come up with an innovative solution. Huge plastic mesh nets trap the fog; the condensed droplets fall into gutters, and then run through pipelines down the mountains to the village, where the inhabitants have constructed water tanks. These mistnets have provided sufficient good-quality water to meet the basic needs of the villagers, and have allowed them to cultivate 4 hectares of community vegetable garden. [Watch the video produced by Swynk - ZIP format]

Milestones: Indigenous people and the international community. What progress has been made?

1982:
Establishment of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations, a subsidiary organ of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. This Working Group began drafting a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples in 1985, still under revision.

1992:

Rio Declaration en Environment and Development, Principle 22: ‘Indigenous people and their communities and other local communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.’

Agenda 21
- Chapter 8 (5): ‘Adopting integrated management systems, particularly for the management of natural resources; traditional or indigenous methods should be studied and considered wherever they have proved effective’.
- Indigenous people are quoted in various parts of Chapter 18, in particular: ‘Innovative technologies, including the improvement of indigenous technologies, are needed to fully utilize limited water resources and to safeguard those resources against pollution.’ (Chapter 18, 2)

Convention on Biological Diversity
Article 8(j): ‘Each Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate (…) subject to its national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices.’

In parallel to the Rio Earth Summit, Indigenous people met in Kari Oca, Brazil, and adopted the Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter.

1994:
The General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995-2004), to ‘strengthen international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education and health’. Theme of the decade: ‘partnership in action’.

1995:
The Commission on Human Rights set up its own working group to review the draft declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, adopted by the human rights experts of the Working Group and Sub-Commission. More than 100 indigenous organizations participate in that working group. The declaration is still under discussion.

2000:

2nd World Water Forum, The Hague, The Netherlands: Launching of the Water Law and Indigenous Rights (WALIR) project, that seeks to work as a think-tank in order to contribute to the understanding of indigenous and customary water rights and management system.
Special session dedicated to Water and Indigenous Peoples, organized by UNESCO-CSI (Coastal Zones and Small Islands).

Establishment of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Its mandate is to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, environment, education, health and human rights. Its first session was held in 2002.

2001:

World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Lots of discussions on indigenous people's rights.

UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity: One of the commitments made by the Member States in the main lines of action for the implementation of the Declaration is: ‘Respecting and protecting traditional knowledge, in particular that of indigenous peoples; recognizing the contribution of traditional knowledge, particularly with regard to environmental protection and the management of natural resources, and fostering synergies between modern science and local knowledge.’(14)

2002:
Kimberley Declaration, outcome of the International Indigenous Peoples Summit on Sustainable Development.

2003:

3rd World Water Forum, Kyoto, Japan: Indigenous People's issues were discussed durint the thematic session called Water and Cultural Diversity. One of the main outcomes of the session was the Indigenous Peoples Kyoto Water Declaration.

21-25 July: 21st session of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, focusing on 'Globalization and Indigenous Peoples'.

Leaflet by the UNHCHR: Indigenous Peoples and the Environment UNESCO/Local and Indigenous Knowledge systems (LINKS) website UNESCO/NUFFIC Database of Best practices on Indigenous Knowledge D. Nakashima and M. Roué. 2002. Indigenous Knowledge, Peoples and Sustainable Practice. In Vol.5, Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change UNESCO/Man and the Biosphere (MAB)



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