Background

Best practice in development calls for projects that are of benefit to all and result in a sustainable socio-economic and natural environment. There is an increasing appreciation of the advantages of using science and technology together with traditional knowledge to find mutually beneficial results from development projects. These goals can be met within development projects through cooperation and mutual understanding, combined with an understanding of the traditional rights of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples want to have an integral and meaningful role in making decisions about their own future. A growing body of international law, fiscal and policy support in many countries, and an increasing interest in understanding the natural, cultural, and spiritual world of indigenous peoples have highlighted an opportunity. Development projects are beginning to include traditional knowledge in planning and implementation when indigenous peoples are directly or indirectly affected.

Many governments, development agencies, and corporations are interested in the principles that underpin indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge systems. The Guidelines capitalize on that informed interest. Many indigenous peoples find themselves in a transitional stage, facing the demands of a changing and demanding world, but still rooted in traditional life styles. This may place them in difficult living conditions. Projects that are planned and implemented using traditional knowledge help reduce the difficulties of this transitional condition for indigenous peoples.

Traditional knowledge is more than a simple compilation of facts drawn from local, and often remote, environments. It is a complex and sophisticated system of knowledge drawing on centuries of wisdom and experience. It also constantly grows and changes with new information. To use this sophistication one must include the indigenous peoples themselves as practitioners.

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 traditional knowledge systems assume that people are part of the land, not that they own the land, so they consider themselves as true guardians. The wisdom derived from this philosophy can be used to advantage when planing for sustainability.

The Guidelines can be used as triggers for actions. The Guidelines recommend that all stakeholders include valuable information and accumulated wisdom from people who lived for uncounted generations on the same land. They provide guidance on how to derive mutual benefit to all parties from development projects.

The Guidelines do not, and should not, attempt to teach traditional knowledge. In the same way that any other complex and vast body of knowledge, methods, belief systems, and assumptions requires context, language, and skilled interpreters to be used effectively in planning or implementation, so it is with traditional knowledge. Legitimate holders of traditional knowledge range from highly skilled and experienced Elders to hunters and trappers, gatherers of herbs and practitioners of many kinds. Men and women reach equivalent levels of wisdom and understanding in traditional ways. Often, however, there are important gender differences in the knowledge content and in the assumptions for its use.

Working Together

Many advantages derive from the use of scientific approaches to development projects. In fact, the major advances in living standards that depend on technological change have primarily been the result of scientific discoveries in the last few centuries.

It is important to understand that the practice, as opposed to the theory, of both science and of traditional knowledge can be faulty, regardless of the accuracy of the theoretical models in each knowledge system. In addition, the simple transfer of practice from one system to another may not work well without thoughtful adaptation.

In the north, for example, Inuit peoples traditionally abandoned their sleds when they had worn out, allowing the bone, leather, sinew, and wood to decompose and return to the earth. Abandoning a worn out Skidoo does not have the same result. Instead of returning to the earth, the metal, plastic, and gasoline can cause significant damage. To cite but one other example; in some tropical islands, the traditional way to procure salt is to dig a shallow pond and allow the sea water to evaporate, leaving behind the salt. Salt gathered this way in some areas today is polluted with heavy metals, and can cause severe medical problems.

It is equally true that high-tech solutions to perceived problems in traditional societies may not be helpful. In the north, for example, several villages were designed and built on the assumption that the villages had electric power and running water. Now the bathtubs are used outside the house for butchering seals that have been killed for food, leather, and fur. In the south, many communities have a shortage of water. The "obvious" solution of providing water pumps is often fraught with technological and cultural difficulties that make this apparently simple solution a complete waste of money.

These are not guidelines on how to carry out an environmental impact assessment nor how to plan a development project. They are guidelines on how to include indigenous peoples and their knowledge in development projects so that mutually beneficial results occur.

The true benefit of these guidelines is to suggest ways in which the two systems can be used together to improve the ultimate results of the projects and to include indigenous peoples in planning and implementing development projects.

ILO CONVENTION 169 CONCERNING INDIGENOUS AND TRIBAL PEOPLES IN INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES

This is perhaps the single most important document to define the rights, recognize the aspirations, and call attention to the many contributions of indigenous peoples. The convention recalls the terms of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the many international instruments on the prevention of discrimination. It revises the 1957 Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention (107).

Several parts of the Convention are directly applicable to the acquisition of indigenous knowledge and the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the development process. This is a significant part of the Convention, placed there because of the historic treatment of many indigenous peoples. In many of the countries where they reside, the dominant culture is there because of conquest or colonization. These provisions are also present in the Convention because of the close relationship of most indigenous peoples to the land. The Convention seeks to give indigenous peoples an equal, but special, place in the nations of the world.

The approaches suggested in the Guidelines directly support the underlying principles of ILO 169. The Guidelines recommend:

• using the same definition of indigenous
• government action, with the full participation of the indigenous peoples,
  • to protect their rights and respect their integrity
  • to provide special measures to protect their persons, institutions, property, labour, cultures, and environment
  • to recognize and protect their social, cultural, religious and spiritual values,
  • to make a special effort to consult with the people acknowledging their unique procedures
  • to make special provisions so that the indigenous peoples have the right to decide their own priorities for the process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions, and spiritual well-being
  • to assist them to make their own decisions concerning the land they occupy or otherwise use
  • to promote their participation in any formulation, evaluation, or implementation of plans and programs for national or regional development that may affect them directly
  • to ensure that whenever they participate in a development project, that they benefit through the improvement of life, work, and levels of health and education
  • to ensure that the environment in which they live is protected
  • to promote and protect their customs and customary laws
  • to ensure that, should it be necessary to safeguard their rights against abuse, they can take legal actions, either individually or through representatives.
• The Guidelines further support and work to underscore the specific ILO 169 articles regarding "Land":
  • to respect the special importance for cultures and spiritual values of the peoples concerned of their relationship with lands or territories which they occupy or otherwise use
  • to respect the ownership and possession of the land which they traditionally occupy
  • to respect the traditional rights to resources in territories where the resources have been used for subsistence and traditional purposes (especially in the case of nomadic peoples who do not occupy the land continuously)
    
  • to respect the rights of the indigenous peoples to participate in the use, management, and conservation of the resources they traditionally use
  • to consult with and respect the wishes of indigenous peoples with regard to any damage that might incur from withdrawing mineral or sub-surface resources, before undertaking any actions
  • to ensure that wherever possible the benefits from development activities are equitably shared with the indigenous peoples
  • to be especially cognizant of the exceptional cases only in which indigenous peoples can be relocated without their freely given permission
  • to be especially aware that persons not belonging to indigenous peoples not be allowed to take advantage of their customs, or lack of understanding of the laws of the nation to secure ownership, possession or use of the land that traditionally belongs to the indigenous peoples
• to provide guidance to indigenous peoples' capacity building in vocational areas that can help them move back and forth between traditional and western styles of commerce
• and finally to encourage the use of traditional languages in communicating information about development projects,

PREPARATION OF THE GUIDELINES

The first draft version of the Guidelines was developed for the World Council of Indigenous peoples, and was published in 1997. Since then well over 400 reviewers around the world have seen the Guidelines.

This revision reflects all the comments and suggestions received to date through reviewers, the international workshops convened to examine the Guidelines (Christ Church, New Zealand; New Orleans, USA; Montreal, Canada; and Manilla, Philippines), and suggestions received through the author's web site (http://www.kivu.com).

LESSONS LEARNED

There have been many lessons learned as a result of the reactions to the Guidelines, their use as a teaching tool, and from people who have used them in the field. While most of these lessons have been integrated into the text of the Guidelines, three lessons cannot easily be defined in Guideline form.

Lesson #1:

The first lesson is that no single document can offer solutions to all the issues and problems that attend the integration of traditional knowledge in projects from start to finish. There are simply too many variables: the processes and rules vary from country to country, profound and important cultural differences are too numerous and too region-based to be able to cover them all, and finally each project presents its own unique problems. There cannot be a simple step-by-step process defined that will work in all cases. The Guidelines presented here should be considered a template. Users can add to and modify this template to make it more specific to their region or culture.

Lesson #2:

The second important lesson is that a text document such as this one has a broad appeal to people who are easily able to read. Unfortunately it is least well adapted to the very people who most need it. Many indigenous peoples are ill-at-ease with text-based documents or cannot use them at all. Thus, new versions of this document are needed in other media, such as graphic illustrations, videos, or street theatre story-telling.

Lesson #3

There is an almost automatic assumption that the values of indigenous peoples are negotiable because of the overriding importance or benefit of the project to other people. It is important to avoid simplistic equations such as "the desires of a great number of people override the needs of a small number of people." Such simplistic equations are too easily misused. Preserving the autonomy of indigenous local peoples is an important part of responsible development.

KEY PLAYERS

For the purposes of these Guidelines, four major parties are directly involved in the process of a development project: government regulatory agencies, proponents of projects (usually, but certainly not always a corporation), indigenous peoples and local communities, and special interest non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Proponents of projects need to be aware that there can be advantages to using traditional knowledge. They should also be sensitive to the interests, concerns, and rights of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples and local communities need to know what their rights are, and how to negotiate effectively with proponents, governments, and NGOs.

NGOs, whether local or distant in origin, whether support-, technical-, or advocacy-based, all need to take care that their participation is appropriate and approved by the local people.

Governments are called on to recognize, protect, and monitor the rights of both the proponent and the indigenous peoples.

The Guidelines suggest a framework within which stakeholders in development projects can ensure appropriate inclusion of indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge as part of the process.