WHY INCLUDE INDIGENOUS TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE?

Indigenous Traditional Knowledge Systems and CIDA Commitments

There is growing support in many countries for indigenous peoples’ traditional rights to natural resources, and an increasing interest in the traditional understanding about the natural, cultural, and spiritual world of indigenous peoples. These factors have highlighted an opportunity to increase the effectiveness of CIDA projects by deliberately including the traditional knowledge systems of indigenous peoples as part of project planning and implementation when indigenous peoples are directly or indirectly affected.

CIDA has long been interested in many of the principles that underpin the world’s increasing interest in indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge systems. Indigenous peoples are self-governed but not often positioned to be influential in the dominant culture of their location. CIDA’s policy on Human Rights, Democracy and Good Governance, as well as the policy on Women in Development and Gender Equity provide principles to guide planners where local policies are missing or inadequate. Many indigenous peoples find themselves in a transitional stage, facing the demands of an evolving and intrusive world, but still rooted in the traditional life styles of the past. This usually places indigenous peoples in difficult living conditions. Planning projects using the paired CIDA policies of Basic Human Needs and Poverty Reduction is an important element to mitigate the difficulties associated with this transitional condition for indigenous peoples.

Finally, the traditional knowledge systems of indigenous peoples, while highly variable in their content and style, nonetheless all have a great deal to offer in sustaining life on the planet. Most indigenous knowledge systems assume that people are part of the land, not that they own the land, so they consider themselves as true guardians. The draft 1999 update of the Policy for Environmental Sustainability directs project planners to enhance CIDA’s understanding of local conditions, specifically by using traditional and indigenous knowledge regarding the environment and its stewardship in CIDA projects and activities. The same policy calls for participatory processes that respect the sovereignty, traditions, and culture of its partners. Thus, strategic commitments are embedded in the existing policies of CIDA that underlie the emerging emphasis on indigenous traditional knowledge systems and the people who developed those systems.

Government Priorities and CIDA Values

Government priorities significantly affect the potential inclusion of indigenous peoples in planning their future. Many countries have fiscal survival and resource development as their highest priority. When this is the case, the extraction of forest and mineral products from natural areas is regarded as a major benefit to the country. The attendant reduction of environmental value is not regarded as a large offsetting cost. The rights of indigenous peoples may be ignored. For indigenous peoples who dwell on the land, their very survival is at stake. While indigenous peoples welcome progress, they also want to be able to continue living on their land and making their own decisions about their future.

Governments have a responsibility to their citizens and international law is increasingly protective of indigenous traditional rights to natural resources. Court decisions such as the Delgamuukw Supreme Court decision in Canada and the Philippine Indigenous Peoples’ Act both recognize traditional rights to resources and traditional means of demonstrating those rights. One of the keys to establishing mutually beneficial development projects is for governments to require environmental impact assessments with meaningful participation of local indigenous peoples as a precondition to granting concessions, and to recognize that the desired end result is satisfactory economic, social and developmental benefits for all parties involved. Both the negotiations and the actual assessments should include equity, empowerment, and respect for all parties. The diligence of the regulatory agency in monitoring the fairness of these assessments and the implementation process contributes significantly to the success or failure of both the assessments and the project.

Because of differences in concepts of ownership, indigenous peoples often begin at a disadvantage. Governments assume central ownership of land unless it has been sold and deeded to an individual or a corporate entity. Under this regime, forest dwelling people, and many indigenous groups who live on the land, have no "legal" rights to the property they have lived on for centuries.

Indigenous peoples have managed their wild resources for centuries. The Convention on Biological Diversity (Article 8 (j)) holds that indigenous peoples have certain stewardship rights over wild resources. The article specifies, however, that the provisions only apply if the laws of the specific nation are compatible with the provision. In this way, nations are free to use the article within the framework of their own legal system, but are not bound to it.

Humanitarian Needs

Reducing Poverty
The world situation is highly variable, but most indigenous communities fall far below the Canadian acceptable norm for access to basic human needs. Often these poor conditions can be improved by elementary infrastructure support services needed to operate in a developed world. CIDA encourages and supports projects that benefit these areas. For many indigenous communities, moving away from welfare dependency attitudes and transforming aid projects into self-sustaining projects can be difficult. CIDA’s emphasis on private sector development is one means of ensuring that projects become self-sufficient.

Governance
Historically, indigenous peoples have been ignored by sovereign nations or corporations in development projects. Worse, they have been treated as a problem in allowing development to proceed. It is important to correct and replace past practices that were damaging. To be sure, not all projects suffered from poor practices, but poor practices have been the norm. Poor practices are often the direct result of insensitive people who placed little priority on cultural differences or on the close tie to the land that characterizes indigenous peoples In other cases, poor practices are the result of not knowing how to bridge the differences in the culture and knowledge systems.

Indigenous peoples deserve to participate in shaping their own destiny. Indigenous traditional knowledge is an important source of knowledge that can be very helpful in project planning and implementation. Because traditional knowledge acquisition and use is often unlike that commonly adopted in development projects, special approaches may be necessary to integrate traditional knowledge into development projects. There is currently very little summarized information readily available to guide project planners in using traditional knowledge, nor on how to include it effectively in project planning.

Women’s Issues and Human Rights
Women in many traditional communities do not have equality of power in decision-making or as participants in the development of their societies. In many communities their role in making decisions is very minor or non-existent. For some women, fundamental decisions about their future is the hands of men. Greater respect for state rights than for individual human rights, especially in countries that do not embrace democracy as a basis for their governance, can make the problem worse for women and children. Including traditional knowledge can encourage the inclusion of women by recognizing the value of their knowledge.

Environmental Sustainability
Indigenous peoples are often located in rural environments, including some of the most untouched regions of the world. Because many of the most vital cultural and spiritual values indigenous peoples hold are rooted in the land, and because many development projects can modify the land, indigenous peoples can be profoundly affected. In some cases, the impacts are very positive, but there is always an immediate need to consider solutions to any potentially negative impacts. Negative environmental changes can be caused by the extraction of natural resources, or by the modification of natural areas to other purposes such as agriculture, transportation, or increased urbanization. CIDA projects should minimize negative environmental impacts. When indigenous peoples are involved, negative environmental impacts can be very serious, simply because people living in traditional life styles rely heavily on a healthy environment, an environment that is well-understood within the traditions of the indigenous population. Inclusion of the traditional knowledge brings this understanding to the fore. However, not all indigenous communities want to change their traditional life style, although many do. Many seem to favour a mixture of traditional and technological life styles, but all indigenous cultures espouse a sustainable relationship with nature, and a secure and healthy life.