EcoLogic News, Spring 1997, Part Two of Two
5/16/97
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: EcoLogic News, Spring 1997, Part 2/2
Source: EcoLogic News
Date: 5/16/97
V O L U M E V S P R I N G 1997
PO Box 3405; Cambridge, MA 02238-3405; United States
EMAIL: enews@ecologic.org fax: (617) 441-6307
tel: (617) 441-6300
THE ECOLOGIC DEVELOPMENT FUND is a nonprofit organization dedicated
to reducing destruction of significant tropical ecosystems by
advancing economic development and self-determination among local
communities in threatened habitats. These goals are accomplished
through direct financial and technical support to Latin American
organizations that promote community based development and resource
management projects in areas where the fate of local people depends
on the health of endangered habitats.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I N T H I S I S S U E :
(5) ECOLOGIC PROJECT UPDATES: PAF-MAYA AND FUNDARY
(6) GLOBE TV BRINGS MAYA ITZA VOICES TO THE US
(7) RECYCLED OFFICE EQUIPMENT HELPS PROTECT THREATENED ECOSYSTEMS
(8) ECOLOGIC PARTNERS IN LATIN AMERICA
(9) TRADITIONAL PEOPLES, NONTRADITIONAL TIMES:
SOCIAL CHANGE AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
(10) INTERNSHIP PROGRAM SPARKS ENVIRONMENTAL CAREERS
(11) Credits
(12) How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe to EcoLogic News
(13) How to Help EcoLogic
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(5) ECOLOGIC PROJECT UPDATES: PAF-MAYA AND FUNDARY
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
SIERRA DE LOS CUCHUMATANES AND THE MAYAN FORESTRY ACTION PLAN
(PAF-MAYA)
After a year-long planning process between the EcoLogic Development
Fund and PAF-Maya, the latter has started working with the Maya
Chuj in San Mateo Ixtatan, Huehuetenango, Guatemala. This project
seeks to promote self-determination among the local people, the
sustainable management of forests, and biodiversity conservation in
the San Mateo Ixtatan. The plan was developed in close consultation
with local community leaders who are desperate to preserve their
threatened tropical forests.
PAF-Maya has begun collaborating with interested villages around
municipal and communal forests to improve agricultural productivity
while reducing the need to expand agriculture into virgin forests.
Using agroforestry training techniques, PAF-Maya is demonstrating how
local people can cultivate trees while protecting unique forests and
degraded watersheds. EcoLogic and PAF-Maya hope to advance
community-based natural resource conservation, strengthen community
organizations for more efficient resource management, and help local
people increase their income without harm to the forests.
+-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-++-+-+-+-+
PUNTA DE MANABIQUE AND THE MARIO DARY FOUNDATION FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
(FUNDARY)
Together with FUNDARY, EcoLogic is working in Punta de Manabique to
protect this unique and imminently threatened land by acting jointly
with its residents to advance conservation and economic development.
In response to locally defined priorities, we successfully assisted
three of the area's largest communities in building and staffing much
needed schools. FUNDARY and EcoLogic developed a program to improve
health care in Punta de Manabique by training its residents in
preventive medicine and are collaborating to have the area declared
a national park.
While concentrating on building local communities' capacity to meet
their basic needs, EcoLogic has been helping FUNDARY garner national
and international support for their work in Punta de Manabique.
Currently, the Guatemalan Council of Protected Areas, the European
Union, and the United Nations Development Programme are considering
ways to strengthen FUNDARY's work. By entering into partnerships
with these agencies, FUNDARY could effectively expand upon the
initial success of its shared projects with EcoLogic to promote
economic self-reliance and protected area management in the region.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(6) GLOBE TV BRINGS MAYA ITZA VOICES TO THE US
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
In July, EcoLogic Program Director Shaun Paul traveled to Guatemala
with a camera crew from CNBC's Globe TV to document indigenous
peoples' use of new technologies. In the northern forests of Peten,
Guatemala, the TV production team met with the Bio Itza Committee
to see how this Maya Itza community group is utilizing recycled
computers to advance their work. The televised segment aired on
CNBC's magazine series SCAN on Saturday, November 2 and again on
February 2.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(7) RECYCLED OFFICE EQUIPMENT HELPS PROTECT
THREATENED ECOSYSTEMS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Recognizing that inadequate access to technology is a serious
impediment to tropical conservation groups, EcoLogic initiated an
office equipment recycling program to benefit its Latin American
partners. In Guatemala, the Mario Dary Foundation for the
Environment (FUNDARY) uses recycled computers to detail their
conservation efforts, produce field reports, and conduct day-to-day
business. FUNDARY board member Juan Mario Dary Fuentes states that
"giving local conservation groups and rural communities recycled
computers will help preserve threatened habitats and their diverse
species by doubling the productivity and effectiveness of these
groups."
Another of our partners, the Bio Itza Committee, is using its
donated computers to document traditional knowledge on the use and
protection of the rainforests. In 1997, the group expects to
inaugurate a computer training school in response to the enormous
demand made by young people for job-related computer training.
By providing greater access to computers and similar pieces of
office equipment, even isolated, resource-poor community groups
can begin to address the problems of poverty and environmental
destruction more effectively.
#@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@#@
(8) ECOLOGIC PARTNERS & Contact Information
#@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@##@#@#@#
I N G U A T E M A L A
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Mario Dary Foundation for the Environment (FUNDARY) and EcoLogic
are working together in Punta de Manabique to train its residents in
preventive health care and establish primary education and
environmental training. On the Atlantic coast, Punta de Manabique
comprises 150,000 acres containing mangroves, rainforests, wetlands,
and estuaries, which FUNDARY is now seeking to have declared a
national park.
Juan Mario Dary Fuentes; Fundacion Mario Dary; 20 Avenida "A" 18-11
Zona 10 C.P. 01010; Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala;
The Bio Itza Committee and EcoLogic are collaborating to conserve
natural resources, preserve the Maya Itza culture, and create
economic alternatives for the population of San Jose. We are also
developing a "for profit" carpentry training center and establishing
an ethnopharmacy, managed by a local women's group, which directly
contribute to protecting their municipal forest reserve.
Reginaldo Chayax; Comite Bio Itza; San Jose, Peten, Guatemala
The Mayan Forestry Action Plan (PAF-Maya) and EcoLogic are
assisting the Maya Chuj in their effort to reforest sensitive
watersheds, improve agricultural productivity, and create forest
management strategies for communal lands in Western Guatemala.
Jose Us Vicente; Plan de Accion Forestal Maya;
38 Avenida "A" 0-63, Zona 7; Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala
________________________________________________________________
I N H O N D U R A S
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Punta Sal and Texiguate Foundation (PROLANSATE) and EcoLogic seek
to provide training to enable communities living in and around
Punta Sal National Park to form a regional village federation
which will protect the park and address the urgent need for more
efficient subsistence agriculture that does not erode the park.
Rafael Sambula Morales
Fundacion para la Proteccion; de Lancetilla, Punta Sal y Texiguat
(PROLANSATE); Barrio El Centro; Calle del Comercio; PO Box 32
Tela, Atlantida, Honduras
________________________________________________________________
I N B E L I Z E
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Toledo Mayan Cultural Council, the Kekchi Council of Belize,
the Alcades Association, and EcoLogic are working to protect
traditional Mayan homelands from indiscriminate Asian loggers, who
are decimating the forests around Mayan villages.
Julian Cho
The Toledo Mayan Cultural Council
c/o Toledo Community College
Punta Gorda, Toledo District, Belize
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|
(9) TRADITION PEOPLES, NONTRADITIONAL TIMES: SOCIAL CHANGE
AND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION
Katrina Brandon, Ph.D., EcoLogic Board Member
.............................................................
Katrina Brandon is a professor at the University
of Maryland, a Senior Fellow with the Latin American Program of The
Nature Conservancy, and a consultant to many multilateral agencies,
including the World Bank. Ms. Brandon has studied and written
extensively on integrating biodiversity conservation and
community-based development and is an expert on ecotourism.
............................................................
Many of the most important lands for biodiversity conservation in
Latin America are those inhabited by traditional peoples. Until
recently, both native cultures and wildlands remained remarkably
intact. This is not surprising since many large tropical landscapes
were, until recently, relatively remote and inaccessible. The
peoples and general environment were seen as inhospitable and
even downright hostile.
Even in small countries such as Jamaica, traditional groups were
considered to be "outside" the process of social and economic
development. Politically, this meant that services such as roads,
health care and education were nonexistent for these groups. With
ample demands placed on them by burgeoning populations, Latin
American societies simply ignored these remote areas. When
governments did look toward these areas, it was not the people,
but the land and the resources that drew their attention.
Large-scale development plans, such as those in Brazil, called for
improving national integration and security by "opening up" frontier
areas. Road construction allowed settlement of migrants in the
Amazon, solving the problem of land scarcity in other areas. Cattle
ranching and export production provided cheap agricultural products
to fuel urban growth and exports. In Ecuador, oil was what these
wild areas held. The wildlands and watersheds were seen as useless
and the people who inhabited them dangerous.
Bit by bit, and country by country, governments have increasingly
turned their attention to these tracts of "undeveloped" land. In
most cases this development has not brought any real services to the
land's existing inhabitants. Instead, it has meant the beginning of
rapid patterns of resource exploitation and social change. Of
course, some traditional people have long exploited certain
commodities for sale or barter -- such as the rubbertappers of
Brazil. In most areas, however, exploitation and the "race for
resources" have been initiated by outsiders within the last two or
three decades.
Most wildland areas inhabited by traditional peoples are still
important sites for biodiversity conservation. Biological integrity
is high, meaning that ecological processes are intact even where
human use is so extensive that what we see now is almost completely
conditioned by that use. For example, it is impossible to know what
the landscape in parts of Paraguay would be like without 10,000 years
of modification by the Ache. Even native lands lacking in biological
integrity retain high levels of biodiversity when compared with
surrounding lands of Latino farmers.
A recent workshop hosted by The Nature Conservancy and the Kuna
Indians of Panama explored the theme of traditional peoples and
biodiversity in large tropical landscapes. A series of case studies
details how indigenous peoples experience change initiated from
within and that imposed from the outside. The studies document how
these changes have affected biodiversity conservation. Workshop
participants included the Ache of Paraguay; Maroon of Jamaica;
rubbertappers and Xicrin (Kapayo) of Brazil; Quichua and Huaorani
of Ecuador; and Mayangna of Nicaragua.
While there are some similarities among the groups, differences
are immediately apparent. The Kuna, Maroon, and Quichua have had
long-standing contact with the "outside" world, while the Ache and
Huaorani have only had extensive contact in the last twenty years.
The Mayangna have had tremendous upheavals in a short amount of time
resulting from the war in Nicaragua. Different social organizations
and the way in which each group has responded to the pressures of
change have varied tremendously.
By assessing traditional groups' ability to control and to manage
change, one can begin to understand how these people are likely to
"manage" biodiversity. What happens with indigenous forested lands
and the biodiversity contained therein will depend on a complex and
intertwining set of international, national and local factors. Five
factors, in particular, are important:
*The national and international policy context
*Tenure rights to land and resources
*Conflict management and resolution
*The relationship of external impacts to social change
*The institutions governing resource use
The key question is whether the level of biodiversity maintained for
a culture's survival is "sufficient" to maintain biodiversity in
general. Although the case studies reveal that biodiversity is not
necessarily a priority of traditional groups, the use of wildland
resources is inextricably tied to traditional cultures. Ultimately
these cultures' survival will depend on maintaining some level of
biodiversity. The challenge for groups like EcoLogic is to help
groups retain and strengthen those elements of their society that
support biodiversity conservation.
Text drawn from K. Brandon. "Traditional People, Nontraditional
Times: Social Change and the Implications for Biodiversity
Conservation." K. Redford, ed., Traditional Peoples and Biodiversity
Conservation in Large Tropical Landscapes. The Nature Conservancy:
Rosslyn, Virginia, 1996.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(10) INTERNSHIP PROGRAM SPARKS ENVIRONMENTAL CAREERS
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In 1995, EcoLogic launched an internship program for students
considering environmental careers, and professionals wishing to
volunteer their time. As we expand our efforts throughout the
threatened habitats of Latin America, interns and volunteers
contribute to every aspect of our work. EcoLogic interns provide
a variety of services, from designing our newsletter, to translating
vital project documents, to researching new sources of funding.
Without intern support, our collaborative work with indigenous
communities in the tropics would be greatly hampered.
The internship program provides an opportunity for people to develop
professional skills, gain experience in the environmental field,
and contribute to the conservation of our planet's biodiversity.
One recent participant in the program is pursuing an MBA in
environmental business, while another has accepted a position
at Earthwatch, a nonprofit environmental organization. A third
former intern is exploring conservation work in her home country of
Japan. By offering relevant career experience, EcoLogic is helping
to contribute to the next generation of environmentalists.
Special Thanks to Our 1996 Interns: Ross Brown, Leslie Huron, Rae
Kozar, Jun Maki, Ben Moon, Deirdre O'Leary, and Robin Treasure.
To inquire about future internship positions in the United States
and in Latin America, contact Louise Wills .
at EcoLogic.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
(11) CREDITS
"""""""
STAFF: Shaun Paul, Program Director, Editor in Chief; Louise M.
Wills, Ph.D., Publications and Internships Coordinator, Managing
Editor; Ross Brown, Sarah FitzGerald, Juan Gonzalez, Michelle Huang,
Rae Kozar, Jay Krasnow, Jun Maki, Letzen Maldonado, Lauren Mollet,
Arturo Munez, Deidre O'Leary, Amy Parness, Emily Richman, Saundra
Shohen, Ted Schwartz, Robin Treasure.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE: NILO CAYUQUEO Director, Abya Yala;
NICOLAS MARIANO COX CHAVAJAY, Farmer, Board Member SAB'QE,
Former Director of the Guatemalan Council of Mayan Organizations;
JORGE CABRERA, Commision Centroameriana para el Medio Ambiente y
Desarrollo; JAMES CROWFOOT, Ph.D., Antioch University;
THOMAS FRICKE, President, Eco Tech, Inc.;
ENRIQUE LEFF, Director of Environmental Training in Latin America,
United Nations Environment Program; NEVA GOODWIN, Ph.D.,
Global Development & Environment Insitute, Tufts University;
IVETTE PERFECTO, Ph.D., Professor, University of Michigan,
School of Natural Resources.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS: MARK BOOKMAN, JD, KATRINA BRANDON, Ph.D.,
W. RUSSELL GRACE BYERS JR., JUAN CARLOS GODOY, TOM HERWIG, SHAUN PAUL
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(12) How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe
*********************If you would NOT like to receive future copies of this quarterly
electronic newsletter, please reply to this message with an
UNSUBSCRIBE ECOLOGIC in the SUBJECT of your reply to
enews@ecologic.org
**********************
TO SUBSCRIBE TO ECOLOGIC NEWS OR SUPPORT ECOLOGIC'S COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PROJECTS, PLEASE
RETURN THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION TO:
enews@ecologic.org
PO Box 3405; Cambridge, MA 02238-3405; United States,
fax : (617) 441-6307
NAME:
ORGANIZATION (if any):
STREET ADDRESS:
CITY, STATE, ZIP:
TELEPHONE:
FAX (if any):
EMAIL ADDRESS:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
(13) I WILL HELP ECOLOGIC
_ Please send me a copy of EcoLogic's wish list for its office in the
United States and for the communities that EcoLogic is working with
in Central America.
_ I would like to receive more information about EcoLogic
_ I WANT TO VOLUNTEER FOR:
_ Internet networking _ Other
_ Office/Secretarial _ Spanish-English Translation
_ Writing/Publicity _ Graphic Design/Layout
_ Fundraising/Finance _ Computer/Technical
EcoLogic is a publicly supported nonprofit corporation under
Section 501 (c) 3 of the Internal Revenue Code.
Contributions are tax-deductible.