Mario Osava
CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar 23 2006 (IPS) – Community Taba consists of four Brazilian-style indigenous huts, built of wood and thatch, with earth floors. Inside the biggest and airiest one, small farmers, forest workers, fisherfolk and indigenous people exchange experiences and discuss how best to defend the planet s biodiversity.
They represent communities that have developed innovative and sustainable technologies that could be replicated, but that have had limited impact as yet because the word has not been spread, Sean Southey, who organised the parallel meeting at the Mar. 20-31 Eighth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP8) in Curitiba, Brazil, told IPS.
The taba a Brazilian term for an indigenous village is an activity under the Equator Initiative, a partnership that brings together the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), civil society, business, governments and communities to help build the capacity and raise the profile of grassroots efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This is the eighth such gathering to be held alongside international conferences
The idea is to bring (the communities) together to learn about each other s technologies and efforts, and to exert influence on the official decisions reached by the conference, raising their repercussions and visions from the local to the global level, explained Southey, Equator Initiative project manager at UNDP s Bureau for Development Policy.
The meetings are important because of their four dimensions: celebrating successes, presenting and learning from experiences, expanding influence, and teaching people skills, Donato Bumacas, a small farmer from the Philippines, summed up for IPS.
This is the second time that Bumacas has taken part in an Equator Initiative meeting. In 2004, his Kalinga indigenous community in the northern Philippines won the Equator Prize for its outstanding work in promoting sustainable agricultural technology.
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The prize-winner, the Kalinga Mission for Indigenous Children and Youth Development, Inc. (KAMICYDI), uses traditional techniques to produce organic rice, vegetables and fish, as part of an integrated system that preserves the mountain ecosystem and includes sustainable forest management, irrigation and fertilisation, said Bumacas.
There are only 108 families in his community, but the innovative system has already benefited 132,000 families in the region, he commented. The group s tenet is that people, nature, culture and the spirit are one.
The Convention on Biological Diversity may include and adopt good decisions, but it will be an empty structure unless there is in-country implementation and convergence between its global decisions and local practices, argued Bumacas. The goals of the Convention will not be achieved without the participation of local communities, he added.
Community business initiatives based on biodiversity can serve as an alternative for preserving the environment and fighting poverty, according to the Equator Initiative which, jointly with the World Bank-administered Global Environment Facility (GEF), has decided to finance and promote them.
In developing countries, 22 percent of the forests are managed by local communities. Mexico stands out, with more than one thousand communities managing forests on their land, according to an Equator Initiative publication that describes 30 successful experiences in Latin America.
Community Taba has carried out various activities during COP8. Wednesday was dedicated to small islands, with talks on the fight against invading species in Ecuador s Galapagos Islands, the threats to and importance of biodiversity on islands, and other topics.
Governor Roberto Requiao of Paraná state the capital of which is Curitiba visited Community Taba and highlighted its importance as a counterpoint to the vision of transnational companies, which see the planet as a place for doing business instead of a space for life. He invited participants to lunch at the governor s residence, at which barreada, a typical local dish consisting of meat roasted with root vegetables in earthenware pots for 24 hours, will be served.
Manoel Yawanawa, of the New Life in the Forest Association from Brazil s Amazon jungle region, brought his experience of recovering indigenous culture to the Taba. The project s aim is to teach the younger generation of the Apurinan people, who number about 5,000, ancestral knowledge about medicinal plants, crafts, painting, music and dance.
The ethnic group s culture was preserved by the Yawanawa, a community of just 700 people, who are now passing it on to neighbouring communities that lost their local traditions. The goals are to set up a pharmacy which in the future will produce medicines for local communities, teach traditional crafts to the young, and rescue the traditional arts, the indigenous leader from the northwestern state of Acre explained to IPS.
At first, young people reacted negatively to the project, which began in January, but afterwards they joined in with a good level of participation, he added.
Yawanawa remarked that indigenous people have found it hard to participate in the COP8, because English is the dominant language. We want to join the dialogue and contribute ideas, but the language is an obstacle, he complained. There is a lot of talk about traditional knowledge, of which we are the providers, but we are voiceless, he said.
He also found it strange to hear references to traditional peoples, without differentiating between indigenous peoples and other rural groups, such as riverside dwellers, fisherfolk, small farmers and extractors of forest products.
Among the latter are the seringueiros (rubber tappers), like Luiz Ferreira Albuquerque and Lorival Monteiro, who complained of the low price they are paid for rubber. Although natural rubber is used in the manufacturing of luxury cars, we are only paid 1.50 reals (70 cents of a U.S. dollar) a kilo, they said, adding that to make a living as a rubber tapper, we would need at least 10 reals (4.70 dollars) a kilo.
According to Albuquerque, natural rubber extraction helps to prevent deforestation. He pointed out that the low prices have forced Monteiro and himself, along with many other seringueiros, to give up the practice and go into farming, which requires deforestation of ever larger areas. He and his partner are now producing medicinal plants, he commented.
Increasing rubber prices to a decent level would require government subsidies to compete with imported natural rubber, of which Malaysia is the biggest producer.