Corporations planning a project that is likely to reduce or remove the resources or access to them, need to be especially sensitive to the values and needs of the community.

Indigenous people assume they have every right to sources of sustenance and livelihood that have been there for all memory. Corporations proposing to remove or destroy those sources - even if for large amounts of money - will find the locals to be highly resistant because their lives are at stake. There may be no legal document or treaty to establish their right to the land and its resources, but they obviously need to make that assumption. Non-indigenous concepts of "ownership"are not the same as aboriginal; indigenous people do not buy and sell land, they are a part of it, and it is a part of them.

The Meaning of Wealth
Local communities, especially those in rural or wilderness areas, may appear "poor"to non-aboriginal eyes because they do not have much technology and often have little money - their commerce being based primarily on barter, trading directly in goods and services. Often non-indigenous observers feel these people "need help,"that they would want to "upgrade"their life styles to a more developed level. These can be terribly misguided opinions. Sometimes, but certainly not always, it is the ambition of local communities to develop a western consumerist style of living. Many indigenous communities might wish to have a few of the amenities without having to sacrifice their values and traditional life styles. Sometimes communities try to achieve what has been called "catch-up-development"which results in a severe erosion of traditions and identity.

In most subsistence-based communities of indigenous people, leaders are anxious to ensure both the health and longevity of the community they care for. The local leaders take considerable pride in seeing happy, well-fed people around them. In many island societies of the Pacific, for instance, the chief is master of everything, land and sea, but is also responsible for everything that the islanders do to the island and the surrounding sea. In general, they want modest, not lavish increases in the material wealth of the local area.

Communication and Negotiation
Indigenous people give trust only after a prolonged period of testing and socializing. Indigenous leaders may expect the same of business leaders. If this trust is betrayed, it is very difficult to recover, and in the absence of trust, negotiation is virtually impossible. Actions commonly taken as evidence of betrayal include taking a decision with government without first involving the local community or establishing legal action as a means of forcing a decision. Leaders often express frustration, sometimes even contempt or fear when the corporation does not respond in a statesman-like manner. They can be confused by a business leader who does not share their values.

Properly handled, development projects can be of great benefit to all parties, and the decision-making process one in which there is satisfaction on all sides. Handled badly, these projects can degenerate into terrible battles that ultimately drive indigenous people from their land, destroy their culture, and even result in their deaths. Therefore, it is critically important to know what to expect and how to deal with the leaders of local communities. It is also important to be prepared to withdraw if the local community wants no part of the project.

Communication on paper is not the normal way of doing business in indigenous communities. Business is conducted face-to-face, or through intermediaries that can be trusted. Sharing information is of critical importance. Etiquette will dictate how this is to be done - in many indigenous communities, discussions amongst leaders is strictly controlled by handing a symbol to the speaker to define his or her turn to speak. In others, all discussion is done in a hierarchical fashion, only equivalent levels may discuss business directly. In still others, only the chief may decide; he only listens, and never discusses the issues until it is time to decide, then he renders the decision without discussion or appeal.

Traditional Knowledge
Traditional knowledge is organized in a different manner from scientific knowledge. Its organization is based on integration, not on analysis into parts. In addition, basic assumptions about classification of plants and animals or cultural actions and rituals are often very different to those of technology-based societies. In many indigenous cultures, the elders speak the truth and the hunter's words are unquestioned. Indigenous people understand that there are different qualities of knowledge from people who have different levels of experience and wisdom, so they accept the knowledge the way it is presented. They do not attempt to challenge the wisdom of an elder. A non-indigenous observer might think a statement contradicts scientific concepts, but in fact, it probably works in the field. Information is usually given with a greater dimension of understanding than a non-indigenous person might have expected. Traditional knowledge is not readily transformed into bits for acquisition, retrieval, and storage in computers. Traditional knowledge is intensely site specific and culture specific. In this way, it is a powerful tool for local information, unlike science, which is a powerful tool for general principles that can be applied anywhere, but that must have at least some local data before it is of any use.

Traditional knowledge comes from a wide diversity of experience in nature, ranging from teaching and apprenticeship, to working with the land, to absorbing the feel of wild animals and plants, and listening to legends and stories. Traditional knowledge is as much a way of life as it is sets of information. To begin to understand traditional knowledge, a non-indigenous person is required to stop, listen, re-think, and be prepared to encounter an entirely different way of perceiving nature.

Corporate Guideline #1:
Local Customs and Etiquette Are Important
Carry Out Socioeconomic Research on the Community Before Contact
In the pre-planning stages, before you approach an indigenous group of people, experience has shown that it is very effective to carry out socioeconomic and ethnographic research about the community prior to contact. Establish who the members of the communities are. Determine what experience the community has had handling environmental issues. Unless time and money are spent on this activity, communities are not understood well enough, and fail to be properly integrated into the decision-making process. Be prepared to study the local customs and language and to understand the implications of the project from the perspective of the local community, especially the way it will feel about its rights to the continued use of its traditional lands and resources.

Following your instincts may not be the right thing to do when dealing with indigenous local communities - especially if your cultural roots and experience are from a different country or a different location. Indigenous enterprise and traditional ways of thinking are often based on cooperative or "communal"values. By contrast, corporate project leaders have primarily the corporation's interests in mind. This may not resonate well with indigenous people. Sometimes simple things can become major problems. For example, indigenous people need time to assess you as a person. It is an important part of the way they will subsequently deal with you. If you rush this process, or if you show cavalier disregard for the local ways, you can get off to a very bad start. Probably the easiest mistake to make is to assume that your way is the right way, and therefore the way the corporation will operate. Develop your understanding of the culture and be prepared to be flexible, and change your attitudes and behaviour to match those of the people who have always lived where you propose to carry out a project.

Consider Training for Staff Who Will Interact with Indigenous People
Personnel from corporations rarely have had the necessary training to design or conduct an adequate consultation programme with aboriginal cultures. Occasionally there are courses offered in the region to introduce business people and diplomats to the ways of the local indigenous people. In Kenya, for example, the national museum offers a two to three week course that can be geared to a particular group of tribes with which the diplomat or business person will be interacting. The study topics includes proper etiquette, a crash course in the rudiments of the language, and an introduction to some of the leaders of the tribes. If such programmes or courses do not exist, it would be wise to think seriously about hiring specialists in public consultation. Such experts can significantly improve the probability of creating an effective environmental assessment including traditional knowledge.

Tread Carefully - Proper Protocol Is Important Throughout the Project
To begin the project, a contact should be established with the local community in the pre-planning stages. Observe the local etiquette carefully. In some cultures, the leaders begin negotiations through intermediaries, not directly. Gifts specific to a culture (tobacco, kava, feather, whale teeth) are often part of the opening of a discussion. It may be appropriate to meet the entire village in the community gathering area. This is especially common in tropical cultures. Indigenous groups do not usually delegate authority to a single person, but they often have a main contact person or spokesperson.

Once the initial contact has been made correctly, invite the community to create a team to represent it in planning the environmental assessment. Perhaps there is an existing group which is trusted by the community. Choosing representatives may not be a familiar practice in the community. Indigenous people often do not invest decision-making authority in a single person or a representative group. Acknowledge the traditional means of making decisions by suggesting the team would bring recommendations back to the community for decision, rather than having the representatives make decisions. This way the corporation does not need to work directly with the entire community.

Elders are the most important keepers of traditional knowledge. They are also the most respected people. Encourage the group to include elders as representatives. Other representatives should include people who have special knowledge of the areas specifically affected by the project. As noted in the introductory section, women must be included in the representative group assigned to take the lead for the particular spheres of traditional knowledge they hold, and the special role they play in stewardship. Women should not be a subsidiary or "special interest group"working off to the side and reporting to the main group; instead, on the principle of women and children first, they need to have a central role, if not the leading role. Because there are marked differences in the knowledge bases of women and men in traditional knowledge, include the traditional knowledge of women as a separate item and consider the special roles of women and children when thinking about the impacts of the project. Since women will put different items on the agenda for discussion and review, make sure that they are included as the community organizes to participate. It is also important to increase and support women's capacity to participate, as many of them will not have "formal"positions in the community which will automatically lend themselves to this, and their extensive responsibilities in caring for their families can make participation difficult. To-date women's points of view are often violated in such assessment processes because women are not yet sufficiently supported to defend their points of view effectively.

Corporate Guideline #2:
Predict All the Impacts on the Community
Define Key Issues and Concerns to Save Time and Money
Defining the key issues is a preliminary step to making predictions about environmental, social, cultural, and economic impacts. It should be done in cooperation with the community, and serves to focus the research, planning, scheduling and funding by identifying the key environmental and socioeconomic issues and concerns reacting to the proposed development. Without a clear definition of the main issues and concerns corporations may spend unnecessary resources examining potential impacts that are not significant. In some instances, the corporation may wish to spend time and money on issues or concerns that are not critically important, but that the indigenous people feel should be examined in any case. Such actions demonstrate cooperation and build greater trust.

The whole point of environmental assessments is to make the best possible estimate of all the effects: good, bad, and uncertain. Because any negative impacts of a development project are likely to be felt most severely by women and children, it is critical that women be asked to predict the long-term effects the project will have specifically on their lives and well being. Remember that the invisible economy of "women's work"is usually not factored into environmental assessments. Its contribution to the stewardship of biodiversity, and its contribution to a community's, and even a culture's, viability, must be specified. The deleterious effects of women's loss of self-sufficiency if this economy is damaged also needs to be specified. Once these effects or impacts are defined, the corporation and the community together need to decide what to do about them.

If Impacts Will Be Serious, International Attention May Result
Difficulties arise when the predictions are dire for the future of the local communities. Needless to say, they will not want to have the project proceed, but you will have invested a great deal in the project so will want it to go ahead. The decisions rest in a multitude of hands. The local community will probably have some, but not very many, legal rights in the situation. They will have access to international conventions, covenants, and declarations. If the project conflict is drawn into the open, public opinion will be an important factor. Policies, regulations, laws, and practice of the governing state will be critically important in the courts. Finally, the ultimate fate of the indigenous people will be a moral and ethical consideration for the corporation. Locally, the weight this is given will depend largely on the culture and practice in the region. Interest in human rights is growing rapidly among industrialized countries. Corporations operating internationally and implementing projects locally, will need to respect policies of their parent countries, especially if the local country is lenient or even lax with regard to human rights.

Combining Science and Traditional Knowledge Markedly Improves Predictions
Science is not very good at environmental predictions because predictive modeling of the environment is still very weak. Local communities will have many anecdotes about the "stupidity"of projects that did not consider the "obvious"long-term consequences of decisions, so the local people may have little or no respect for the credentials of a scientist in these matters. Indigenous people usually have a far better grasp of the local conditions and a collective understanding of the environmental needs of the region than a visiting scientist will have. The local people have lived with the land, and have seen it react to the natural forces over long periods of time. Using their help can avoid the most common mistake of trying to predict the future impact from models that deal only with the changes to population levels of specific subsistence animals or plants. It is much more important to know how the entire ecosystem will react if changes in natural patterns shift gradually to the detriment of the project. Because science does not have particularly accurate means of predicting long-term effects, it is important to make the estimates of the impacts of a project with broad margins of error.

Instead of trying to acquire data from traditional knowledge, partner with the holders of this knowledge and carry out the research jointly with them. They will make the transformation of traditional knowledge as they help to solve problems the project poses. This helps in several ways - it increases the predictive capacity of the science, improves the credibility of the researchers if they work with local people, and avoids the tangle that often happens when local people are called on to give up their knowledge without proper compensation. In this approach, the traditional knowledge practitioner is providing the project with the added value of his or her experience and wisdom by using the basic traditional knowledge. Yet the base knowledge is not lost or even transferred to the corporation - it remains within the community. In this way also, the community does not feel it has lost or given away part of its identity.

Corporate Guideline #3:
Don't Leave Indigenous People Out!
Include Indigenous People Right from the Beginning to Avoid Disputes
Perhaps the single most common mistake made by corporations is to make too many assumptions and decisions about the project that affect the local community without involving them. This is guaranteed to offend indigenous people and endanger the whole project. Because corporations tend to deal first with governments, and because governments tend to make critical initiating decisions in isolation from affected parties, it is easy to make this mistake. There is an underlying rationale for doing it this way - it can be expensive to involve indigenous people who will want to be a part of the planning, who will want to be recompensed for their labours, their knowledge, and to participate in any profits that are to be made from "their"land and resources. It is also possible that the local communities would rather not approve the project. To the corporations, these facts may be difficult to accept. It often seems easier not to allow potential veto power over the decision by the local community, yet such an approach, which from a legal standpoint may be perfectly acceptable, will be seen by indigenous people as arrogant and aggressive. It is guaranteed to create conflict in the project.

Help the Community to Become Involved - It Improves Relationships
If a situation arises where the community is simply ignoring the project or is standing on the sidelines and complaining, don't mistake this for a lack of cooperation. Find ways to help the community get involved. In traditional cultures, it is usually the case that the entire community or a very large proportion of it is involved in decision-making. Individuals may be very influential - as in any social system - but collective decisions are the norm. Whenever the project has an impact on the environment, there are both national and regional special interest nature or environmental clubs and non-governmental advocacy organizations that will be, or can be convinced to be, interested in the project. National or regional aboriginal groups will be concerned about the potential impact on all aspects of the health of the community. By encouraging their assistance, the corporation can involve a wider advisory group to its benefit. Needless to say, there are some fringe groups who polarize and inflame situations, rather than helping to solve them. By doing a little research on the background of advocacy and advisory groups, you can get a feel for their potential role as helpers or as trouble makers. If helpful groups are involved early in the process, it makes it more difficult for the polemic groups to successfully criticize your project.

Financing Community Participation Prevents Charges of Excluding the Community
Most local indigenous communities do not have the financial resources to undertake a major development planning exercise or to participate in an environmental assessment. By including the indigenous community in the environmental assessment, and paying for it (as you would for any outside contractor to do work), you provide the local community with a means to gain equal footing in the discussions. This will ensure better relationships and give the local community a sense of ownership in the enterprise that will be extremely valuable in later discussions over contentious issues. They will have been involved and you can demonstrate your assistance in making that involvement possible. It also means they will not be in a position to criticize the corporation for excluding them from the process of assessment or planning.

Since indigenous women are not yet widely organized to offer leadership to the environmental assessment process, special attention will need to be paid to ensure that they are kept informed in a direct and timely manner, and that the information reaches them in language they can relate to, and that addresses their concerns.

Include the Community in Managing and Monitoring the On-Going Project
Make sure that the contact with the local community is maintained and stays dynamic. A common error is to make the initial contact, establish the agreement, and then forget about staying in touch. This mistake will gradually erode the confidence of the local community. Information flow is essential. Involve the community in managing and monitoring the activities as well as the environmental effects and resources throughout the project. Some very good examples of co-management of resources are now available from many parts of the world. Long-term perspective is important in managing resources. The community is especially interested in the long term. Partnerships and co-management directly use traditional knowledge and its long term perspective, a factor that can often save the corporation a great deal of time and money.

Often the environment may be handled in a manner that is acceptable to regulatory agencies and governments, and the economy of the local community may be increased somewhat, but the cultural fabric and the social integrity of the community is damaged or even destroyed. It may well be that the community is anxious to change the status quo and begin the process of "catch-up development."Although this makes change easier to accept within the community, it is still not without its dangers. One of the techniques that works well is to underwrite the cost of travel for a small group from the local community to see a successful model from your own corporation. This radically improves the credibility of the exercise.

Finally, to keep people involved you will need to communicate effectively. See Guideline #5 for further information on using effective communication techniques.

Corporate Guideline #4:
It's to Your Advantage to Play Straight
You Need to Help The Local Community to Understand the Corporation's Needs
The success of the project is important, but it is also important to include the well-being of the local people. One good way to help them is to explain how all the regulations, policies and laws work. Make sure they understand the steps that have been defined for the assessment or planning process. Make sure they understand what their roles will be in the process. It is to your advantage to make sure this is well done, because it will significantly reduce the time lost in having to go back over stages if they have not been done correctly and the local community successfully requires that it be repeated. Your corporation or government may have had many experiences and know how to get permission to carry out projects with the least interference from outside parties (including local indigenous communities). Resist the temptation to use this advantage unfairly - many communities are becoming more informed and the tactic may backfire badly.

The local community has only just been introduced to the project, but it has been yours for some time - give them a chance to get up to speed. What is the schedule for the project? They will want to know when key decisions are to be made, or critically important actions to be taken. They may not be able to meet your deadlines in every case because of cultural or community needs. In planning your project, recognize the need for larger amounts of time for decisions, so that if the community needs more time, you can offer it.

Culture Clash Can Be Harmful to Both Parties - Be Careful
To a non-indigenous observer, indigenous people can present a strange mix of naivet'E9 and skepticism. Modern corporate marketing styles can dupe anyone who is unfamiliar with them. Even the business norms for hyperbole in "salesmanship" can be misinterpreted by indigenous people as a dishonest presentation when later the "promises" do not come true. Thus, predictions to the community of great wealth resulting from the project will need to be tempered with a realistic view of the growth and profit level. Be sure to be prepared to answer questions about where the profit goes, what portion of it will stay in the community, what will go to head office. Local communities will be particularly anxious to know who will be employed, in what kinds of jobs. Enterprising communities, and those in transition from subsistence styles of living, will want to know what ancillary or support industry or services could be started up, and how long the project will last. Can the community come to rely on the industry being a permanent part of the community, or is it temporary? Communities rightly worry about the consequences of becoming dependent on the project. They may well ask what would happen if it closed or did not live up to its expectations, and you should be prepared to involve the community in a study to determine these answers.

Working with Local People is Beneficial to Both Parties
Ensure that the community has a chance to develop its own knowledge base at the same time as the corporation develops local knowledge. Avoid the situation, for instance, where the community is forced to react to the corporation's definition of land classification. Bring both sets of land use and needs definitions to the table at the same time and give them equal weight. Allow the indigenous people to ask themselves how they view the natural world in the context of your project. If this is a large project there is considerable benefit in spending as much as several years discussing and verifying findings, building up the knowledge base on both sides before moving ahead with a contract. To move too quickly and without proper consultation can lead to lengthy battles in court that end up being extremely costly. The project will classify areas within the site for future use. Indigenous people will already have specific uses for the land - work with them to find ways to avoid conflict over land use. They will need to develop a definition with you of valued ecosystem locations used for hunting, left to rest in a fallow condition just now, or ancestral resting places. Be certain that the community agrees with your use of the sites to avoid a long series of confrontations.

Explain the regulations within which the corporation intends to act, which enforcement agencies will be involved, and how you envisage the community being able to participate. The most successful approach in most cases seems to be a series of round-table discussions and town hall meetings. The least successful is when representatives meet behind closed doors. Indigenous people often have a practice of involving the entire community.

Ensure from the beginning that women can and will participate as equals in the process, by designing the process specifically to accommodate them. Women themselves are the only ones able to ensure the process will accommodate them effectively, so women need to be encouraged to be pro-active about their involvement.

Corporate Guideline #5:
Communicate So That Indigenous People Understand.
Respect the aboriginal methods of conducting a meeting. Be patient, it may seem foreign, but aboriginal people emphasize social aspects of a gathering to bring people together in an atmosphere of trust and comfort before business is actually conducted. This social period, sometimes with ritual food or drink, is used as an opportunity for everyone present to make initial judgements about each other, and how easily the relationship will develop.

Here are some principles for the corporate representatives who will contact and work with indigenous people:

An Empathetic Attitude Is Important to Successs

• Work to create trust through tact and patience.
• Slow down. Adapt your pace to the people.
• Learn directly. You can only do this if you spend time with families; live, work, and eat with them.
• Encourage people to share knowledge with you, but do not demand it.
• Ask people to tell their stories, to talk about their lives, events in the past: remember that story-telling is the aboriginal way.
• Discuss how life has been changing, what is good, and what is bad about the change.
• Talk about the seasons with the specific problems for each season.
• Discuss a case or something that has happened to illustrate what was difficult, what went wrong, what went right.
• Recognize that women have a distinct perspective, and distinct values that are essential components of the whole and which cannot be represented by men.
• A walk through the village with a talkative person may provide good information as a starting point.
• Meet again with people who were helpful. Follow up on conversations. Check for accuracy of unexpected information. How can it be like this?
• You may hear something that seems strange, such as witchcraft. You are wise to respect what you hear. Disrespect will make future collaboration difficult.
• Check that you have met everyone. Do not favour any groups or persons.
• Feed information back to the people, and involve them in the work.
• Do not create false hopes by making rash promises.
• Remember first impressions. This will help if you start to feel discouraged.

Work in Groups.

• Listen! This is the key.
• Always use the local language.
• Don't be a teacher. These people will be your partners, you can learn from them.
• Use simple language - jargon is weak speech.
• Speak slowly, use short sentences, especially if the concepts are complicated.
• Do not read a speech from a piece of paper. Talk freely.

Get the Information Across in an Easy to Grasp Manners

• What we hear, we forget:
• Brainstorming - to get lots of ideas out
• Buzz-Groups - smaller groups that let the shy speak
• If people get bored, sing a song, tell jokes
• What we see, we remember:
• Use a simple flip chart with lots of paper
• Big, bold letters
• Write key words
• Use different colours
• Make up pages in advance (send small copies - or typewritten equivalents to thecommunity).
• What we do, we learn:
• Explain what is to be done or what is needed
• Show them how to do it, by doing it yourself
• Invite them to try doing it themselves with you there
• Leave them to practice
• Role-playing can help - simulate a situation and have people act it out.

Evaluate the Success of Your Communications

• Evaluate progress at regular intervals.
• Do it together with the local community - do not use outsiders unless the community agrees.
• Questions:
  • Can everyone follow the project?
  • Does everyone understand the implications?
  • Are the corporate representatives perceived to be helpful, hostile, competent, out to lunch?
  • Do the men and women participate equally - or appropriately for the culture?
  • Let's talk it over - how do you think it is going?

Give People the Needed Time
Probably the biggest single concern for indigenous people in dealing with corporations is having sufficient time to react and still carry out their daily routines. Corporations have a very real need to use as little time as possible to make decisions. Every day spent in "non-production"is money down the drain. Because they are driven by the prime imperative of ending up with a profit, non-productive time is seen as wasted time. By contrast, it takes a great deal of time to carry out the work to understand the potential impacts of a project, to make sure all the indigenous people have been involved, to have time to reflect on the long-term implications of the project is present, and to ensure that the hunting and cultural schedules of the community have not been disregarded. From a local community's perspective, corporations can be incredibly impatient; from a corporation's perspective indigenous people can be incredibly slow and "unreliable"(going off to hunt instead of doing what the corporation wants). This is a very difficult part of setting the rules, but also very important.

Discuss the time schedule with the community and explain why the corporation needs to complete the project in the proposed time frame. Define carefully what work you believe the community will need to undertake. Then listen to what work they think is needed, and what time frame is comfortable for them. Finally, come to an agreement as to how much time will be required to carry out the work. The next step is to determine when the local community will be able to spend this amount of time on your project, as opposed to their daily needs. By combining these together, it is possible to get a good estimate of the time period over which the tasks can be carried out. After all, an indigenous person may correctly answer your question by saying he or she can get the answer to your question in a week. You may incorrectly interpret this to mean starting now, whereas the indigenous person may have many commitments for hunting or fishing that will mean the week's work will be spread out over two months. This is not slacking off or being irresponsible - it is maintaining responsibility to the community.

You May Be a Health Risk to Indigenous People - Be Careful
Finally, if your corporation is going to work with a group that rarely contacts outside societies, your staff may present a risk to the health of the local community. Non-indigenous people often bring diseases to which the local community may have little or no resistance. What to a visitor may be a sniffle, can be fatal to a vulnerable indigenous person. Similarly, unusual food, or drastic changes in the food habits can bring serious difficulties to a local community. Finally, the social effects of instantly creating a class of "wealthy"people amongst subsistence people can be disastrous. This wealthy class is created when corporation staff (workers and managers) arrive to work on the project. They come with obvious desirable material wealth to which the local community may have extremely limited access. Young people will be drawn to this wealth and will want to find ways to acquire similar materials. Consult carefully with the elders and wise people of the community to determine how this social stress will be mitigated and handled.

Corporate Guideline #6:
Intellectual, Cultural, and Traditional Resources Rights
Determine the Rights of the Indigenous Community for Your Own Benefit
Determining rights to resources, and finding ways to protect intellectual and cultural rights is one of the most contentious areas right now. Indigenous people will try to protect their intellectual and cultural property rights while at the same time using their knowledge to the benefit of the project and in assessing its impact on the environment. The concept of intellectual property rights (sometimes confused with copyrights) is an important cornerstone in protecting traditional knowledge from inappropriate exploitation. Intellectual property rights define the right to own, and therefore to sell or barter, ideas, information, special wisdom or understanding, and knowledge about plants and animals, that are the result of their intellectual, artistic, or creative efforts. Intellectual property rights are common in non-indigenous society as well. In addition, the products may also be protected by patents and copyrights. Most local communities have never formally applied for patents or copyright, nor have they specifically defined the parts of traditional knowledge they regard as their own. Increasingly indigenous people are finding new ways to use their knowledge base so that it can be protected. The use to which technology-based society puts its patented products depends on a variety of circumstances, but two critical factors are technical skill and commercial investment. It is rare for a local community to have these skills or the needed investment capital. The corporation should consider trying to interest the community in a business partnership to bring the products from traditional knowledge into the marketplace. Partnerships can take a wide range of forms, from simple royalty arrangements where the group receives an agreed percentage of the gross revenue or profit from the commercial use of the resulting product, to full equity share partnerships in which each partner takes risks and benefits in proportion to the combination of financial and other investments in the project.

In certain situations, indigenous people have the right to own the genetic traits of plants or animals. If the indigenous group you are dealing with routinely grooms or "manages" wild stocks of plants or animals, it is likely that the organisms have unique genetic characteristics. In this case, the local community has the right to those unique plant or animal traits. In understanding this, the rationale for their requirement to be partners in any commerce with these traits is clear.

Settle Land Ownership Disputes Before Initiating the Project
Another whole area of rights has to do with ownership of the land, ownership of the resources on the land, and the right to occupy the land even if it is not owned in a legal sense by the group. The corporation should determine very early what are the legal or treaty rights to land ownership, resource ownership, and the right of the group to occupy the land. These rights are more often held by practice than documentation, so it may turn out to be a complicated negotiation. The more information you have at hand, the better your chances are to know how to proceed. A common mistake that can turn a project into a media nightmare, is to assume that because the local community has no documented legal ownership rights, the corporation can simply take over by applying to the government for permission. Work with the local people, not against them. It is wise to have all land ownership disputes settled clearly before the project is initiated. The possibility of a significant loss due to an unexpected decision on land ownership is quite high.

Customary Aboriginal Rights Need To Be Settled Early
All aboriginal communities have a series of assumed or customary rights and privileges. Because they are assumed, they are not recorded anywhere, except in practice. These can be traditional rights of way, hunting rights, fishing rights, dress, ceremonies, and a host of other rights and privileges that are so much a part of everyday life that the people using them no longer think about them. Early in the planning process or in the assessment of the project, it is important to ensure that the project will not interfere with these rights. It is usually not sufficient simply to record the fact that indigenous customary rights will remain; they need to be defined. One way to do this is to have an outside expert in cultural behaviour or ethnography prepare a report on what these customary rights are. Another way is to encourage the local community to list customary rights as they understand them. This can be the basis of a discussion leading to an agreement between the two parties, community and corporation.

Corporate Guideline # 7:
Work with Traditional Knowledge
Site-Specific Traditional Knowledge Is of Great Value to a Project
Traditional knowledge can be of great benefit to a project because it is so site specific and because it has a very long timeline of information, often stretching centuries into the past. To assemble such a wealth of information would require nearly as much time as the indigenous people have been living in the area. Elders often hold a great store of knowledge that has been gained from decades of living on the land, and centuries of wisdom having been passed down by their elders. Hunters and trappers also hold vast stores of local knowledge. Traditional knowledge is basically information about ecosystem components, rules for using them, relationships among different users, technologies for using the rules and tools to meet the subsistence, health, trade, and ritual needs of local people. It is also a view of the world that makes sense of the above in the context of a long-term perspective in decision-making. It is used every day, yet it is not common knowledge among non-aboriginal people.

Partner with Indigenous People; the Value Added Is Immense
Because of the nature of the knowledge and the way in which it is stored (in people's memories and activities), it is not an easy task to re-assemble it into a format that matches scientific databases, so that it is specifically able to answer questions the project poses. Furthermore, the people who hold the information in their minds, have skills and understanding to add to the information that can be as valuable as or even more valuable than the data itself. One of the most effective ways to use traditional knowledge is to invite holders of traditional knowledge to participate as partners in the solution of problems or in the development of predictive models of the environment. As participatory researchers or problem solvers they will add value to the actual data that is part of the fabric of their understanding of the environment. This has the added advantage of establishing them and their knowledge as having validity and value in the development of the project.

If it is feasible, developing a partnership in which traditional and other forms of knowledge are used together in making decisions is demonstrably effective. Participatory research, joining forces between scientists and indigenous people, draws on a wealth of local understanding without needing to have traditional knowledge in a science base. As the project progresses, using these same people as partners in co-management of resources, or as partners in monitoring progress, enhances the working relationship and sense of ownership by the community for the project. Because the local people know the land so well, they can also be highly sensitive to unexpected changes and alert the corporation of potential problems that would otherwise have caused damage to the project resulting in a loss of money.

For both elders, and trappers and hunters, the mother tongue, and possibly the only language, is likely to be the aboriginal language. Because the common language of business is usually not indigenous, there is a possibility that a barrier to communication will be finding a common language. The solution to this is to conduct the discussions and written communication in the language of the speaker or writer, and to have instantaneous translation available for discussions and simultaneous translated versions available for written material. It is not uncommon for major corporations working in countries with languages unfamiliar to the management to hire translators full time. Try to make this part of your policies.

Use local experts to interpret and assess the accuracy of information or predictive models proposed by the corporation to be used for this project. Be careful, however, in how you judge the reactions of the local indigenous community. They may be embarrassed to point out the inadequacy of your knowledge, or the culture may prevent them from observing fault. They may also simply accept your opinion and assume it has a different context, so is not appropriate to the situation here - their silence indicating the rejection of the information as relevant. Silence, therefore is not necessarily acquiesence or agreement with your corporate perspective, and may in fact, be hiding valuable information. Get them to talk about their reaction to your predictions.

Traditional Knowledge and the Work of Indigenous People Is Not Free
Do not assume the knowledge or the working partnerships will be yours just for the asking, and at no cost. This would be unfair to the local community. Just as a consultant might work for hire for you, local people have expertise in local knowledge and will appropriately approach the situation as a consultant might. The increased precision in modeling the environmental impacts that their knowledge provides is well worth the expense. Many corporations have not initially built the cost of acquiring traditional knowledge or traditional knowledge workers into the initial estimates of the cost of the project, and then find themselves with little or no flexibility to pay fees. There may be precedent in your country for rates to be paid by corporations for traditional knowledge work. If not there may be government settlements that can serve as guides. Government settlements may be derived from land claims or treaty arrangements, so will only be a rough guide.

If the decision is to receive traditional knowledge in the form of data - as opposed to value-added participation in research or predictive modelling - the indigenous community will want to know what you intend to do with the knowledge, particularly as it is partly the basis for their cultural identity. The best way to ensure that everyone understands the access to and use of the traditional knowledge is in the form of an agreement, preferably legally binding on both sides. However, do not start off by presenting a legal document to the local community representative. It is important to discuss what should be the appropriate means of acquiring the knowledge, what part is going to be shared, and what part is not, how it is going to be allowed to be used, what restrictions apply to subjects, land areas, and many other facets. Only after there is a general understanding should you document it. Furthermore, it is crucially important that the access agreement(s) define terms for at least the most common requests for access to traditional knowledge that you will make: 1) where the aim is to manage the resources in partnership, 2) where the aim is to invent patentable products for commercial use, and 3) where the aim is to share knowledge freely with others.

Given the usual minimum of documented legal rights, it is sometimes tempting to take advantage of the local community. This can be extremely dangerous both to the project, and in some extreme instances, to the personnel on the project. One of the very first steps that must be taken is to define who will be able to use traditional knowledge and how it can be used by both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people. The release of the information should always be through a legal agreement with the owners of the knowledge, which specifies both the way the knowledge can and cannot be used, and also the benefits to be accrued to the community.

Assuming the corporation successfully negotiates access to traditional knowledge, corporate personnel should be prepared to share their knowledge with the local community - especially that which is supposed to be local information. This will give the community a feel for the richness of the corporation's understanding of local phenomena. From this can be derived a feel for the amount of original research that will be needed to use both the traditional and science bases to come up with reasonable predictions of impacts.

Corporate Guideline # 8:
Negotiate Based on Equity, Empowerment, and Respect
Be Respectful
Corporations should be respectful in dealing with local communities. The initial impression you make will colour the local attitude to your subsequent requests. Be sure to observe local etiquette. Be careful not to create initial expectations that you are not likely to be able to deliver. And perhaps most important of all, be sure to invite them to participate in meaningful consultation before irrevocable decisions are made that affect them. If possible have them as part of the decision-making process. Include both women and men in the discussions.

You are going to need a great number of decisions, and you will need to have them made as expeditiously as possible. It is wise to know what is reasonable, and what is outside the limits of reasonable expectations of a community. Your corporation will probably assume that the project is a great contribution to the community. You may intuitively feel your corporation can expect considerable cooperation in return. The community may not share these feelings however; its concern will be to know if the benefit is worth the added cost, and their assessment may not follow the corporation's logic. There will also be limits beyond which the community will not or cannot go in responding to requests from the corporation.

Be Sure to Include Everyone in the Negotiations
In your project, you will need a full dialogue with the community, including men, women, and children. It is important to establish the way in which the dialogue will proceed. This should be done collectively, not by dictate. The organizational structure of the community is important in making

decisions. The local community should be able to describe the organizational structure of the community and who its leaders are, although the hierarchy may be very loose or complicated.

It is normal business practice to have a project manager assigned within the corporation to be the prime contact, the communication route, and the communication link for decisions. Indigenous people do not always operate in this manner, so it is not wise to make the assumption that this will be familiar or comfortable to them. In many indigenous communities, everybody is involved in decisions. There is no reason why this cannot continue to be the case. The solution is to establish a number of communication routes and methods. If the community needs to decide as a group, it is wise to support this preference. Suggest that the corporation will always send the same person to the meetings, so they will get to know this person. Suggest further that the "most senior person"of the corporation will participate only during certain times, but that he or she will always be informed about the project status. Describe how there will be limits to what the project manager can decide without going back to the corporation. If the community requests a decision from the most senior person of the corporation at a meeting of the community, try to comply. Do not have the most senior person placed in a position, however, where it is clear that he also is not capable of making the needed decision. Such an event will destroy the corporation's credibility. The local community will, at times, need to see and talk to the final decision-maker, not in a hostile confrontation, but just to be assured that they know the face of the boss. It is important for members of the community to see and judge how much the final decision-maker can be trusted.

Below the level of the representative or prime contact, there will be working level contacts that are routinely in operation. You can ask to have a continually updated "list"of contacts, resource people and their experience (the list may be an oral recitation of names).

Empower the Community Through Meaningful Consultations
Avoid developing a process that will reduce the use of traditional knowledge to tokenism. Meaningful consultation is the key to success. A definition of consultation that met with the approval of indigenous people in the Yukon Umbrella Agreement in Canada is:

"Consultation is to provide to the party consulted, notice of a matter to be decided in sufficient form and detail to allow that party to prepare its views on the matter; a reasonable period of time in which the party to be consulted may prepare its views on the matter; and an opportunity to present such views to the party obliged to consult; and full and fair consideration by the party obliged to consult of any views presented."

Help the Community to Define Its Expectations So You Understand Them
Your corporation will need to know the long-range goals of the community. These may be deceptively simple, and couched in a sense of forever; remember that forever is a very long time. Invite the community to define what it wants from the project. You need this information to predict social, cultural, and economic impact, and it is much more accurate if all participants understand they have been part of the group to define these expectations. You may want to investigate possibilities for joint ventures with the community, especially if there are long-term business possibilities.

Corporate Guideline # 9:
The Local Community Will Need Complete Information
Provide a Complete Report with Technical Details in Plain Language
The local people will need to know a great deal about the project so they can participate in all phases. To help open the discussion, and to get the community involved, begin to provide the official representative group with general information about the project. Be sure to provide examples of all the promotional materials, but do not expect this to be sufficient. Fairly early in the discussions, the representative group should be offered a technical report on the project. Corporations always make advance plans on paper before taking any major initial steps, so this should not be a burden. If the technical reports are large and complicated documents, prepare an accurate summary in easy-to-understand language.

The context and manner of presentation of the plans is important. Define where the plans are flexible, and where changes can still be made. Talk about the role the community representatives can play in the continuing development of the plans. The plans as you have them in the early stages may recommend actions that will be unacceptable to the community. Be sure to indicate that such changes are possible, and can be worked out collectively. Clearly indicate that the documentation is not a final definition of the project. The final project is to be developed in consultation with the community. The document you present should be clearly marked to indicate it is still in the development or draft stages.

The technical report should describe the project plans and proposals:

• What is this project all about?
  Why did the corporation choose this location and what other locations were considered?
• How big is this project intended to be?
  Define both the development and construction phases, and the completed and operational stage. For instance, how many workers will there be? Are they going to be drawn from the local community or brought in from afar? Of the locals, how many will be in management, how many in blue-collar jobs?
• What obvious environmental issues does the project present?
  How is the waste to be treated? What are the planned transportation routes? What are the current plans for post project clean-up? What commitments has the project already made to other organizations to take care of these aspects? Can the community take a dominant role in some of the ancillary operations instead of hiring other companies to do it?
• What is the total cost of development?
  Who will be paying for it. Is this completely corporation financed? Are there partners? Can the community play an investment role?
• How long will the project last?
  Define the time frame for both the development and construction phases, and also the operation of the project? Does the corporation plan for a "permanent" home in the community? Just what is the long-term picture from the corporation's perspective?
• What is the corporation's view of the potential impacts?
  What are the impacts to air, land, and water? Are there any unpleasant ethical implications to what the corporation proposes to undertake - such as inevitable loss of cultural roots? Some large mining companies have taken representatives of the community to visit projects completed with other indigenous groups, and vice versa. (Placer Dome and Teck Corporation, both North American based corporations, have done this.) This is an excellent way to establish a base of credibility with the community.

Provide a Cost-Benefit Analysis
From the corporation's perspective, how will the project benefit the community? How will the project benefit the corporation? Because it will be critically important to have the community's participation funded - at least to some extent - the corporation should make available financial resources for the community to hire technical advisors and independent reviewers. It is not enough for the local community to depend on local volunteers to help with the many tasks involved in an environmental assessment of planning a development. As a responsible corporation, you should understand the need to pay local people for their participation. (This is in addition to the payment that will be due the local community for their expert knowledge.)

Reach Agreement on the Limits of the Project
Work with the local community to define which areas, which resources, what waters can be used, what the limits on air pollution will be acceptable, and any other aspects that become apparent from the particular project. Also define what is off limits, and what is not acceptable to be developed. Are there cultural limits? For example, tourist development presents a danger of trivializing native culture and turning aspects of it into trinkets. How much of this is acceptable, and how much is not? Once these are agreed within the community, and with the corporation, establish enforceable standards and codes of practice on both sides. It is not useful to have a wish-list of standards that no one could monitor or enforce.

Corporate Guidelines #10:
Legally Correct Actions May Be Dangerous to Both Parties
Do Not Try to Outmanoeuvre the Community
Do not try to outmanoeuvre the community to your singular advantage because you can get away with it legally. Such greed and disregard for human values is extremely damaging for all concerned and also for subsequent projects. Of course, not all corporations behave this way. If there are problems that come from taking actions that are legal but damaging to the local community, it is almost always the fault of the corporation's being naive about indigenous people and the way they carry out their daily lives. All people have trouble understanding that their way is not necessarily the best way.

A completely dishonorable stratagem is to establish great financial benefits for a few key decision-makers in the community so that they can be manipulated to make inappropriate decisions at the expense of the community and for the benefit of the corporation. The community will react extremely badly to this approach when it is discovered.

Make Sure Everyone Has Time to Think
Having sufficient time for the local community to come to appropriate decisions is almost always a problem. Corporations are in a hurry. Time is money. But indigenous people have other obligations in their lives and they need to think carefully and consider about your project and consider the longest term impacts. Do not demand too many meetings in too short a time frame, and do not ask for original research in unreasonably short periods. Be absolutely certain that so called "consultation" with the community is not really just you, the corporation, rationalizing a process of "informing" the community. There must be opportunities for meaningful feedback. All this can be avoided if the timing is established with care and sensitivity at the beginning.

Occasionally, corporations will carry out closed door or private negotiations with government or other stakeholders in key areas while excluding community representatives. This is occasionally seen in government-to-corporation negotiations setting out permits, regulations, or licenses, and is a signal mistake that damages community relationship. In such a situations the community sees that the corporation is expecting cooperation without providing any basis for trust.

Attempting to Undermine the Credibility of Traditional Knowledge Is Not Useful
Regulatory agencies of governments increasingly require that traditional knowledge be included in environmental assessment or impact statements. This is a promising development from the perspective of indigenous people, but it is currently a headache for corporations and regulatory bodies because they do not know how to respond to the requirement. Too often the corporate or government response, mostly subconscious, is to undermine the credibility of traditional knowledge. Less weight is given to the findings by indigenous people than to those of scientists. Typical examples include demands that traditional knowledge be transformed to business standards, requirements by the corporation or regulatory agency for "proof" that traditional knowledge is useful, or proof that working with indigenous people will augment project efficiency and save money.

Maintain Cultural Respect for the Community
Finally, it is very destructive if the corporation allows its employees to show disrespect for women, children, elders, and the cultural mores of the community. This will seriously offend, and may result in corporation employees being dismissed from the community, or worse. If the community perceives that the corporation cannot discipline its employees through normal channels, it may impose its own discipline.

Corporate Guideline #11:
Make Sure Neighbouring Communities Are Informed and Involved
Joint Assessments of Impact Are Important
Often a project will have an effect on one or more distant communities. In some cases the effects are environmental, such as changing the water flow, altering a migration route, or changing the nature of the surrounding ecosystems. In other cases, the effect may be cultural, such as sharing traditional knowledge that is be regarded as proprietary by another community. Still other potentially harmful indirect effects are financial. A project may, for example, have financial benefit large enough to modify the community's life style away from traditional, but not large enough to make the complete transition. Usually these intermediate positions are extremely difficult for the community and give rise to accusations of unfulfilled promises. These are subtle situations requiring sensitive behaviour on the part of the corporation. The simplest way to avoid problems with neighbouring communities is to include any communities that might possibly be affected.

Not all neighbouring indigenous communities are on good terms with each other. This is especially true if they are not from the same cultural groups and may have completely different decision-making and value structures. Some communities may attempt to exclude others from the planning process. In these circumstances, it is the responsibility of the corporation to make sure that the other communities are informed and involved. This is a situation where the assistance of an expert in cultural relations is of real benefit.

Corporate Guideline #12:
Call for Arbitration to Get Past Non-Productive Situations
If Relationships Erode, Try a Simple Self-Examination
It is an ominous sign when trust disappears and confrontation replaces cooperative negotiation. Examine your own performance with the community. Did you expect self-financed participation by the community? Did you consistently ignore local practices, such as traditional hunting times or sacred ceremonies, to suit your project schedule? In consultations, did you make sure the community understood the consequences of each decision, and the specific actions that would follow? When confronted with a problem, did corporate managers show consistent respect for community opinion?

Agree on an Acceptable Arbitrator
There may come a time when negotiations reach a stalemate. Try to understand the frustrations of the local community. It may take a determined effort on your part to overcome these obstacles. Calling for arbitration can be a means to get past non-productive situations. Mediation or arbitration carries with it the need to establish the basic assumptions and to agree on an acceptable arbitrator. In choosing an acceptable arbitrator it helps if both parties first define the qualifications such a person should have. Sometimes it can be a respected member of the judicial system, in other situations, it should be someone who has the status of wisdom. There are courses available that you can offer to provide for selected community representatives and for your own staff if mediation or arbitration is required in the process.

It is recommended that corporations use a planner with a background in cross-cultural planning, or at least experience in socioeconomic impact assessment to act as a key contact between the corporation and the indigenous people. Many planners in the field of socioeconomics have had training in cultural planning, in consultative methodologies, and in methodologies for interpreting matters of cultural significance. Personnel serving as key contacts between the corporation and the indigenous community should belong to the staff of the corporation; they should not be contractors, because contractors are not seen to have access to the decision-making process and are often not seen to be accountable. Furthermore, corporation personnel often lose the opportunity to play an active role in working with the aboriginal communities if contractors are used.

In extreme situations, aboriginal groups have taken legal action against the corporation while still participating in the assessment process. As with all complicated times, assume the unexpected will occur, and be prepared to be flexible. In many cases, the unexpected can provide new opportunities if you work with the changes in plans in an innovative manner.