SUSTAINING INDIGENOUS LIFEWAYS THROUGH COLLABORATIVE AND

COMMUNITY-LED WILDLIFE CONSERVATION IN THE NORTH RUPUNUNI, GUYANA

TANYA A. CHUNG TIAM FOOK

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES YORK UNIVERSITY

TORONTO, CANADA

JULY 2011

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this dissertation has been to analyze the culturally embedded conditions,

and relational and institutional formations required for contemporary conservation and

collaborative management arrangements to be beneficial for Indigenous communities.

Within the context of a case study of the evolving conservation partnership between

Guyana’s North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB) and Indigenous

communities, and the Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Development

(IIC), the research critically examines the significance of local customary and

governance institutions, and the agency of Indigenous communities within collaborative

and community-led wildlife conservation and management. The key questions are:

1) How has the engagement between Indigenous and conservation systems contributed

to: a) re-envisioning the notion of conservation through processes of negotiation and

syncretism, and b) furthering Indigenous rights and priorities? 2) What has been the

impact of the NRDDB-IIC partnership on the communities’ capacity to develop local

conservation leadership and governance? 3) How are culturally embedded Indigenous

knowledges and customary practices of human animal relationships foundational to

engaged and sustainable forms of community conservation and wildlife management?

The North Rupununi villages of Fairview, Rewa, Surama and Wowetta were the

chosen research sites. A critical ethnographic, collaborative, feminist and action-oriented

methodological framework and qualitative multiple methods approach were mobilized for

the empirical research. Findings from interviews, map biographies and observations with

community participants indicated that culturally embedded customary norms (whether

consciously acknowledged or not) inspire ethical and moral consciousness of

responsibility and reciprocity in community members’ relations toward animals and

natural habitats. A combination of customary and regulatory norms, education, and the

leadership of NRDDB-BHI, community researchers, village councils, and environmental

youth leadership have contributed to regenerating and restoring healthy population

levels of threatened animal species. Community members in the North Rupununi

regularly interact with over sixty local species of animals, and many more species of fish,

according to their nutritional, cultural, spiritual and material significance.

While funding and leadership constraints to the NRDDB-IIC partnership have

intensely impacted the communities, community actors have channeled the benefits of

their partnership with IIC, alongside their local systems, into developing sustainable and

syncretic forms of conservation leadership and socio-ecological governance. Evidence

from the research shows that a distillation of the following elements within the NRDDB-

IIC partnership facilitates the legitimacy of collaborative conservation practice for

Indigenous communities: i) a higher level of community integration, leadership and

decision-making; ii) a commitment by IIC to work with local governance and customary

institutions; iii) a recognition of social justice principles and Indigenous rights; iv) the

quality and reciprocal level of knowledge integration; vi) locally responsive capacity

development opportunities; and vii) IIC’s benefit-sharing mechanisms for communities.

However exemplary, there is much space for IIC to improve in its collaborative

management and conservation practices –– i.e., an expanded commitment to:

community conservation leadership, social justice principles, and consistent engagement

in community outreach, dialogue, and supporting capacity development.

The North Rupununi communities are empowering themselves to create change

in their lives and to set a new vision for how they want to re-build and/or develop their

communities, livelihoods, environments and cultural and political institutions. Key

conservation processes involve navigating new relational spaces of: i) collaboration,

ii) socio-ecological governance, iii) knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building,

iv) ecological restoration and cultural revitalization, and v) animal interaction and

harvesting. Despite complex and tenuous domains of power, the North Rupununi

communities have not been passive victims or allowed themselves to be coerced,

silenced or disempowered by the more inequitable and dissonant facets of global

conservation and development. Moreover, this dissertation has illuminated the varied

and innovative ways that community actors’ self-consciously and self-determinedly

engage with their conservation partners; articulate and mobilize their rights, customary

institutions; and adapt and syncretize aspects of modern science, technology and

management discourses that complement and augment revitalized Indigenous systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The doctoral journey has been one of the most memorable, challenging and deeply

effective journeys of my life. It would not have been possible to navigate and complete

without the munificent contributions, support and guidance of the numerous

collaborators, colleagues, friends (human and more than human), family and institutions

that helped illuminate a path for me.

I would first like to thank the people, animals and landscapes of the North

Rupununi, Guyana –– their unconditional generosity of spirit, intelligence and humanity

inspire every idea and nuance of this work, and continue to live and move within me. I

feel incredibly blessed and appreciative to have been welcomed into people’s lives,

memories and visions for the future –– I can only hope that my study and personal and

professional interactions reflect some of the knowledge, wisdom and heart that the North

Rupununi community members shared with me. I particularly treasure the graceful and

generous moments shared with me by village elders. Their stories, songs, reflections,

continuity of memory, and reverence for recovering and revitalizing an enduring way of

life amidst “de modern-day ting,” inspire me. I would particularly like to thank my

research collaborator, friend-of-my-heart, and intrepid cycling partner, Ricky Moses. His

gentle spirit, stupendous sense of humour, and understanding of every curve and

nuance of the North Rupununi landscape is without parallel. “Watch it deh!”

The welcoming and generous hospitality, and profound knowledge and passion

of the staff from the North Rupununi District Development Board and the Bina Hill

Institute made my experiences in the North Rupununi an exquisite experience. They are

like family to me and facilitated both my doctoral research and a reclaimed sense of

ancestry and home in the lush interior of Guyana. The buoyant and contagious energy,

laughter and appetite for learning and kung-fu of the students of the Bina Hill Training

Institute made me feel affirmed and honoured to be a mentor, teacher, and friend. I

especially wish to thank Raquel Thomas from the Iwokrama International Centre for

Rainforest Conservation (IIC) for her brilliant guidance, friendship and commitment to the

environments and Indigenous communities of the North Rupununi. Also, I wish to thank

IIC managers Paulette Torres and Samantha James for sharing their knowledge and for

ensuring that the North Rupununi communities maintain a central and active role within

Iwokrama’s mandate and programs. Many thanks to the assistance and warmth of

numerous other Iwokrama staff from the field station in Kurupakari and headoffice in

Georgetown.

I wish to recognize the gracious and heroic spirit, and profound intellect of my

supervisor, Dr. Leesa Fawcett. Her interest in and support of my scholarly, professional

and personal pursuits has been unconditional and I am unendingly grateful for her

presence at this juncture in my life. Whether sharing ideas and stories over a cup of tea

and a bowl of noodles in her office, in colloquium at Montebello or in a sharing circle at

Algonquin Park, Leesa’s mentoring, supervision and friendship have shaped the most

memorable and enriching contours of my doctoral journey. Rich conversations about

interspecies relationships, youth agency and leadership, Indigenous knowledges,

Guyana’s natural history, bats, giant otters, howler monkeys, our layered and storied

realities, dance, martial arts injuries and healing –– have uplifted my spirit and grounded

my academic practice. Leesa’s ability to elegantly navigate the worlds of academia,

community education, and family inspires my own commitment to conjoin diverse

international community and institutional contexts within my academic praxis.

I am grateful to Dr. Anna Zalik for her warm and enthusiastic academic guidance

and infatiguable engagement within her own academic praxis of critically challenging

some of the most ecologically and socially invasive industries and processes confronting

communities and environments within the global South. I have been inspired by her

passion for her topic area –– a passion that goes beyond academic discourse and

influences the people and lived struggles, and gives human texture and meaning to her

research. Anna’s ability to help me pare down this dissertation into a leaner and more

robust version is much appreciated. I wish to thank Dr. Robin Roth for her generous

guidance, collaboration and insightful feedback on my doctoral work and dissertation.

Her critical and nuanced understanding of collaborative conservation relationships and

contexts has helped me maintain a sharp and rigorous focus within my analysis. I also

valued the opportunity to work with Robin in the context of the collaborative conservation

partnerships workshops and documentation of best practices and lessons learned. The

opportunity to share in the challenging and successful experiences of First Nations and

conservation partners on pivotal conservation and relationship-building issues was very

beneficial to refining my perspectives and ideas for this dissertation. Thank you to

Teresa Spanjer for her excellent and attentive editing work on my dissertation, and for

sharing many moments of story and laughter.

Finally, but with a full heart and endless gratitude, I wish to thank my extensive

network of family and friends around the world who have each contributed invaluably

and richly to my doctoral journey. Their unconditional love, patience and interest in my

research and work have made even the most challenging moments seem weightless

and luminous. A special recognition goes to: a group of devoted “friends of my heart,”

who possess inestimable value within my life; my father and his memories and stories of

our family, landscapes, animals and spirits of Guyana –– stories that I have threaded

together like delicate pearls on a necklace; my Auntie Maggie for her full heart and

unconditional love and prayers; my sister Ariana for her exuberant energy and presence

in my life; and my adopted cat Pepperpot, who has demonstrated the reciprocity of

interspecies relationships. I dedicate this dissertation and my most cherished

experiences to my late mother Shirlie Tjeertje, whose beauty, grace, voracious intellect

and passion for life will always resonate within my inner and outer worlds.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ..........................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................................vi PROLOGUE .......................................................................................................... 1

Ecological Memory and Relationship to Place ............................................................. 1 CHAPTER ONE: SETTING THE CONTEXT FOR INDIGENOUS CONSERVATION TRANSFORMATIONS IN GUYANA .............................................................................. 8

Conservation Contact Sites ......................................................................................... 8 Research Objectives ..................................................................................................11 Research Questions ...................................................................................................12 Guyana’s Politicized Ecology .....................................................................................16

Economic Development and Trade .........................................................................18 Critical Foundations in Collaborative Partnerships .....................................................29 Global Conservation in Indigenous Contexts ..............................................................35 Exploring Constructs of Community within the Conservation Domain .........................36

De-mythologizing ‘Community’ and ‘Community-based Conservation’ ....................39 The Role of Indigenous Communities in Conservation ...............................................44 Indigenous Agency .....................................................................................................47

Agency Constructed through Indigeneity .................................................................48 Indigenous Epistemological and Science Paradigms ..................................................54 Global Conservation Perspectives Related to Indigenous Knowledges ......................59

CHAPTER TWO: DESIGNING A RESEARCH PRACTICE ..........................................62

Shape-Shifting and Navigating Multiple Worlds ..........................................................62 Epistemological and Ontological Assumptions ...........................................................66

A Critical Praxis-Oriented and Collaborative Approach ...............................................67 Critical Ethnography ...................................................................................................68 A Collaborative Framework ........................................................................................71 Research Methods in Context: The Research Sites ...................................................74 A Multi-Method Approach to Social Inquiry .................................................................77

Documents and Content Analysis ...........................................................................77 Participant Observation and Field Notes .................................................................79 Semi-Structured Interviews and Map Biographies ...................................................81

The Research Sample: Social and Thematic Groups .................................................83 The Research Sample: Participants ...........................................................................87 Data Collection ...........................................................................................................88 Grounded Analysis .....................................................................................................91 Maps on Community Wildlife Use and Interaction ......................................................93 Ethical Considerations ................................................................................................96

Confidentiality Protocol ...........................................................................................97 Summary ....................................................................................................................97

CHAPTER THREE: COLLABORATIVE CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIPS .............99 Collaborative Relationships and the Impetus for Collaborative Conservation .............99 Evolution of the NRDDB–BHI Collaborative Conservation Partnership ..................... 103 Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Development (IIC) .................. 103 North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB) ............................................ 111

Benefit Sharing ..................................................................................................... 113 IIC Leadership and Indigenous Representation within IIC Staff Composition ........ 115 Mediating Between Conservation Partners and Communities ............................... 120 Internal Challenges within NRDDB ........................................................................ 122 Bina Hill Institute (BHI) .......................................................................................... 125 NRDDB-IIC Collaborative Management Agreement .............................................. 127

Centrality of Indigenous Communities and Indigenous Rights .................................. 129 Land-Title Process for Fairview Village ................................................................. 137

Conservation International (CI) ................................................................................. 140 Convergence and Divergence in Priorities and Responsibilities ............................... 144 Relationship-Building: NRDDB, IIC and North Rupununi Communities..................... 149

Building Trust and Community Outreach ............................................................... 150 Dialogue ................................................................................................................ 155 Decision-Making and Consensus-Building ............................................................ 157 Institutional Support for Community-Led Conservation .......................................... 161 Collaborative Wildlife Management and Research ................................................ 164 Socioeconomic Incentives to Conserve Wildlife and Forests ................................. 169

Absorbing Indigenous Communities into Market-Oriented Conservation .................. 170 Summary .................................................................................................................. 183

CHAPTER FOUR: SYNCRETIC KNOWLEDGE-BUILDING IN COLLABORATIVE CONSERVATION ....................................................................................................... 185

Indigenous Engagement with External Conservation Discourses ............................. 185 An Interface between Divergent Worldviews and Epistemologies ............................. 187 Exploring In-Betweenness and Syncretism .............................................................. 189

Transculturation and Articulation ........................................................................... 191 Creolization, Hybridity and Friction ........................................................................ 193 Syncretism ............................................................................................................ 194 Interface between Indigenous Knowledge and Conservation Paradigms .............. 197 A Continuum of Indigenous Strategies for Engagement ........................................ 199

Decolonizing Power and Knowledge Regimes in Conservation ................................ 210 Creating an Ethical Space Framework within Conservation .................................. 212

Bridging Indigenous and Conservation Knowledge Systems .................................... 214 Summary .................................................................................................................. 218

CHAPTER FIVE: THE VITALITY OFINDIGENOUS CUSTOMARY SYSTEMS .......... 220 WITHIN WILDLIFE CONSERVATION ........................................................................ 220

Central Role of Communities and Customary Systems within Conservation ............ 220 Customary Systems for Wildlife Harvesting and Use ................................................ 223 Recognition of Customary Systems as Valid Forms of Conservation ....................... 232 Customary Land Tenure and Common Property Regimes ....................................... 237 Indigenous Knowledge and the Role of Elders ......................................................... 241

Bringing Cultural and Natural Worlds Together ........................................................ 249 Cosmological Knowledge ......................................................................................... 249

Mythology ............................................................................................................. 253 Stories and Legends ............................................................................................. 255 Sacred Areas ........................................................................................................ 258

Disconnect From Customary Systems and Revitalization Strategies ........................ 268 Impacts of Language Loss and Christianity on Customary Systems ..................... 271 Role of Makushi Research Unit in Protecting Customary Knowledges and Systems ............................................................................................................................. 275

Summary .................................................................................................................. 277 CHAPTER SIX: EMBEDDING LOCAL HUMAN–ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS IN CONSERVATION ....................................................................................................... 278

Human–Animal Entanglements ............................................................................. 278 Animal Masters ..................................................................................................... 295 Shamanism and Intermediation between Spirit and Natural Worlds ...................... 297

Wildlife Harvesting Practices .................................................................................... 299 Customary Hunting Knowledge and Practice ........................................................ 304 Bina and Cultural Taboos Regarding Animal Use ................................................. 312

CHAPTER SEVEN: CONSERVATION TRANSFORMATIONS AT THE ..................... 317

Devolution of Rights, Responsibilities and Powers to Communities .......................... 317 Institutional Constraints and Support for Community-Led Conservation ................... 322 Empowering Community Conservation Leadership .................................................. 324 Characteristics of Difference between Community-Based and Community-Led Conservation ............................................................................................................ 329 Framework of Possibilities for Community Conservation Leadership ........................ 331 Transformations in Local Governance and Conservation Leadership ....................... 333

Contemporary Wildlife and Resource Management System .................................. 334 Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit (PRMU) ..................................................... 335

NRDDB-BHI Imperatives for Community Leadership ................................................ 339 Indigenous Communities Defining Conservation on Their Own Terms ..................... 345 Cultural and Ecological Implications of Local Governance........................................ 346

Effective Impacts on Wildlife positive .................................................................... 349 Constraints to Community-led Conservation............................................................. 352

Social Justice in Collaborative and Community-led Conservation ......................... 354 CONCLUSION: ENVISIONING NEW PATHWAYS IN CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 358

Coming Full Circle .................................................................................................... 358 Future Research Paths ......................................................................................... 373

Glossary of Terms and Acronyms ........................................................................... 377 Reference List ....................................................................................................... 383

LIST OF FIGURES 3.1 Collaborative NRDDB-IIC Wildlife Management and Research Projects……...168 4.1 Interface between Indigenous and Conservation Science Paradigms……199-200 5.1 Connecting Biological and Cultural Diversity in Conservation…………………..224 5.2 Indigenous Customary Norms for the Responsible Use of Wildlife

and the Environment……………………………………………………………..228-29 6.1 Regional Animals and their Significance to Local Communities…………..288-290 6.2 Favoured Game Animals of North Rupununi Communities……………………..307 6.3 Favoured Catch Fish of North Rupununi Communities………………………….309 7.1 Socio-Ecological Imperatives and Community-led Initiatives………………..355-56 7.2 Ecological and Cultural Implications of Local Governance…………………..361-63

LIST OF MAPS 1.1 Logging Concessions in Guyana…………………………………………………….26 1.2 Logging Concessions in Guyana:

Including the IIC-Tiger Woods Sustainable Concession…………………………..27 1.3 Foreign Mining Operations in Guyana………………………………………………28 1.4 Allocation of forest resources in Guyana……………………………………………29 1.5 Distribution of Amerindian Nations and Territories in Guyana:

Prior to Independence…………………………………………………………………54 1.6 Distribution of Amerindian Nations and Territories in Guyana:

Post-Independence………………………………………………………………...….55 2.1 Vegetation Landscapes of Guyana………………………………………………….79 3.1 Iwokrama Forest Reserve Sustainable Use Areas and

Wilderness Preservation Areas……………………………………………………..111 3.2 Iwokrama Forest Reserve – Diverse Forest Types………………………………112 5.1 Fairview Village Conservation and Wildlife Interaction Map…………………….271 5.2 Arapaima Density Levels within Designated Conservation Areas………………277 LIST OF APPENDICES A Interview and Map Biography Participant Matrix B Interview and Map Biography Guides C Informed Consent Forms (written and verbal) D Analytical Coding Categories E Sketch Map Sample - Wowetta Village F Iwokrama Reserve: Indigenous Rights within WPs and SUAs G Workshop on Indigenous peoples’ rights, REDD and the draft Low Carbon Development Strategy (Guyana) Public statement of participants

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PROLOGUE

Given that my personal paths are interwoven within the fabric of this research, it is

important to recognize that my narrative and relationships to the landscapes,

communities and animals of the North Rupununi are what breathe spirit and intention

into my work. The concepts of entanglement, agency, resiliency and adaptation,

creolization and syncretism, collaboration and transformation that I use to describe the

relationships between Indigenous peoples and conservationists of the region –– also

resonate deeply within my own cultural and professional worlds. Thus, the research

journey has been as much visceral as it has been intellectual, developmental and

physical. Especially moving and challenging for me has been the opportunity to

reconnect with the natural landscapes, cultural callaloo, histories and stories that

comprise both the Guyana of my family’s memory, and the contemporary Guyana of my

study. My decision to craft my doctoral research within a conservation project and

community context in Guyana stems from four primary motivations:

1) A personal interest in reconnecting to a sense of being and place in one of my originating contexts, Guyana –– and in so doing, contributing to important and critical processes of environmental and social change;

2) Recognizing the agency, resiliency and adaptive capacities of Indigenous

societies within conservation contact sites as strategies for both survival and positive transformation;

3) The immense socio-ecological significance of Guyana’s ecosystems and wildlife

for local, national and global populations; and

4) The uniqueness of the partnership between the Iwokrama International Centre and the Indigenous institutions and communities of the North Rupununi.

Ecological Memory and Relationship to Place

Nuanced within my memories and experiences are the intense mystery, beauty and

tragedy that have so completely and simultaneously given structure and flesh to the

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colonial and post-colonial incarnations of Guyana. Constructed imaginaries of Guyana

and most of the Amazonic region are inked in the desires and complicities of explorers,

builders of empire, missionaries, conservationists, anthropologists, naturalists,

romantics, corporate and state actors. Such imaginaries have imposed a heavy price on

the political ecology of Guyana. While diverse social and ethnic groups have been

impacted by the waves of social, political, ecological and ideological change in post-

colonial Guyana, the Indigenous societies and territories of the North Rupununi have

been particularly implicated within a constant flow of conservation and development

entanglements. Such waves of ecological and social disjuncture and transformation

have changed local livelihood and customary systems; reconfigured socio-ecological

landscapes and interspecies relationships; and reshaped local people’s knowledges and

relationships (internal and external). Though explored within a particular moment in the

life of the North Rupununi communities, and their collaborative conservation partnership

with the Iwokrama International Centre (IIC), this study recognizes that the communities’

lifeways span and evolve within shifting temporal, geographical, cultural and

philosophical terrains.

There is an Indigenous belief in Guyana that the tropical forest is one long,

continuous dream (Allicock, p.c., 2007). To move within the forests, savannas,

mountains and rivers of the North Rupununi is to move within a dream where your

sensory awareness is heightened and balanced; time and memory fold in on themselves

and ideas and moments of the present become those of the past, and vice versa; scale

appears less absolute than a matter of perception; and the cultural and productive

continuum of village life is so interwoven with the surrounding plants, animals and

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natural landscapes, that the boundaries between human and non-human1, culture and

nature, overlap and dissolve. After almost a lifetime of dreaming of Guyana, I returned in

2007 to start my doctoral research.

As I first descended into the North Rupununi region and looked out at the dark

green and unfragmented forest canopy; the blue-green Pakaraima mountain range; the

tannin-rich Essequibo and Rupununi rivers forming veins through the land; the red clay

of the Lethem-Linden road; and the clusters of small homes, buildings and benabs

(thatched gazebos) –– I instantly felt aware that I was on Makushi ancestral territory. In

that moment, fields of time and space compressed and I felt history’s gravity in the

ecological and human communities that have taken root on this land. After traveling from

their original territories in what is now the modern state of Roraima, Brazil, the Makushi

ancestors have inhabited the North Rupununi savannahs since the late 17th century and

called themselves the “people of the landings” or Pîyakîîta (Puh-la-gúh-da) (MRU &

Forte, 1996). Although I do not have a personal history in this particular region, I felt that

it was possible that my ancestors’ histories from lands further to the northwest are

embodied through me. Along the journey of my research these past years, I have felt the

memories of my ancestors shaping and nourishing, and being shaped and nourished by,

the lands, animals and spiritual energy. I wonder now whether such impressions are the

“intimacies of memory and on-the-ground complicities and yearnings” (Raffles, 2002,

p.8) that a person experiences when she returns to an ancestral place. The numinous

connections that a person feels during encounters with lands such as the North

Rupununi and the Iwokrama Forest are what Lopez (Orr, 1999) describes as, “The

1 I mostly use the term ‘non-human’ to refer to all animal species or natural entities that do not comprise the

human realm. I occasionally use the term ‘more than human’ (Abram, 1996) animals because it generates a conceptual space that embraces not only non-human species and natural entities, but also animal spirits or master spirits.

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interior landscape respond[ing] to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape;

the shape of an individual mind is affected by land as it is by genes...” (p. 65).

At the heart of any conservation narrative is the dialectical relationship between

these particular human societies and their natural environment. The history of the North

Rupununi’s lands and waters has been shaped by a dialectical process that

simultaneously naturalizes social relations among its different human communities, and

socializes landscapes, animals and plants through cultural relations between human

communities and the natural environment. The dialectic of this relationship is one of

mutual agency and transformation: agency of humans in shaping and transforming

natural landscapes; and agency of ecological processes in shaping and transforming

human history. This interconnection between Indigenous and other land-based

communities and their natural environments is so pervasive that Agrawal & Gibson

(2001) contend that natural landscape transformations and ecological change cannot be

understood as either nature-induced or human-induced. Histories of human intervention

and transformation of environmental contexts have intertwined with natural ecological

processes to the extent that it is often difficult to analyze episodes of ecological change

apart from anthropogenic influence. Due to their long-term inhabitation of the forest,

savannah, wetland and mountain landscapes of the North Rupununi, and evolution of

diverse land use, harvesting and livelihood practices that have modified such

landscapes, Indigenous peoples in Guyana are “socially and culturally embedded in their

landscape by means of the historical and ecological forces that shape their identity”

(Whitehead, 2002, p.62).

Hence, natural landscapes are constituted by memory as much as they are by

ecological attributes and functions. Thus, for people of the North Rupununi, questions of

control, management and conservation related to ecosystems and species are not

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limited to material needs and survival –– but expanded to land rights, culture, cosmology

and the continuity of the Amerindian way of life. The genius loci or spiritual essence

(ekatî in Makushi) of forest, savannah and watershed landscapes provides a life force,

which sustains the communities in material and immaterial ways. Spiritual essence is

particularly concentrated and recognized by community members in sacred and

ancestral sites, historical landmarks, known ecological features, hunting and fishing

routes and within culturally significant animal and plant species. The cultural and spiritual

dimensions of natural landscapes, animals and plants are embedded within the region

and within the customary and contemporary environmental systems of the Indigenous

communities whose heritage it is. Through the continuity and re-envisioning of such

culturally embedded conservation and wildlife management systems, “[Indigenous]

people are reconnected to land and wildlife in new and powerful ways” (Brockington et

al, 2008, p. 108).

The North Rupununi landscapes constitute people’s ecological and historical

consciousness, which is reflected in the evolving knowledge and customary systems,

and human–nature relationships that have developed over time (Whitehead, 2002).

Such consciousness has importantly influenced contemporary adaptive and innovative

responses to the emergence of conservation and development regimes in the region.

Landscapes, as well as narratives, form a bridge connecting our human societies in time

and space to societies of our ancestors, whereby different memories and meanings of a

place can “enrich the present and inform the future” (Pearkes, 2002, p.85). Thus, the

forests, savannahs, rivers, animals and Indigenous peoples of Guyana must be allowed

to share their long denied memories and stories, so that they can envision and actualize

their own futures (Hecht & Cockburn, 1990). When I think of how old these lands and

waters are, and how deep and long their memory of the different communities of people,

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animals and plants they both nourished and challenged, I think of how we are presently

occupying mere moments in a broader tapestry. I also wonder what the savannahs,

forests, rivers and mountains would look like if they had never been transformed as

anthropogenic landscapes; if they had never become transnational objects of desire for

colonists, national governments, commercial developers, conservationists, and tourists.

While in the North Rupununi, I found that I was drawn to the Indigenous and

creolized or Anglicized names of places and the particular legends, historical events and

socio-ecological attributes that are layered within those names. I was particularly

attracted to the way place names have become nodal points of genius loci or spiritual

essence within Indigenous cartographies and histories of the region. Names, such as

Acouri Falls (Agouti Falls) in Fairview Village; Makarapan Mountain (Kara pia pî wî in

Makushi; Makarapan in Carib) in Rewa Village; Jabiru Creek (Tararamu Paru' in

Makushi) in Surama Village; and Mauri Creek (Carib word for cotton flown away)

(Katoka Wîtî in Makushi) in Wowetta Village –– describe graphic impressions of

ecological contexts and species habitats at specific historical junctures. Depending on

whether those features are still discernible to the contemporary communities, Indigenous

names act as a reference of either ecological continuity or change. Furthermore, the

accompanying legends reveal ancestral, cosmological and cultural events that are

inscribed in the land and give a sense of place and identity to the North Rupununi

communities. Basso’s (1996) study based on Apache traditions discusses how place

names are a form of people’s place-making whereby they construct their landscapes,

histories, cultural customs, and social identities –– as grounded within the natural world.

Basso says, “We are, in a sense, the place-world we imagine” (1996, p. 7).

A place-name and ancestor legend is the story of Iwokrama Forest – a site of

fearsome and mythological events, and also symbolized as a place of refuge, imbued

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with sacred power. The hero twins Makunaima/Insikiran and Anike are hunters and

warriors with amazing physical and shamanic powers, carrying out heroic and divine

feats for the benefit of humankind and to preserve balance between the human and

natural worlds. Similar to subsequent generations of Makushis, Wapishanas and other

Indigenous peoples who established villages and homesteads in the North Rupununi,

the twins name and invest cultural meaning in the landscapes around them – including

the naming of Iwokrama Mountain. The ecological and historical significance, and sacred

energy of Iwokrama Mountain continues to resonate in its contemporary symbolism as

both the ancestral territory of the Makushi people, and (under IIC’s influence) an area for

conservation and eco-tourism.

Makunaima and Insikiran were two brothers famous in Makushi stories. These two brothers traveled together, naming the landscapes they moved through according to whatever adventures or experiences befell them in a particular place. In one instance, Makunaima and Insikiran reached a place where there were lots of different birds and animals feeding on the wild fruits. Insikiran, the younger brother, said, “let us make a wabani [hide-out used for hunting].” “Okay,” Makunaima replied. So they made a hiding place high up in the trees, so that they would have a vantage point from which to shoot any animal or bird that came to feed in that place. One morning, before dawn, they heard an awful noise coming toward them: Oh! Ah! Oh! Ah! Insikiran asked his older brother, “What is making those awful sounds?” Makunaima replied, ‘That’s Okaraima. He is very dangerous. No one ever sees him. The moment anyone looks upon him, Okaraima will shoot that person. He never misses his target so do not try to get a glimpse of him.” But Insikiran refused to heed his brother’s warning and resolved to have a quick look at Okaraima through the straw of the wabani. So as Okaraima drew closer, uttering his awful Oh! Ah! Oh! Ah! Insikiran quickly parted the straw to look at him. But before he could blink, Okaraima shot Insikiran on his finger and he died. Makunaima was stunned into silence. Then Okaraima spoke: “Send down my prey. If you refuse, I will kill you.” Makunaima did not want to drop his dead brother down for Okaraima, so he dropped a powis [game bird]. Okaraima responded, “This is not my prey, send down my prey.” Makunaima then dropped a baboon [howler monkey], and again Okaraima said, “This is not my prey! Release my prey!” One by one, Makunaima sent down all the animals he and his brother had shot, but still Okaraima refused to budge from his demand. At last Makunaima had to throw down the body of his dead brother. Now Okaraima was satisfied. “This is the right one, he said. “Now I am going.” He picked up Insikiran and went on his way home, “Oh! Ah! Oh! Ah!” Makunaima followed him all the way to his home. Now Makunaima discovered where Okaraima lived. He lived on a mountain. After that, the mountain was called O’karamîta [Iwokrama], the homestead of the beast. (MRU & Forte, 2001)

8

CHAPTER ONE: SETTING THE CONTEXT FOR INDIGENOUS CONSERVATION TRANSFORMATIONS IN GUYANA

Conservation Contact Sites

This research aims to inspire similar formations and processes within other areas of the

Amazonic region and globally, where collaborative partnerships and community-led

initiatives have taken root. However, the research outcomes, narratives, and frameworks

are historically and geographically conditioned by the specific socio-cultural, political,

economic junctures and relationships in North Rupununi.

I have come to perceive places like the North Rupununi villages and the

Iwokrama Forest reserve, where Indigenous and global conservation cultures have

come into engaged and dynamic contact for the purposes of sustainably managing and

protecting wildlife and ecosystems, as conservation contact zones. Influenced by Mary

Louise Pratt’s (1999) discussion of contact zones within colonial travel narratives and

transcultural literacy, and Sundberg’s (2006) discussion of conservation contact zones, I

contend that conservation projects like the Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest

Conservation and Development (IIC) program and the NRDDB-IIC partnership are

important zones of contact between Indigenous peoples and conservationists. Pratt’s

writings refer to the social and relational spaces where such culturally, socio-

economically and geographically disparate groups interact with one another in ways that

can be inimical and/or progressive to their respective interests.

The Iwokrama Forest reserve, North Rupununi territories and NRDDB-IIC

conservation partnership are conservation contact sites that can be described using the

metaphor of borderlands from postcolonial literature (Punter, 2000). Borderlands

describe both the location of knowledge, place and environmental practice within a

protected area or conservation project, as well as it adeptly defines such conservation

9

zones as “socially constructed places in which difference and conflict is constructed and

lived” (Pratt, 1999, p. 20) by the Indigenous communities and conservation actors that

inhabit and manage them. What is particularly interesting are the ways that such actors

(particularly North Rupununi community members) from divergent socioeconomic,

cultural, political and epistemic locations attempt to negotiate difference in such

borderland places so that they can collaborate together in more equitable and

substantive ways.

In his discussion of contact sites or spaces of synthesis between dominant and

nativized religious systems within the Caribbean region, Taylor (2001) defines

syncretism as a basis for communities with different systems to dynamically come

together and generate a new system, or parallel systems. The encounters and ensuing

relationships between the North Rupununi communities and IIC and other conservation

partners are increasingly shaped by processes of cultural exchange and syncretism.

Entanglements between conservationists and Indigenous societies and activists have

been intensifying since the late colonial period and the entanglements have resulted

either in conflict or, in the case of the North Rupununi, evolving collaborative alliances

(Brockington et al., 2008). With specific reference to the cultural and relational

foundations of wildlife conservation at the community level, Sundberg (2006) explores

how conservation encounters between Indigenous people and conservationists, who are

differentially positioned, importantly “shape the cultural politics of conservation” (p. 239).

Furthermore, Pratt’s (1992) discussion of contact zones can be interpreted similarly to

Bhabha’s (1995) theory of the ‘third space’ in their fluidity and complexity as spaces of

exchange and cross-fertilization where marginalized groups have both contributed to

emergent knowledges and cultures, as well as they have appropriated useful aspects

transmitted by the dominant group.

10

While conservation entanglements can provide opportunities for interesting and

complex social and politico-ecological relationships and human–animal relationships,

they are also prone to asymmetrical power relationships that influence knowledge

production and practice. Political pressure by conservation and development agents

levied on Indigenous leaders in Guyana is framed in the ubiquitous ultimatum: “If you are

not with us, you are against us” (Wilson & Parker, 2007). As has been prevalently

documented throughout the critical literature on conservation, the fortress style,

command-and-control form of conservation alienates Indigenous and local peoples from

the wildlife and forest resources that they have lived amongst, and sustainably harvested

and used for much of their lives. When wildlife is privileged and segregated from

people’s cultural and livelihood activities by conservation and protected area

management institutions, communities begin to feel marginalized and perceive the

animals as a nuisance, as inimical to their livelihood and development (Simpson, 2008).

Furthermore, power imbalances can, and have been detrimental to both the success of

conservation initiatives, collaborative possibilities, and the rights and aspirations of

Indigenous communities.

Vectors of power within international conservation institutions, local communities,

and conservation encounters inhere within multiple structures and articulations:

knowledge production and dissemination, research, language, management and

decision-making processes, technology, governance, rights, regulatory frameworks, and

social interactions. Brosius et al. (2005) assert that conservation encounters, particularly

collaborative management partnerships, inevitably involve power and control in the

forms of political mobilization and governance structures that define them. Although

collaborative management (and its affiliate terms, co-management, participatory

management) ostensibly refers to equity amongst the partners involved, and embraces

11

an array of power- and benefit-sharing possibilities, the reality of most global

conservation contexts indicates that provisions of power, control, access, and benefits

are far from equal. Hence, the pivotal issue shaping the politics of collaborative

partnerships and conservation initiatives surrounds the decisions that Indigenous

societies and conservation institutions make regarding the forms of management and

environmental governance and the processes of relationship-building, knowledge

production, power-sharing, and benefit-sharing.

Research Objectives

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze a central challenge for contemporary

collaborative conservation partnerships, namely: the culturally embedded conditions,

and relational and institutional formations required for contemporary conservation and

collaborative management arrangements to be advantageous for Indigenous

communities. I grapple with this significant issue within the context of Guyana, through a

case study of the conservation partnership between the North Rupununi District

Development Board (NRDDB) and Indigenous communities, and the Iwokrama Centre

for International Conservation and Development (IIC). I critically examine two growing

conservation contexts that foreground the significance of local cultural institutions and

knowledges and the agency of Indigenous communities within wildlife management. The

first context entails the collaborative conservation and management of wildlife and

forests; the second involves Indigenous community-led wildlife conservation and socio-

ecological governance that syncretizes revitalized customary systems with modern

conservation technologies.

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Research Questions

This case study is narrated from within the textured relationships, experiences, projects

and ecological and cultural landscapes of North Rupununi, Guyana. The following

questions have guided my doctoral research:

1) How has the engagement between Indigenous and conservation systems contributed to: a) re-envisioning the notion of conservation through processes of negotiation and syncretism, and b) furthering Indigenous rights and priorities?

2) What has been the impact of the NRDDB-IIC partnership on the communities’

capacity to develop local conservation leadership and governance? 3) How are culturally embedded Indigenous knowledges, customary practices and

human–animal relationships foundational to engaged and sustainable forms of community conservation and wildlife management?

The first question is discursive and relational and examines Indigenous peoples’

agency within collaborative management alliances and their ability to assert their

knowledges, institutions, and interests within the global conservation domain. The

second question concerns the institutionalization of conservation through collaborative

and community-led systems, and the imbrication of Indigenous communities into

contemporary conservation networks and practices. It specifically explores the evolution

of the NRDDB-IIC collaborative partnership and conservation and wildlife management

initiatives, and its implications and possibilities for local environmental leadership and

governance within the North Rupununi villages. The third question illustrates how the

contribution of Indigenous peoples’ culturally embedded knowledges and practices, and

active participation within conservation frameworks could transform their collaborative

partnerships with conservation partners. It specifically explores the ways that

environmental knowledge, wildlife practice, and human–animal relationships are

grounded in and articulated through specific cultural beliefs, customary institutions, and

histories. Such cultural and customary systems have been significant within both

13

historical and contemporary periods of community wildlife and environmental

management.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical framework guiding this research is critical and decolonizing as well as

proactive in its call for a radically different collaborative approach, than presently exists,

to how conservation institutions engage with Indigenous peoples. This study directly

challenges the hegemonic, neo-colonial, and positivistic nature of mainstream

conservation interventions, scholarship and policy by critically analyzing structural and

ideological differences and inequalities that often undermine Indigenous communities.

Moreover, the study calls for change in collaborative and co-management

conservation strategies that continue to be, for the most part, top-down, economic-

driven, and unresponsive to place-based local priorities and socio-ecological contexts.

Brown and Decker’s (2005) review of wildlife conservation research and policy

approaches in different global contexts identified that while the interplay between

cultural, socioeconomic and ecological values specific to each Indigenous and

conservation context is critical to framing viable approaches, it fails to be prominent in

most collaborative and community-based interventions. This study further argues that

critical scholarship on collaborative and community-based conservation must consider

alternative syncretic possibilities and processes for collaboration and community

leadership that focus on Indigenous people’s agency, and revitalizing relevant customary

institutions.

The metaphor of the “hatchet and seed” in political ecology discourse refers to

analysis which works to, on one hand, critically deconstruct and disrupt the dominant

meta-narratives, methods and policies that inculcate socially and environmentally unjust

14

practices (the hatchet). On the other hand, the analysis works to document different

forms of knowledge production that offer new and more just understandings of ecological

phenomena and change (the seed) (Robbins, 2004). The hatchet and seed metaphor

captures my critical examination of collaborative partnerships and the possibilities for

conservation leadership and governance transformations at the community level. With

respect to the seed of this study, my empirical research in the North Rupununi engaged

the collaborative and syncretic production of specialized and place-based knowledge (by

Indigenous community members and IIC staff) that is shaping more culturally embedded,

and socially just conservation practices. I have documented contemporary wildlife

management initiatives and systems at the community level, which are based on a

combination of customary and modern conservation forms, and how they, in turn,

influence conservation discourse. I specifically examined how unequal power relations

between Indigenous and conservation actors, in terms of divergent discourses and

worldviews about ecological and conservation processes, are constituted and

transgressed through collaborative relationship-building. I further explored how the

communities’ culturally embedded customary systems and environmental practices have

been revived and actuated within their syncretism with relevant modern conservation

discourses and methodologies.

It is also important to recognize the immense adaptation expected of the North

Rupununi communities and institutions in relation to the forest wildlife management

program and partnership that are now a considerable feature within their social

landscape. Adapting to and negotiating a place for their own beliefs and practices

amongst the different cultural and knowledge paradigms, introduced by external

conservation organizations, has been a constant challenge for these communities. The

‘hatchet’ aspect of the approach incorporates a political ecology and critical studies

15

deconstruction of the truth-claims produced by mainstream, dominant scientific and

policy discourses, as well as technologies and market approaches to global

conservation. In this study I implicitly and explicitly criticize colonial and dominant

discourses within the mainstream neo-liberal conservation model. I also criticize

collaborative approaches and structures that re-inscribe inequitable power relationships

that marginalize Indigenous populations. These discourses and strategies are produced

mainly by international institutions, academies, NGOs, corporate entities, and

government agencies.

The hatchet analysis further demonstrates that erroneous dominant narratives

have fuelled the political, relational and ecological changes that facilitated their

ascendancy as legitimate truth-claims (Robbins, 2004). They include the beliefs that:

i) land degradation and wildlife conflicts are caused by unsustainable local practices and

ii) healthy, unfragmented forests are “pristine” because they have historically been

uninhabited and undisturbed and as such, they must be protected from human

interference. These narratives have worked to legitimize the displacement and

marginalization of Indigenous peoples in different parts of Guyana whereby Indigenous

lands have been designated for protected areas without communities’ prior, informed

consent –– such as Iwokrama Forest reserve and Kaiteur National Park.

Like many political ecologists committed to the ‘seed’ part of the approach, in this

study I engage in praxis-oriented research and seek to contribute to critical social

inquiry; I aim to create transformative opportunities, within the scope of the research and

within the communities and institutions with which I have collaborated. In this study I

explore and support collaborative and community-led strategies that provide “the

conditions under which ‘local’ knowledges and practices become part of alternative

development strategies” (Peet & Watts, 1996, p. 11), and community-led strategies for

16

revitalization, negotiation, and syncretism that lead to re-envisioning conservation. Many

research studies and policy frameworks focused on the relationship between

conservation and Indigenous and local communities continue to grapple with the issue of

social justice and whether it deserves a place within conservation discourse and

management regimes. In contrast, this study considers social justice as central to

developing collaborative and community-led forms of environmental conservation that

are framed within ethical and democratic environmental practice. Social justice actions

ensure: the inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ political, social and environmental rights

and agencies within the conservation domain; greater social equality and dignity

between and amongst Indiigenous and conservation actors; and democratic

collaborative and local governance structures.

Guyana’s Politicized Ecology

Although shaped and nourished by diverse ecosystems of immense beauty and

ecological significance, Guyana’s peoples of Indigenous, Indian, African, Chinese,

Portuguese and mixed descent have historically been locked into material, political, and

social struggles. These struggles have had a devastating impact on both human and

ecological communities and have fractured the interrelationship between them.

Guyana’s diverse ecosystems –– particularly its forests and non-timber forest products,

rivers, minerals, and wildlife –– are significant to the ecological and cultural integrity of

the region. The natural landscape of Guyana was transformed throughout the colonial

period into mass-production centres for export, what Naipaul (2002) describes as

“manufactured societies, labour camps, creations of empire” (p. 254).

The colonial period was a time of ecological disjuncture and transformation, as

socio-ecological landscapes, plants, and animals were uprooted, hybridized, or

17

destroyed to provide space for the transplantation of European varieties. Indigenous and

traditional societies from the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia were socially,

culturally, and politically ruptured and reconfigured; peoples were dislocated, enslaved,

exploited, and hybridized within tyrannical resource economies. Thus, in essence,

colonialism was both a biological and a cultural process, as its purveyors sought to

dispossess, control, and transform Indigenous environments and natural entities as well

as Indigenous human bodies, cultures, and knowledges. The transformation of natures,

cultures, and bodies has continued in the post-colonial neo-liberal period, only the

actors, mandates, and commodities extracted from the land have changed in

appearance.

Like many of the developing countries in the global South, the post-

independence nation state of Guyana has inherited many of the political, economic, and

cultural legacies of the colonial era; these legacies are constantly being reinscribed and

through neoliberal economic development. Guyana’s diverse ecosystems, animal and

plant species, have historically experienced relatively little anthropogenic pressure due

to low population densities and a minimal level of international development and

investment. The 1980s, however, marked a period of emergent, competing, external

interests over Guyana’s interior resources.

Most development policies in Guyana and throughout Latin America and the

Caribbean have stressed the need to link the region to national and global markets,

through growth-oriented macroeconomic reforms, including: surplus natural resource

extraction; export-oriented production of primary resources; foreign direct investment

(especially infrastructural projects); privatization; finance and trade liberalization;

streamlining education, health, and social-service expenditures; and commercialization.

In Guyana, as a result, the lands and resources of the country’s interior have been

18

increasingly opened to national and foreign development interests, such as transnational

logging and mining companies (Maps 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3).

In the contemporary, global political context of developing stringent conservation

policy and a low carbon economy, Guyana has become almost iconic in its positioning

between two divergent paths of development and identity: 1) its desire to entrench itself

as a competitive player in the global economy, and 2) its goal to pursue a more

ecologically sustainable model of development. In the past 20 to 30 years Guyana has

become increasingly embedded within the global economy and its economy is structured

according to neoliberal market orthodoxy. As such, Guyana has succumbed to the

standard development paradox of “rising incomes lead to falling standards of living”

(Colchester, 2005, p. 289) for its people and, in particular, the nine Indigenous nations,

who have become targets of national and local conservation and economic development

schemes. Within the North Rupununi and other Indigenous communities, the

development paradox has translated into dependency on wage incomes, external

markets, and imported goods; rising costs of living; and dislocation of traditional

livelihoods and their customary way of life.

Economic Development and Trade

While territoriality is deeply connected to Guyana’s Indigenous peoples’ forest

knowledge and use, and historical socio-cultural and ecological processes (Ulloa et al.,

1999), it continues to be a deeply contentious issue threatening the security of

Indigenous peoples in Guyana. Under the eras of Dutch and British rule in Guyana,

Indigenous peoples were not perceived as the true owners of the territories they

inhabited and used. While vaguely recognizing Indigenous land occupancy and use

rights in principle, the Dutch and British administrations refused to regularize those rights

19

as law, and instead, circumscribed them whenever it was in their interest to do so

(Colchester, 2002). Moreover, Indigenous lands were conceitedly assumed by the

British Crown to be terra nullius or unclaimed ‘empty’ lands available for European

appropriation and sovereign control (Bulkan & Bulkan, 2006; Colchester, 1997). This

legal fiction has held power from the colonial period until present day, persisting in the

modern judicial systems of Canada, Australia and Guyana. Due to current ideological

shifts about Indigenous rights, largely due to international pressure, the courts in

Australia and Guyana are finally reexamining these archaic laws. However, the

Aboriginal treaty system in Canada continues to be under great contention.

British treaty allocations do not correspond with any of the Indigenous ancestral

territories or their customary laws. Artificial political boundaries were superimposed by

distant British officials and effectively carved through biophysical entities, Indigenous

settlements, and local socio-political institutions. Guyanese historian and anthropologist

on Amerindian peoples, Audrey Butt Colson (in Colchester, 1997) invokes the injustice

experienced by Amerindians:

…national sovereignty was assigned in distant capitals of the world…these superimpositions could make no sense in terms of local structures, for they cut across and divided geographical, ecological, social and cultural unities, placing in separate political areas populations which conceived themselves to have been in possession of the land ‘from the beginning of time’ (p. 22).

Dispossessed or marginalized from areas of their territories which have been

deemed as economically productive, especially for the extractive industries of logging

and mining, Indigenous communities in Guyana have been engaged in conflicts over

land and resource ownership, use, and management rights, with the state, transnational

firms and conservationists. Specific impacts incurred by Amerindians to their territories,

livelihoods and cultures are: decline of fish and game populations due to water pollution,

habitat disturbance and degradation by logging and mining industries; polluted drinking

20

water; undermining of customary laws, institutions and subsistence economies;

indebtedness and exploitation in labour camps, and breakdown of familial and cultural

systems (Colchester & LaRose, 2002).

However, with the expansion of international awareness about the injustices

inflicted on the world’s Indigenous peoples and internal pressure by Guyana’s

Indigenous leaders for the regularization of Amerindian land and resource rights, Britain

set up the Amerindian Lands Commission in the same year that Independence was

granted to Guyana in 1966. The Commission promised that, “the legal ownership

[Indigenous peoples’] lands, rights of occupancy and other legal rights held by custom or

tradition” be legally recognized (Colchester, 2002) and implemented through the

Amerindian Lands Commission. However, with all of the limitations and conditions

attached to Indigenous peoples’ claims to territorial rights within the revised 1976

Amerindian Act, it is only since the 2006 Revised Amerindian Act that such long-ago

promises are being formally met.

As in the Amazon region of Brazil, Guyana’s interior is perceived as an ‘empty

space’ where Indigenous and mixed communities of small producers “carry out their

peculiarly Amazonian economic activities” (Schmink & Wood, 1987, p. 47). As such,

communities have been based mainly on subsistence-level production and are

perceived as not contributing to a surplus-level of production. Their activities are not

considered as relevant to the growth-oriented economic model that continues to

dominate national and international development policy. Although Afro- and Indo-

Guyanese populations on the coast and those employed in extractive operations within

the interior indeed bear the costs of the neoliberal economic reforms, social inequalities,

and political violence that have wracked Guyana since the colonial period, Indigenous

21

communities have been disproportionately dislocated by the economic development

ventures in the interior.

Unfavourable terms of trade inherent in dependency linkages to the global

market economy have been detrimental to Guyana due to its dependency on revenues

from primary exports of agricultural and mineral commodities (which are steadily

declining due to falling prices on the global market) vis-à-vis its reliance on increasingly

costly imports of manufactures, machinery, petroleum and food. As one of the poorest

developing nations in the western hemisphere, Guyana has also been saddled by

foreign debt since the 1980s. In 1986, President Desmond Hoyt negotiated with the debt

mercenaries, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) a

package of structural adjustment policies based on a broad-based program of market-

oriented reforms and trade liberalization that would supposedly unclog Guyana from

debt and the shackles of dependency.

However, levels of poverty, malnourishment, unemployment and

underemployment, crime (especially drug-related and violent), polarization between rich

and poor, and emigration of educated and skilled Guyanese to the diaspora have been

steadily increasing in Guyana with little sign of reprieve. In 1988, an Economic Recovery

Program (ERP) was implemented by the IMF under supervision of the World Bank and

the intensification of foreign policy intervention and transnational domination over

Guyana’s natural resources would begin. As a Cooperative Republic, most of Guyana’s

industries and major foreign assets were nationalized between 1970 and 1976 and

continued to be state-owned until the 1990s (Colchester, 1997) when pressure from the

IMF and WB, as well as mounting corruption, state mismanagement and falling

commodity prices motivated the shift. Under consecutive People’s Progressive Party

22

leaders, Cheddi Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo, the Guyanese state divested itself of most

industries and transferred them to the private sector.

In terms of forestry, Guyana is covered by 16 million hectares of forest and the

vast majority of those forests are state-owned (13 million hectares). Half of state-owned

forests – approximately 6.5 million hectares – are leased to fourteen timber companies

in the form of logging concessions (Maps 1.3 and 1.4). Of those leased forest areas,

over half are controlled by four transnational Asian companies2 producing for an enclave

sector supplying unprocessed timber to China under FDI contracts (Bulkan, 2007). The

richer and more pristine State Forests (and non-titled Amerindian forests) are

consolidated into the controllership of these few transnational companies and contribute

virtually little to developing regional or national economies. This is due mainly to

repatriation of profits to the countries and investors controlling the transnational

companies, as well as displacement of Guyanese labour in the forestry sector in favour

of imported Asian labour. However, despite neocolonial and corrupt practices within

Guyana’s forestry sector, it is still highlighted as one of only eight countries worldwide in

which a realistic potential for large-scale conservation of forest resources still exists

(Sizer, 1996). Map 1.4 shows the allocation of Guyana’s state and Amerindian forests

under state, private or conservation permits, leases and concessions -- or Amerindian

control. Such sustainable forestry can only occur with the active partnership of the

Indigenous communities in Guyana who depend on the forests.

Like the logging industry in the country, mining is largely dominated by

transnational firms from North America –– many of which are Canadian companies3.

2 Four large Asian logging companies active in Guyana include: Barama Company Ltd., Berjaya Group

Berhad, Solid Timber Holdings Sdn Bhd, and Kwitaro Investments Incorporated (all Malaysian firms). 3 International mining companies active in Guyana include: bauxite – Alcan Canada and Reynolds USA;

gold – Omai Gold Mines Limited backed by Cambior Inc. and Golden Star Resources Limited, Bartica,

Aztek, Sacre-Coeur Minerals, StrataGold Corporation, Guyana. Goldfields Inc., Valgold Resources Limited; diamonds – Mazda Mining Company, Southern Star Resource and Vanessa Ventures.

23

Large-scale extractive industries are quite rapacious in Guyana, particularly those of

metallurgical mining (gold and diamond) and bauxite mining. These mines occupy areas

of over five hectares and are controlled through individually negotiated mining

agreements signed between the government and foreign companies or consortia

registered in Guyana (Colchester, 2002, p.11). Map 1.3 shows some of the largest gold

mining industries in the country, including the Canadian-owned Omai mine. The most

publicized example of a mining disaster in Guyana is the Omai mining disaster in the

Upper Mazaruni/Cuyuni region, where the combined impacts of cyanide tailings on the

Essequibo River ecosystem along with land appropriation from, and social violence on,

Amerindian populations were particularly disastrous.

Detrimental socio-ecological impacts from mining include: increased economic

stratification; extensive environmental damage including pollution of water supplies;

nutritional decline resulting from the neglect of subsistence activities and the

consumption patterns associated with mining culture; and social impacts as young men

and women become increasingly involved in the mining business, including prostitution,

spread of disease, indebtedness, alcoholism and the breakdown of traditional family

systems (Colchester, 2002). Indigenous women employed directly by the mining industry

or living in communities affected by mining operations disproportionately suffer from

social dislocation and discrimination, and exposure to disease and malnutrition.

24

Map 1.1 Logging Concessions in Guyana - includes active, historical and 1997 extension (Source: Forests Monitor, 2006)

25

Map 1.2 Logging Concessions in Guyana – including the IIC-Tiger Woods Sustainable Concession (Colchester, 1997)

26

Map 1.3 Foreign Mining Operations in Guyana (Colchester, 1997)

27

Map 1.4 Allocation of forest resources in Guyana – including Iwokrama Forest Reserve (Guyana Forestry Commission, 2002)

28

Although limited in terms of economic returns for Indigenous communities, balata

bleeding (extraction of resin for rubber production) and cattle ranching have provided

sustainable income-generating activities for North Rupununi peoples, particularly balata

bleeding during the wet season when farming and fishing activities slow down.

However, a collapse in the balata industry in the 1970s in both Guyana and Northern

Brazil had a devastating impact on Indigenous livelihoods and was exacerbated by the

destruction of ranching ventures in the North and South Rupununi prior to the abortive

Rupununi Rebellion in 1969 (MRU & Forte, 1996; Colchester, 1997). Such impacts on

local incomes put pressure on many communities to compensate through intensified

fishing and wildlife trade activities, as well as migration to Brazil in search of wage

labour.

Guyana’s entering into the global conservation and environmental development

arena to become signatory to numerous international regulatory frameworks regarding

wildlife and environmental protection, has spurred the development of a number of

national strategy positions that affect the environment and Indigenous communities.

These are:

o Iwokrama Forest Initiative 1992 o National Strategy for the Conservation of Biological Diversity 1997 o National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) 1997 o National Environmental Education Strategy o National Mangrove Management Action Plan, 2001 o Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, 2002 o Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Strategy, 2004 o Fisheries Management Plan, 1996 o Draft Arapaima Management Plan, 2002 (NRDDB – first local Indigenous-

managed inland fishery in Guyana) o Strategic National Forestry Action Plan, 2002-6 o Low Carbon Development Strategy - ongoing

The Iwokrama Forest was first envisioned as a protected area at a landmark

Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in 1989. The Government of Guyana

29

dedicated 371,000 hectares of frontier rain forest at the edge of the North Rupununi

region to demonstrate global leadership in rainforest conservation and research,

sustainable income-generation, and collaborative partnerships with the Indigenous

communities of the North Rupununi. In 1992, the vision of the Iwokrama protected area

and conservation program was unveiled at the Rio Earth Summit with the international

community marvelling at the prospect of small and underdeveloped Guyana becoming

an international leader in forestry and wildlife management.

Critical Foundations in Collaborative Partnerships

Collaborative conservation has become such a ubiquitous, depoliticized and

dehistoricized concept within global conservation and wildlife management discourse

and policy that there appears to be no limit as to how it can be interpreted and

implemented within projects. My study aims to yank the concept from ubiquity and

ground it in the particular histories, political dynamics and socio-ecological contexts that

give collaborative partnerships in conservation a sense of meaning, tension and

possibility.

Global conservation is becoming increasingly participatory in many parts of the

world — at least in rhetoric. Insertion of Indigenous and rural communities within

collaborative conservation4 (co-management; partnership; joint, multi-stakeholder, and

community-based management) is unfolding in a global system of institutions,

ideologies, regulatory frameworks, markets and social movements (Igoe, 2004).

Realizing that the vast majority of ecologically valuable and threatened areas overlap

4 Although often used interchangeably in mainstream and critical conservation literatures, I prefer to use the

term ‘collaborative’ conservation or management rather than ‘co-management.’ ‘Collabrative’ speaks specifically to the relational dynamic and cooperative intention framing conservation partnership and shared management arrangements that interest my research.

30

with Indigenous and traditional territories, the global environmental/ conservation

movement ideologically links ‘the world’s first peoples’ with the ‘world’s last wild places’

(Brockington et al., 2008, p. 113) in its strategic engagement with the global Indigenous

movement. As such, both the global environmental and Indigenous movements have

made space or opportunities for Indigenous peoples to become involved within the

global conservation domain. While such spaces have become both a blessing and a

curse for Indigenous societies within different conservation contexts, I have been

particularly interested in exploring how conservation encounters have been used by

such societies to strengthen: i) Indigenous cultural revitalization within conservation

knowledge and practice; ii) Indigenous conservation leadership; and iii) Indigenous

contributions to defining global conservation.

In their critique of state-managed protected areas, co-management

arrangements and the increasingly neoliberal orientation of global conservation

configurations, Brockington, Duffy and Igoe (2008) unequivocally attest collaborative

management as being “a complicated tool.” As demonstrated in countless international

case studies of collaborative and community-based conservation and protected area

management, when protected areas and projects are imposed without consultation and

endorsement by Indigenous and local communities, conservation regimes will inevitably

be marred by conflict, polarized interests and lack of local involvement (Brosius et al,

2005; Lockwood et al, 2006; Sarkar, 2003).

Most mainstream protected area models throughout Latin America and the

Caribbean, Africa and Asia use conservation as a pretext for exercising some level of

legal and political control over Indigenous lands and rights. In the best-case scenario,

collaborative conservation can provide the possibility for local partners to empower

themselves — although they are rarely provisioned according to the priorities determined

31

by Indigenous people themselves (Brockington et al., 2008). In the worst case scenario,

collaboration with institutional and/or state conservation agencies can become a vehicle

for, and means of justifying extended control over Indigenous territories and

development, as well as an infringement of Indigenous rights.

Thus, strong local governance structures and leadership at the community and

regional levels are imperative if Indigenous communities are to have any opportunity to

navigate and negotiate collaborative conservation’s paradoxical twists to the benefit of

their community and environmental priorities. A powerful example is the 1990 Sparrow

Decision whereby the Supreme Court of Canada ruling signified that government powers

may be expanded and infringe upon existing Aboriginal rights for a “compelling and

substantial objective such as the conservation and management of the resource”

(Hundloe, 2002, p. 244). Hence, conservation goals are to be met before the inherent

rights or treaty rights of Indigenous people are given priority. However, as global and

local Indigenous movements become stronger, and collaborative regimes in

conservation are more critically analyzed and expanded, the space for Indigenous

peoples to negotiate and define their rights and priorities within the conservation domain

becomes more possible.

There are four main contexts for collaboration between Indigenous peoples and

conservation institutions that appear within the literature (based on Brockington et al.,

2008, p. 126-7). The first context entails Indigenous communities collaborating with

conservationists to co-manage protected areas and conservation projects on or near

their traditional territories. This arrangement parallels the NRDDB-IIC collaborative

partnership, which has provided communities possibilities for developing local

management systems, formal titling of villages, capacity development, and protecting

wildlife and forest resources. The second context is when Indigenous communities and

32

conservationists confront a common threat such as the incursion of extractive industries,

and/or share a common goal to protect environmental resources. The North Rupununi

communities have endorsed and engaged within their collaborative relationship with IIC

primarily out of concern for protecting their forests, wetlands and resources from logging

and mining interests.

Indigenous or local communities establishing sacred natural areas, conservation

sites or protected areas of their own initiative on their territories (i.e., Indigenous

Community Conserved Areas or Indigenous Protected Areas) comprise the third context.

Many North Rupununi villages such as Fairview (see Map 5.1), Surama, Wowetta and

Rewa have designated specific lands and watersheds within their territories as sites of

spiritual and/or ancestral importance, or as modern conservation areas where hunting

and harvesting activities are minimized and regulated to allow for species regeneration

and habitat protection. Community designated sacred sites facilitate sustainable

harvesting of wildlife species, as well as the protection of cultural resources. North

Rupununi community conservation areas and community conservation contracts

(facilitated by IIC and NRDDB) include: i) arapaima conservation sites in Rewa Village,

ii) Crabwood Tree plots (buffer zone) and 400m Riparian Wildlife Corredor in Fairview

Village, iii) Cock of the Rock conservation and ecotourism site in Wowetta Village, and

iv) Amazon Cassava Project and conservation area between Burro-Burro River and

Tararamu Creek in Surama Village.

The fourth collaborative circumstance is where Indigenous communities

collaborate with conservationists on the premise of specific benefit-sharing

arrangements such as eco-tourism or ecosystem service payments. The most typical

arrangement involves people allocating land for wildlife or forest conservation linked to

an eco-tourism venture that promises to provide both financial benefits, and non-

33

financial benefits (training, educational and job opportunities; livelihood and cultural

security; institutional technical and administrative support and external funding

opportunities). The North Rupununi communities have been particularly interested in

collaborating with IIC’s conservation projects not only for the income stemming from eco-

tourism and sustainable logging enterprises, but moreover, so as to be able to develop

their own resource management and socioeconomic capacities at the community level.

The adaptive management approach to collaborative conservation embraced by

IIC and NRDDB represents a more holistic and multidisciplinary framework for

integrating interdependent ecological and socio-cultural systems, as well as collaborative

decision-making between diverse institutional and Indigenous or local actors. Adaptive

management strategies seek to influence human behaviour and ecosystem dynamics to

maintain and restore the complex, uncertain and dynamic nature of ecological systems,

while fostering equitable human development strategies that are ecologically,

economically and culturally viable over the long term (Grumbine, 1994). Balancing

multiple perspectives, priorities and knowledges, as well as collaborative learning, re-

visioning, mitigating trade-offs, dialogue and decision-making amongst Indigenous and

conservation partners (Keough & Blahna, 2006) potentially enables them to co-produce

knowledges and adaptive strategies to conceptualize and protect environments, wildlife

and local cultural institutions.

Roth’s (2004) study of the tenuous process of collaborative management in Mae

Tho National Park in Thailand predicated on the Thai forestry department’s attempts to

reorganize the resident Karen society’s resource management institutions, knowledges

and spatial structure, highlights the historical tensions and distrust that each group has

toward the other. She identifies in the collaborative management literature polarized

tensions resonating in the divergent criticisms that Indigenous peoples and

34

conservationists have toward collaborative conservation in protected areas. On one

hand, Indigenous peoples and their proponents argue that collaborative arrangements

are problematic because they do not consider the contextual frames shaping Indigenous

customary systems and harvesting practices, the power inequities undermining

collaboration and the rights of Indigenous peoples, or the complexity of Indigenous

knowledges and societies. As such, many collaborative conservation arrangements have

left Indigenous communities very distrustful of conservation institutions — perceiving

their agendas as political and extractive rather than altruistic or environmentally and

socially just (Fairhead & Leach, 2003; Langton, 2003).

On the other hand, conservationists and state authorities argue that biodiversity

conservation objectives are compromised when too much consideration is given to

Indigenous knowledge, participation, social and economic development needs

(Anderson, p.c., 2009). The significance of this study is that it explores the North

Rupununi partnership context as part of an increasing number of case studies around

the world whereby Indigenous people and conservationists are no longer positioning

themselves in such limited and polarized relational approaches to collaborative

conservation. As recognized rights-holders to their villages, lands, use of the Iwokrama

Forest reserve area, and within the scope of the NRDDB-IIC partnership, the North

Rupununi communities actually have the ability to negotiate and decide whether or not

they will endorse and collaborate with IIC and the management partnership. As such, the

communities have a distinctive leverage position vis-à-vis Indigenous communities in

most other collaborative conservation and protected area settings around the world.

35

Global Conservation in Indigenous Contexts

For many Indigenous communities, the process of navigating between global

conservation discourses and collaborative management systems, on one hand, and

local customary systems, on the other, carries an array of emotional, epistemological,

cultural, and political issues. For international conservation and state actors, the process

of achieving global or national conservation priorities and institutional and economic

interests — while attempting to incorporate local livelihood and community development

priorities — similarly conveys an array of epistemological, heuristic, cultural, and political

issues. However, the increasingly neo-liberal, ideological orientation and streamlined

operational budgets of international conservation organizations and state agencies have

greatly inhibited commitments to developing and supporting Indigenous capacities and

interests within conservation projects.

The meaning of conservation and all that it implies, both discursively and

empirically, is particularly disputed among Indigenous and local communities,

conservation scientists, and policy-makers. For Indigenous peoples, in particular,

conservation is about entering a reciprocal relationship with all species and ecological

entities that share their traditional territories. It is also about protecting lands, animals,

plants, or cultural forms that are threatened (Smallboy, p.c. 2010) by macro-level

ecological, socio-political shifts, or irresponsible ecological practices. Hence,

conservation involves mutually transformative relationships between peoples and their

social-ecological environments; these relationships are historically grounded in specific

knowledge forms, cultural institutions, and politico-ecological contexts (Chung Tiam

Fook, 2006).

Collaborative conservation discourses and projects have become politicized

sites, where Indigenous struggles are entangled with conservation initiatives (Tsing,

36

2005, p. 159). However, there has been much less focus on the rights and agencies of

affected Indigenous and local communities within conservation research, policy,

practice, and collaboration at the local and global levels. Furthermore, mainstream

conservation institutions (ENGOs and state agencies) tend to focus an insignificant

amount of their resources on building equitable collaborative relationships and structures

and supporting community-led initiatives. While pragmatic and comprehensive in theory,

and in institutional and academic settings, mainstream collaborative conservation

policies have little currency within Indigenous and local community contexts. Where the

concept of conservation, and of understandings of collaboration are also contestable and

subject to the different perceptions and worldviews of the social groups coming together

as collaborators.

Many Indigenous discourses (Merculieff, 2002; Tauli-Corpuz, 2003) pose a

challenge to hegemonic, exclusive and paternalistic forms of conservation policy and

practice dictated by Western science by emphasizing the significance of Indigenous

agency, rights and knowledges. Imperative to Indigenous peoples in Guyana is that

collaborative approaches not only rhetorically acknowledge their resource rights and

customary practices but, rather, incorporate them within conservation agendas and

strategies defined or co-defined by Indigenous peoples (Hingangaroa Smith, 2000;

LaRose, 2004).

Exploring Constructs of Community within the Conservation Domain

With the increasing adaptation of people-centered and community-oriented approaches,

there has been much debate regarding the significance, construction and deployment of

‘community’ within conservation programs. Due to their long histories embedded within

territories sought after as global protected areas, place-based human–nature and

37

human–animal relationships, and historical and contemporary entanglements with

conservation projects and institutions, Indigenous people in the North Rupununi play a

significant and active part in defining and asserting their role in conservation, as well as

defining the role of wildlife and environmental conservation within local and global

contexts. As a consequence of their geographic positioning, and their collaborative

engagement with IIC and other external conservation partners, the North Rupununi

communities and their wildlife relationships and practices have become embedded in a

global conservation network. Agrawal and Gibson (1999) state that “the local and

external, they are linked together in ways that it might be difficult to identify the precise

line where local conservation begins and the external –– that helps construct the local ––

ends” (p. 90-1). However, I argue that while it is true that entanglements with

conservation discourses and projects cannot help but influence Indigenous peoples’

contemporary ecological understandings and interactions over time, Indigenous

worldviews and knowledges simultaneously shape global conservation discourse and

policy through a process of mutual re-visioning.

It is important to understand how Indigenous wildlife knowledge and practice

have developed in their particular environmental contexts. The persisting assumption in

some mainstream conservation and development circles –– that Indigenous wildlife

management systems are inherently ecologically destructive –– grossly discounts the

variety of customary systems locally adapted to changing environments, historical

relationships of communities to their wildlife and environments, and past and present

levels of ecological integrity of ecosystems. The counter-assumption by many

environmentalists, anthropologists and even some Indigenous activists that Indigenous

communities are nature-oriented, inherently sustainable and living in harmony with

wildlife and their environments is not accurate either. It negates the disruptive and

38

transformative processes of colonization, tribal warfare, globalization, and contemporary

economic ambitions of Indigenous peoples — and their implications for Indigenous

societies and their relationships to wildlife and their environments. I find that neither of

these assumptions are honest to Indigenous histories and realities, nor are they

beneficial to the furtherance of scholarship in this field. Rather, it is more realistic and

relevant to understand the ways in which communities have learned, from a long (and

often turbulent) history of relationship and experience with animals and the ecology of

the region, to gradually develop more sustainable practices.

I use the term ‘community’ in reference to the four focal Indigenous villages of

Wowetta, Rewa, Surama and Fairview of my empirical research study. These

communities are representative of the sixteen villages of the North Rupununi and are

constituent partners within the NRDDB-IIC conservation partnership. Like many of the

concepts explored within this study –– such as ‘collaborative conservation,’

‘participatory,’ ‘science,’ ‘management’ and ‘wildlife’ –– ‘community’ has also been

bandied about in many different contexts and carries as many meanings as there are

interpretations. I fully recognize that the concept of ‘community’ describes a fairly

homogenous and ambiguous entity that tends to obscure the varied range of social

groups and individuals -– each representing different subjectivities, power capacities and

interests –– that actually comprises a community. My research in the North Rupununi

revealed that indeed, none of the villages represents a uniform and holistic entity.

Building on the findings of the Participatory Human Resource Interaction Appraisals

(PHRIAs) conducted between 1998 and 2000 by NRDDB and IIC, my interactions with

community members and NRDDB-BHI staff indicated that active movers within the

communities were specific individuals, families, groups and institutional units who were

more engaged within social, conservation, governance or political activities.

39

As a result, there are distinct factions within different villages that possess more

power and information (Iwokrama, 2000) vis-à-vis other individuals and groups. My

research collaborators relayed to me experiences by previous researchers whereby

community factions often complicated access to and flows of information that also

represent power within the communities. I was cognizant of such social dynamics and I

sought to mitigate against their direct hinderance or bias within my own research and

relationships by making the research process as inclusive, equitable and transparent as

possible. For lack of a better term and due to Indigenous community members

throughout the region using the term ‘community’ in thinking of, and describing

themselves within a collective sense, I have adopted it throughout my own discourse.

The PHRIA report (Iwokrama, 2000, p. 32) reinforces, “many of the present social and

political processes within the North Rupununi are based around the ‘community’.” The

report goes on to recommend that IIC support conservation and wildlife and natural

resource management processes at the community level due the region’s customary

common property and socio-political systems.

De-mythologizing ‘Community’ and ‘Community-based Conservation’

In their pivotal critiques of the mythologized ‘community’ constructed by many

proponents of community-based conservation, Agrawal and Gibson (2001; 1999)

advocate that, “Given the potential benefits of locally based resource management, the

celebration of community is a move in the right direction” (p. 19). There is often an

assertion made by scholars and activists that Indigenous and rural societies are more

oriented to the natural world and are natural stewards due to their closely connected and

sacred relationship with nature. However, while many Indigenous and rural societies

may have developed close and sustainable relationships with their environments, the

40

characterization of Indigenous people as naturalized subjects inherently inclined to

protect nature is essentializing. While it would appear progressive that conservation

organizations have recently recognized Indigenous people’s central role in global

conservation, what is less certain is whether this discourse actually translates into

practice within Indigenous contexts.

In fact, many Indigenous societies in Guyana and elsewhere understand

themselves as being nature-inclusive, rather than nature-oriented, in that the human and

natural worlds are perceived as interrelated and interconnected, and not as separate

entities. Many Indigenous cosmologies and customary systems value the natural world

as sacred and thus prioritize cultivation of reciprocal relationships with natural

landscapes and non-human beings. While many Indigenous activists and leaders have

strategically adopted such imposed characterizations as national and global currency

within their struggles for rights and environmental justice, such constructions are not

usually made by Indigenous or local communities themselves. Many conservationists,

academics and activists supportive of participatory and community-based approaches

tend to inscribe their fears and hopes of contemporary conservation (Agrawal & Gibson,

2001) onto Indigenous communities as they unfairly prop communities into roles as eco-

saviors. As such, participatory conservation models levy unrealistic and unfair

expectations onto Indigenous societies.

Representing the critical conservation and political ecology discourses, Alcorn

(1994), Neumann (2005) and Agrawal and Gibson (2001) caution against exaggerating

the egalitarian nature and homogeneity of communities and community interests which

simultaneously leads to overlooking the differences, complexities and nuances existing

within Indigenous and rural-based communities –– differences and complexities that can

both enable and constrain effective wildlife conservation strategies. I also contend that it

41

is very problematic to perceive Indigenous societies as having naturally conservation-

oriented practices. As communities grow and become more internally stratified in their

socioeconomic and political resources, environmental priorities and equity often become

more skewed. Amongst the North Rupununi villages, maintenance of small size,

environmental ethics and customary institutions –– such as collective social norms

around harvesting and use –– have been significant variables in the communities’

propensity toward developing sustainable environmental and wildlife practices. Similarly,

Berkes (1999) argues that environmental ethics are learned behaviours that can lead to

responsible wildlife and environmental practices, often emerging in specific contexts

from histories of over-exploitation, scarcity and gradual transition into environmentally

conscious practice.

If such societies have not destroyed their resource base as a result of internal

strife, climatic shifts or warfare, and perished as a result (which often happened to the

more socially stratified or nomadic Indigenous communities), they will have evolved

context-specific environmental management practices through experiential learning and

social norms that are suited to the particular ecological and social contexts where they

exist. Cajete (2000) furthers this thought by saying that many generations within an

Indigenous society learn over time and through experience that when people depend

upon a place for their way of life and livelihood practices, they have no choice but to

learn how to take care of that place -– or suffer the consequences.

The North Rupununi villages have historically managed their lands and resources

under a common property regime mediated by customary norms and embody a

combination of elements and processes that have facilitated: i) small and dispersed

villages adapted to diverse ecotones; ii) customary forms of ecological and harvesting

practices; iii) periods of cultural disconnection and over-harvesting; iv) common priorities

42

and outcome interests; v) community visionaries and leaders committed to local

conservation; and vi) contemporary possibilities for locally grounded conservation and

collaborative management initiatives. Brockington et al. (2008) further argue that the

nature of the common property management regime –– or as referred to in this study,

the customary institutions that govern community environmental harvesting and use -– is

the deciding factor as to whether the regime will lead to sustainable environmental

practice. I would also argue that the legitimacy of customary beliefs and rules to

community members and their compliance with those customary rules, plus the

relationship between the resources and the community user group, are also deciding

factors.

In light of such debates, what is significant to examine is how well the customary

traditions and institutions of the North Rupununi communities have provided an

epistemological, cultural and normative foundation for villagers to grapple with and adapt

to modern conservation and wildlife management discourse. Such discussion segues

into Agrawal and Gibson’s (2001) call for contemporary conservation institutions and

initiatives to invest in the revitalization, development and/or adaptation of local

governance institutions that are vested with the responsibility of educating, regulating

and enforcing effective wildlife and environmental management according to the

regulatory and cultural norms of the community. Within the North Rupununi context, it is

then significant to query whether collaboration with IIC has facilitated the NRDDB, BHI

and villages — through capacity and knowledge building; employment and economic

opportunities; consultation and institutional support; and revitalization of progressive

customary practices — to develop their own management frameworks and regulatory

mechanisms to appropriately manage and conserve their wildlife and environments.

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Whether the North Rupununi communities want it to be so, they are inevitably

embedded within complex and shifting state, market and institutional networks.

Moreover, they are caught in the middle of a conflict between globalization, economic

development, Christianity and modernity on one side, and customary forms of social,

political and economic organization on the other side (Igoe, 2004). The NRDDB’s and

communities’ relationships with IIC and other conservation partners, government

agencies, industry and external markets, and the Christian Church, have initiated many

transformational processes within the communities that have been both useful and

detrimental to the communities in terms of defining and developing their land and

resource use rights and practices, cultural institutions, socioeconomic and livelihood

opportunities, and providing for their younger generations. Influenced by their increasing

integration and dependency on external markets; institutional technological, capacity

development and legal support; cultural influences (institutional, mainstream) and

employment opportunities, the North Rupununi communities are struggling to adapt to

new changes in lifestyles, internal power relations and local wildlife consumption

patterns and relationships.

Consequently, many communities are dislocated from many aspects of their

customary institutions and way of life, while also not fully integrated into the modern

economy or state apparatus. A founding elder from Surama Village reflects: “that

communal way of life is dying…that togetherness is wearing away…because of today’s

modern life and commerce…everything is money and that’s all people can concern

themselves with…even here, it’s happening” (VE3, 2009). However, despite such

upheavals, the North Rupununi communities are struggling to protect their customary

traditions and cultural heritage while also navigating the uneven domains of global

conservation and development.

44

How communities decide or are positioned to respond to NGO, state and market

interventions is thus defined by external and internal power dynamics, as well as local

people’s agency. Since they have lacked well-developed legal and mediation

mechanisms at the community level that can interface with powerful state, market,

institutional and church actors, the North Rupununi communities have been vulnerable

to external interests. However, the communities have often found creative and syncretic

ways of negotiating, adapting to, integrating or resisting such interventions within their

different contexts. The formation of NRDDB and BHI and national Indigenous advocacy

organizations such as the Amerindian Peoples’ Association, in concert with international

and national institutional partners, have facilitated the communities in recent times to

have more negotiation power when confronted with external actors and interests.

However, local negotiation and legal capacities are still in their nascent stages and

remain a challenge for Indigenous institutions as they are increasingly faced with state

policy strategies, and market and institutional challenges.

The Role of Indigenous Communities in Conservation

Based loosely on Brosius, Tsing, and Zerner’s (2005) critical reflections on the

contentions and possibilities regarding the place of communities in global conservation,

three question sets are instrumental to clarifying various nodal points for this research:

1) How do different societies come to view the natural world based on the way that

they relate to the natural landscapes and animal and plant communities around

them? How do societies reproduce their interactions through specific socio-

cultural and material practices? And, how do they develop systems for governing

such practices in ways that are productive to both the society and the natural

world?

45

2) When and how do animals, plants, and ecosystems cease to be regarded by

societies and conservation regimes as beings with lives, intrinsic value, and

rights and instead become commodities subject to global markets and pricing

mechanisms? When are conservation NGOs and international foundations

imposing the neoliberal ethos of managing environments for economic profit on

communities and governments in the global South through a new form of green

imperialism? Conversely, when are these organizations and foundations working

to create sincere collaborative and democratic partnerships in support of local

development priorities and community self-empowerment? And, when are they

compelled by a challenging combination of both agendas?

3) Finally, considering the importance of context specificity and local strategies for

engagement within conservation programs — as opposed to normative,

transportable models — what impact do IIC’s conservation programs and

partnerships have on global conservation and development policy? Specifically,

what influence do the North Rupununi communities have on conservation policy

within both community-led systems and collaborative partnerships with

institutional and/or state partners?

Much of the critical, post-modern and post-colonial literatures, position dominant

and/or Western systems and institutions in dichotomous relationships with Indigenous,

local, or other marginalized systems and societies. As such, these literatures particularly

underscore the disparities and contradictions within global conservation. Rigid binaries

are carved between Indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge, communities and

markets, global conservation and development and the state (Agrawal & Gibson, 2001).

While recognizing the inherent differences and potential inequalities in such

46

relationships, there are complex and inter–connected networks, agencies, and spaces

for manoeuvrability within and amongst different groups that this study aims to recognize

and explore.

I do not characterize Indigenous peoples here as idealized ecological stewards

or as unfortunate victims of colonial history and more contemporary development and

conservation exploits. Rather, I bring to the foreground: a) the agency and strategies of

Guyana’s Indigenous peoples in negotiating the complex interplay of challenges and

transformative possibilities within collaborative and community-led conservation

engagements, and b) efforts to revitalize and develop locally embedded cultural and

environmental systems.

The dominant discourse of global conservation versus local community

acquiescence or resistance—while contributing to the decolonization of hegemonic

knowledge and power regimes within conservation among marginalized communities in

protected areas—dichotomizes and limits the analysis of these complex and dynamic

relationships and processes. Responding to Nuttall and Michael’s (2000) call to create

space for new forms to emerge in conservation scholarship and practice, this research

goes further and examines the influence of the Indigenous communities’ agency on

conservation policy and practice. Moreover, it observes how Indigenous communities in

Guyana, and different parts of the world, have used global conservation processes to

further their own cultural, self-determination, and territorial and environmental interests.

This research does not purport that community-led and traditional wildlife and

environmental management systems are always democratic and transparent, or

ecologically and culturally sustainable. However, it demonstrates that many community-

led and customary systems have potential for conserving wildlife populations and

ecosystems, while revitalizing local environmental and social institutions. As such, a

47

fundamental assumption of this research is that, where possible, wildlife and

environmental conservation and management initiatives in Indigenous contexts should

remain in the hands of the communities and their institutions. However, while I advocate

for autonomous initiatives led by communities and local institutions, many communities

have undergone systemic and ideological shifts, making such endeavours difficult

without alliances with supportive national and international institutions; these institutions

possess the required financial, administrative, and technological resources.

Indigenous Agency

Indigenous people’s agency is a pivotal quality of any critical discourse on collaborative

conservation partnerships and community-led conservation. Yet, Indigenous agencies

and strategies with respect to dealing with the increasingly complex, challenging and/or

transformative issues and processes affecting communities are rarely addressed in

either policy or academic literatures. I use the concept of “Indigenous agency” here in

reference to the capacity of Indigenous actors in the North Rupununi communities to

self-consciously and self-determinedly make their own decisions and engage in praxis

based on their worldview and epistemic traditions — at the level of either individual or

the collective.

In disrupting colonial historical discourses, and the domination/victimization

trajectory, it is critical to understand Indigenous peoples in Guyana as agents of their

own history, who are actively shaping their own future (Medina, 2002). My research

revealed areas of slippage between: i) the constructed models of communities, common

property systems, and wildlife practices applied by IIC, CI, and other conservation and

institutional partners, and ii) the culturally distinctive, historically conditioned, syncretic

and dynamic practices actively engaged by contemporary community members within

48

the North Rupununi. The latter set of practices by the North Rupununi community

members are of particular import to this study and are motivated through Indigenous

environmental agency within customary and modern conservation settings, and within

collaborative and syncretic knowledge-building processes.

Agency Constructed through Indigeneity

Within the Indigenist, decolonizing, political ecology and anthropology literatures there

has been a growing discourse on Indigeneity as an identity, and a political positioning

assumed by Indigenous peoples themselves, or conferred upon them by external actors.

Similar to Agrawal and Gibson (1999; 2001), Tania Li (2000; 2008) rallies against the

mythologized and idealized images that many academics and environmentalists have

constructed around Indigenous peoples and local communities in the hope of the “local”

and “Indigeneity” being the panacea for all of the problems of global conservation, global

markets and the state. Such romanticisms are damaging because they impose

unrealistic pressures and assumptions on Indigenous communities, as well as obscuring

the complex and difficult realities encountered by most communities with relation to their

environments (Igoe, 2004).

My own experiences and sentiments echo Li’s (2000; 2008) in acknowledging

that the same deconstructed mythologies of “Indigeneity” and “community” provided by

political ecologists may actually be strategically useful to Indigenous groups who are

engaged in protracted land and resource rights struggles with state, industry or

institutional actors. While concepts such as “community,” “tribal” or “Indigenous rights”

do not tend to exist historically within most Indigenous worldviews or languages, nor are

they wilfully invented or imagined, (Li, 2000) –– they have definitely become widely

accepted, integrated, and utilized concepts within the North Rupununi worldview.

49

Numerous terms are used to refer to Indigenous societies in global contexts,

including: ‘Indigenous’, ‘local’, ‘traditional’, ‘Indian’5. These terms are laden with cultural

and political baggage. The term ‘Indigenous’, while also contestable, is employed in this

study as it reflects Indigenous peoples’ self-identification (in Guyana and other regions)

within national, global, and professional contexts. This self-identification is based on the

ancestral occupation and use of their territories and the embeddedness of their

customary institutions within such territories. Self-identification of the Makushi and other

nations as Amerindian or Indigenous was not historically practiced within their own

cultures and languages; they have strategically positioned themselves as Indigenous in

light of their particular territorial and political struggles. Maps 1.5 and 1.6 depict the

traditional territories and settlements of Guyana’s nine Indigenous nations throughout

the country, during the colonial (1.5) and post-colonial (1.6) periods. Similar to the North

Rupununi region, while the ancestral groups are still extant in other regional territories,

increasing migration and inter-marriage have produced many mixed Indigenous

communities.

Such concepts are not only strategic to Indigenous people in the North Rupununi

in their collaborative relationship with IIC. They have also been embraced by community

members whereby community eclipses collective and communal forms of organization

and identity; tribal eclipses customary and cultural systems particular to the Indigenous

society; and Indigenous rights eclipses their ancestral and customary tenure claims and

5 The term ‘Indian’ is embedded with explicit colonial and deprecating connotations that are inappropriate on

many levels. The term “traditional” recognizes the intergenerational passage of place-based customs and practices within a society, and I occasionally use the word in this manner; yet reference to Indigenous societies as “traditional” implies a dualism reminiscent of the modern characterization of Indigenous and rural peoples as backward and unprogressive compared to the progressive and civilized urban societies. The common interchangeability or morphing of “Indigenous” and “local” within many scholarly, policy, and literary studies erases specific histories and realities and can be disempowering and disadvantageous to the long-term struggles of distinct societies. While referring to a society as “local” gives a sense of the place-based nature of their cultural and material practices, the term does not speak to their distinctive ancestral cultural and cosmological systems or historico-political relationships with the state and dominant societies.

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relationships to lands and resources. Many community elders and researchers revealed

that since IIC staff and external researchers have been interested in collecting data on

their specialized knowledges, cultural productions, customary institutions and histories

they have been devoting more attention and priority to recovering and protecting the

value and role of their knowledges and systems (VE3, 4, 13-16, 2009; CEW1-3, 2009).

Furthermore, within national and global conservation, development and

regulatory domains, community leaders and researchers are often at a bargaining

differential vis-à-vis more politically powerful collaborators and stakeholders. Community

member’s strategic positioning within the Indigeneities that are in currency within

conservation and development discourses (Indigenous people, traditional environmental

stewards) have been effective for them in their capacities to defend their livelihoods and

customary systems, and negotiate control over lands and resources (Neumann, 2005).

Igoe (2005) adds that, “Indigeneity represents an important form of symbolic capital,

which Indigenous leaders use to make alliances with, and leverage resources from,

international actors – particularly international conservation” (p. 384).

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Map 1.5 Distribution of Amerindian Nations and Territories in Guyana – Prior to Independence (Henfrey, 1964)

North Rupununi

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Map 1.6 Distribution of Amerindian Nations and Territories in Guyana – Post-Independence (Colchester, 1997)

North Rupununi

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Relatedly, there is an interesting paradox whereby government political and

economic processes that marginalize contemporary Indigenous peoples in Guyana and

the Caribbean “can sometimes provoke, if not enable their reproduction as Indigenous

identities” (Forte, 2006, p. 5). Hence, the modern global system that continues to

threaten Indigenous cultures, languages, knowledges and territories is paradoxically the

same system that has constructed the concept of Indigeneity and pushed Indigenous

peoples to rally around it. Such has been the case in Guyana, where Indigenous

activists have stated that Indigenous peoples wish to disentangle themselves from the

state’s systematic marginalization of their societies from national political and economic

developments, as well as from the legacies of being paternalistically treated as wards of

the state. Hence, Indigenous activists in Guyana wish to be identified as contemporary

Indigenous peoples with distinct rights and entitlements recognized under international

law (APA, 2006).

Indigenous peoples of the North Rupununi acknowledge themselves first by their

Nation — such as Makushi, Wapishana, Arawak/Lokono or Patemona. However, they

also understand and identify themselves collectively as Amerindian or Indigenous, based

upon their ancestral history within their territories, historical relationships and struggles

vis-à-vis the colonial and post-colonial state and mainstream Creole society. Igoe (2004)

attributes the foundations of the emergent global Indigenism or Indigenous identity to

Indigenous peoples’ ability to protect and creatively adapt certain cultural institutions,

knowledges and environmental practices in the midst of global conservation, economic

and social shifts.

A reflexive deconstruction of the concept and underpinnings of Indigeneity is

useful in terms of understanding the positioning that the environmental movement and

many academics have accorded Indigenous peoples and their realities, and furthermore,

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to understand why different Indigenous peoples position themselves within certain

national and global discourse. However, it is my experience that Indigenous people in

the North Rupununi and most Indigenous contexts, do not usually engage in in-depth

analysis on the political and constructed nature (by themselves or by other people) of

their Indigenous self-identity.

Rather, as Dove (2006) notes in his critical review of the intersection between

Indigenous societies and global environmental politics, Indigenous people must develop

the capacities, skills and language for negotiating the paradoxes of Indigeneity in the

global conservation and development context. They must be simultaneously ‘modern’

and ‘traditional,’ hunter/gatherer, and environmental activist. Indigenous peoples in the

North Rupununi have also become active in negotiating and asserting their rights,

knowledge, identities and aspirations amidst the constant flow of conservationists,

development institutions, researchers, industry and state actors who have their own a

priori assumptions and motivations regarding Indigenous people and Indigenous

realities. Unfortunately, entanglements with institutional and state actors to negotiate the

complex constructions of indigeneity can often lead Indigenous actors down a slippery

road of duplicity, cooptation and/or diminshment by external actors. However, strategic

self-representations of Indigenous knowledge and identity by Indigenous actors have a

way of slipping into “unexpected transformations and collaborations” (Tsing, 1999, p.

198) that can positively influence both Indigenous systems and conservation discourse.

Indigenous Epistemological and Science Paradigms

Despite colonial and contemporary efforts to supplant, appropriate, mythologize and/or

deconstruct Indigenous knowledges, “Indigenous knowledge exists and is a legitimate

research issue” (Marie Battiste, 2000, p. xix). In her contemplations of Indigenous

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knowledge as envisioned and practised by Indigenous peoples, and conversely, as a

broader societal construct, Deborah McGregor (2004) highlights that Indigenous

knowledge importantly integrates the knowledge-holder, context, knowledge product,

and epistemological process in a continuous way. Indigenous knowledge is also a vital

and integral process for people’s engagement with external collaborators, and their

impact on conservation and development decision-making that concerns control and use

of Indigenous lands and resources. McGregor (2004, p. 396) further states that

Indigenous knowledge “is not just an esoteric or academic exercise; it can be and has

been utilized as a powerful tool in the establishment of Aboriginal influence in

environmental and resource management regimes.”

Specific issues have been useful in guiding an understanding of Indigenous

epistemological and knowledge traditions in the North Rupununi vis-à-vis the modern

conservation and globalization discourses introduced by conservation partners.

Indigenous knowledge is shaped by people’s lifeworlds (lived experiences) and their

worldviews (e.g. customs, beliefs, cosmology, ideologies). Indigenous place-based

knowledge shapes both local wildlife and environmental practices, and people’s

responses to ecological, cultural, ideological and institutional change. Indigenous

knowledges are revitalized, negotiated, adapted, appropriated, legitimized and

syncretized through interaction with external systems and actors. They are also affirmed

as ‘valid’ or ‘accurate’ through particular power relations, as influenced by their

engagement with such systems and actors.

While there is immense cultural and philosophical diversity amongst different

Indigenous societies, there are very similar epistemological and ontological

undercurrents that inform indigenous knowledges, cultural beliefs and customary

systems. It is to such undercurrents that I refer, alongside the particular knowledge

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systems of the North Rupununi communities. Haraway (1988) observes that “the only

way to find a larger vision is to be somewhere in particular” (p. 590). Hence, Indigenous

people’s location within specific socio-ecological contexts and processes (at local,

national and global scales) have endowed them with the particular and adaptive

knowledge and cultural forms that they possess today.

Furthermore, through processes of transculturation and creolization, Indigenous

knowledges are invariably influenced by the different knowledge traditions and

discourses with which they come into contact. As such, it is impossible to encounter a

‘pure’ or homogenous form of Indigenous knowledge, particularly in contexts where

Indigenous societies are in frequent and sustained forms of contact with external actors

and institutions. Moreover, syncretic forms of Indigenous and conservation knowledge

have been dynamically emerging through collaborative engagements between the North

Rupununi communities and conservation partners like the IIC.

Modern ideas of conservation and wildlife or resource management are a legacy

of Western Puritanical and capitalist traditions (Stevenson, 2006). It is thus unrealistic to

assume that a western-constructed conservation ethic has ever existed in Indigenous

worldviews. Western preservationist and scientific notions of wildlife and habitat

conservation, and containment of nature for recreation and aesthetic values, are elitist

and pervasive and have become entrenched within diverse conservation settings

throughout rural contexts in the global South (Smith & Wishnie, 2000). Indigenous

peoples in the North Rupununi and throughout Guyana do not subscribe to the

preservationist conservation ethos — with its focus on protecting environmental “islands”

from human settlement and use — as it has no relevance within their cultural or material

realities. In fact, my research showed that many people have found the preservationist

notion deeply offensive and have been able to specifically connect with IIC’s discursive

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approach because the organization takes a sustainable utilization approach to

conservation and protected area management.

Unlike the Western science paradigm, Indigenous science includes overt

concepts of human–nature relationships, community, spirituality, philosophy, holism,

creativity and reciprocity in its epistemic framing and study of the natural world and non-

human species. Indigenous science6 is a metaphor (Cajete, 2000) for the repertoire of

Indigenous relationships, environmental practices, experiential knowledge and

customary and cultural beliefs related to engaging with the natural world through sensory

or empirical observations. Indigenous elders in the North Rupununi advise that to

empirically and relationally understand the natural world, animals, plants, ancestor and

animal spirits, people must actively participate with the natural world and natural beings.

Hence, Indigenous science is recognized by many elders and practitioners as being

inclusive of, and commensurable with many aspects of modern science traditions and

conservation models.

Unfortunately, many scientists, conservation researchers and even social

science academics critical of Western science do not concur with this notion. For

different reasons, they insist that science is a Western construct and incommensurable

with, Indigenous worldviews and environmental thought. They also tend to refer to

Indigenous knowledge related to ecology, plants and animals as “folk knowledge” and

6 Liberated from the restrictive Western or positivistic science paradigm which tends to view the natural

world, non-human species and ecological phenomena according to reductive, objectifying and decontextualized principles - science is used here in its elemental meaning, i.e. exploration of the natural world using empirical or sensory observation, experiential natural history knowledge and relational understandings. Indigenous science combines such elemental scientific exploration with the specific environmental practices and consciousness and cosmology of the practitioners. The point of convergence between Western scientific models and Indigenous science is that the former has begun over the past couple of decades to recognize and accommodate systems of knowledge that view the natural world and conservation approaches in a more multi-dimensional, systemic and integrative way. Moreover, there are increasing numbers of scientists and conservationists who now recognize the significance of both human–nature and human–animal relationships, and land-based peoples’ customary traditions related to the environment.

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believe that Indigenous science is a constructed concept which romanticizes and over-

inflates the scientific credibility within Indigenous knowledges and technologies.

Indigenous peoples in the North Rupununi wish for conservation and research

collaborators to finally make an effort to understand the natural world and conservation

issues in Indigenous conceptual and cultural terms — particularly with regard to

Indigenous values, philosophy and cultural understanding. An IIC director echoes

community concerns by stating, “A challenge has been sometimes getting hard core

scientists to appreciate the value of TEK [Traditional Ecological Knowledge] and cultural

traditions of community members” (IM1, 2009). Community researchers working with

external conservation scientists and academics observe that most have negated or

turned away from recognizing the relational and spiritual underpinnings of human

environmental practice and inter-species interactions (Allicock, p.c. 2009; Moses, p.c.,

2009).

Indigenous epistemic practice is based on the mind “embodying itself in a

particular relationship with all other relations” (Cajete, 2000, p. 68) - including other

humans, animals, plants, ancestor and master spirits and natural landscapes.

Furthermore, the socio-ecological relationships and understandings that bind people of

the North Rupununi with all other natural entities “were set a long time ago and have

been passed down the generations…children are socialized with these visions and pass

them down to their own children” (Smith, 1999, p. 153). Reflecting on the dynamic,

dualistic and often paradoxical and conflictual nature of human contexts, Indigenous

knowledge is a way of respecting and reconciling flux and opposing forces and “leads to

freedom of consciousness and to solidarity with the natural world” (Battiste & Henderson

In McGregor, 2004, p. 390).

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Indigenous epistemology also refers to a people’s ways of being present and

aware in the world; of perceiving and constructing knowledge about their socio-

ecological environment and cultural worlds through teachings and oral, symbolic and

ceremonial modes of communication (Gegeo, 2002). Deloria et al. (1999) further

describe the principles of epistemological method from an Indigenous perspective as the

methodological basis for gathering information about the natural world through reciprocal

relationships between people, land, animal and plant beings that are based on

responsible and ethical human actions. Cheney (2002) also links cultural expression to

ethical practice through peoples’ enactment of narratives relating humans, animal and

plant beings, land and the spiritual world. Since knowledge does not exist in any

comprehensible terrain outside of human culture (Mentore, 2005), epistemology and

knowledge forms must then be understood and interpreted through history, culture and

cultural expression.

Global Conservation Perspectives Related to Indigenous Knowledges

My research on the engagement between Indigenous natural history knowledge and

wildlife expertise, and conservation science within the NRDDB-IIC partnership indicates

that the most significant paradigmatic differences is the positivistic model that frames

most conservation doctrine. There is a cultural and epistemological divide shaped by

science’s reliance on hierarchical typologies; objective and unbiased epistemological

positioning; statistical knowledge based on summarized, numericized and unambiguous

relationships (Agrawal, 2005); decontextualized analysis and dualistic understanding of

the relationship between human culture and nature. Moreover, conservation science has

been constructed and disseminated as the dominant discourse not due to its inherent

superiority, but due to assumptions about scientific knowledge representing the most

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rational, efficient and modern axioms for understanding and conserving the environment.

Val Plumwood’s (2003) ecofeminist analysis of dominant scientific and conservation

discourses further states that conservation scientific and managerial frameworks have

been constructed and inculcated as the normative and universal ways of conceptualizing

and conserving the natural world.

Conservation management discourse and policy have become a contested

terrain in terms of how differentially positioned social groups choose to claim, define, and

value practices of wildlife conservation according to their respective worldviews and

epistemic contexts (Chung Tiam Fook, 2006). With regard to the value and use of

Indigenous knowledges within collaborative and integrative approaches, assumptions

that Indigenous knowledges are static, unscientific and uniformly applicable to diverse

regions and ecosystems continue to underpin much of mainstream conservation

discourse and policies (Pottier et al., 2003). Battiste and Henderson (in McGregor, 2004)

identify three problematic issues with scientific and other conventional constructs of

Indigenous Knowledge or TEK. First, is the imposition of restrictive, normative and often

decontextualized definitions on aspects of knowledge. The second is that the use of

such definitions generalizes particular knowledges from particular Indigenous groups to

all Indigenous peoples. The third issue is that Indigenous knowledge is part of the

people and "cannot be separated from the bearer to be codified into a definition” (p.

390).

Hence, ubiquitous constructions of Indigenous knowledges as meta-narratives

result from misappropriation and re-narration by conservation and policy actors for

political and strategic reasons that have arguably served their own interests and

campaigns more than they have substantively contributed to strengthening Indigenous

institutions (Brosius, 2001). Such attempts to appropriate Indigenous knowledges and

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make them complementary within dominant conservation and development frameworks

do not equate with attempting to achieve a more balanced synthesis between the

knowledge paradigms (Pottier et al., 2003). Mainstream scientific constructions of

Indigenous or local knowledges as depoliticized and dehistoricized systems of concepts

and categories are neo-colonial acts to silence and neutralize the historical and socio-

cultural contexts that shape and reshape such knowledge forms (Bannerji, 2003; Odora-

Hoppers, 2002; Simpson, 2004; Smith, 1999). However, a critically reflexive integration

between scientific conservation models and Indigenous ecological knowledges can

provide more inclusive and multi-dimensional approaches to understanding ecosystems

and wildlife, and their relationship to human history and culture (Davison-Hunt & Berkes,

2003 & Silvius et al., 2004).

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CHAPTER TWO: DESIGNING A RESEARCH PRACTICE

Shape-Shifting and Navigating Multiple Worlds

My positionality as a Canadian woman of Guyanese-Amerindian-Chinese and European

ancestry, as well as an academic, educator, conservationist, and activist, has enabled

me to traverse diverse paradigmatic and cultural worlds, both personal and professional.

Similar to Indigenous shamans in Guyana (peaimen and peaiwomen) — some of whom

can shape-shift into animals and other forms with the help of an animal master spirit,

those of us who embrace multiple worlds are also shape-shifters. Indigenous and

Western knowledges and worldviews, although quite different, often co-exist in one

person, one organization, or one community. For many Indigenous people, this duality

leads them to feel as though they are living in two worlds. Thus, my grounding within the

multiple worlds and discourses of this doctoral research is important. It has contoured

and nuanced my worldview and epistemological positioning, framing the ways in which I

engage with, interpret, and articulate the diverse issues I explore. Barnhardt and

Kawagley (2005) assert that, “non-Native people, too, need to recognize the coexistence

of multiple worldviews and knowledge systems, and find ways to understand and relate

to the world in its multiple dimensions and varied perspectives” (p. 9).

My Guyanese and Amerindian origins; personal knowledge and comfort with

Guyanese culture, politics, Creole language and food; and family name lent an

immediate level of familiarity and partial insider status amongst the North Rupununi

communities and the IIC. However, adding to the interesting terrain of insider/outsider

positioning is my physical appearance, as either somewhat Amerindian or, more often,

as a “Brazo gyal” (Brazilian girl). Additionally, my having grown up in Canada, and my

researcher status added a layer to my position as outsider. Although rarely mentioned in

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the literature on qualitative research, I argue that personality and interpersonal relations

are also important factors in determining whether a researcher is privileged with access,

trust, and insight into the research context and communities. Hence, my sociability,

cultural ease, deference and awareness of micro social and political relationships and

nuances greatly facilitated my acceptance by community members and NGO staff. A

caveat must be made that any society, especially a remote and historically marginalized

community, such as that of the North Rupununi communities, has understandable

reservations about non-residents’ interests in conducting research in their territories.

Furthermore, the current climate of economic desperation, political disintegration, and

ethnic violence in Guyana has heightened such reservations and tensions.

While I did not wish to become fixated on my locations of difference or

insider/outsider status, it was important that I remain reflexive of my subjectivities to

avoid imposing or re-inscribing power or authority imbalances amongst my colleagues

and participants. I was deeply fortunate to be repeatedly welcomed and hosted by the

villagers in the communities of the North Rupununi and the staff and students at Bina Hill

Institute and the North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB). Moreover, I was

entrusted with the experiences, knowledge, and projects of the research collaborators

and participants who generously and openly assisted and shared their experiences.

The multi-ethnic, feminist, and transdisciplinary educational and ideological

positionings that I bring to this study provide diverse and situated perspectives to my

understanding of the social and ecological phenomena, influencing the research context.

These perspectives and assumptions shape the critical, decolonizing, feminist, and

collaborative methodological choices that I make within this research study.

Sandra Harding’s (1993) work on feminist standpoint epistemology is reflected in

the ways that I conceptualize, embody, and implement this study, as well as the ways I

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position myself as researcher within the social and political spaces of the field context.

As such, critical awareness of my location in the shifting power relations, vis-à-vis the

research participants in the “context of discovery” (Harding, 1993), is imperative. The

community and institutional collaborators in this study represent differentially positioned

social groups, in terms of their political and economic power and access. While not static

and in the midst of change, the Iwokrama conservation project and Indigenous

communities continue to be influenced by a dominant and patriarchal hierarchy that

privileges certain groups above others, particularly those who are male, adult, well-

educated, and science-oriented.

In framing and defining the substantive and methodological dimensions of this

research, I became aware of the layered responsibilities I embody within this work: first,

to the Indigenous communities, conservationists, animals, and forests of Guyana, and

second, to furthering scholarship and informed practice within collaborative conservation

partnerships and community-led conservation. As I entered the research context in the

North Rupununi, my self-awareness of positionality moved from the philosophical realm

into reality. I realized that inhabiting an “insider/outsider” research position was neither

as seamless as I had thought it would be, nor as challenging. However, I sometimes

experienced the complexity of negotiating my various locations as researcher, woman,

Guyanese-Canadian, mixed-race within the social hierarchies of the North Rupununi

communities and institutional settings.

Peake and Trotz (1999), in their study on gendered spaces and narratives in

Guyana, contemplate their positionalities and standpoints within the insider/outsider

research construct. They grapple with issues of participant access and authenticity, vis-

à-vis the researcher’s location within, or outside of (or a combination of both) a

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participant’s epistemic community, which can be understood as epistemic privilege.

Peake and Trotz (1999, p. 32) ask the critical question:

…whether belonging to a community necessarily enables us to obtain more “authentic” information than outsiders, by virtue of gaining easier acceptance, having privileged knowledge, speaking the same language, recognizing unspoken codes, or experiencing similar forms of subordination… consideration of the specific trajectories that shape our relations to communities with which we claim affiliation or which claim affiliation to us.

While in Guyana, and North Rupununi in particular, I was able to permeate

different social contexts and situations at, perhaps, a deeper and more intimate level

than researchers who have no cultural connection to Guyana or the region. My

knowledge and understanding of Guyanese Creole and culture and aspects of different

Amerindian cultures, as well as my Guyanese and Amerindian heritage have been

helpful. They enabled me to not only gain a minimal level of acceptance but facilitated

my understanding of and ease within the social context of the study. As well, my interest

and ability to assist staff and students at the BHI, was greatly appreciated, providing

further insights and space for building relationships.

The interventions of feminist critical theorists and critical animal theorists on

issues of race, gender, animals, power, and privilege have been instrumental in the

development of critical social, decolonizing/postcolonial, and anti-oppressive theories.

The historically dominant privileging of positivist epistemology and research in

development and conservation projects is particularly discordant for Indigenous peoples

throughout the world; these peoples have been active in decolonizing their communities

and institutions, while reclaiming their voices, histories, and knowledges (Simpson,

2004; Smith, 1999). Only then can alternative histories and alternative knowledges

(Smith, 1999) inspire alternative collaborative conservation partnerships.

My goal throughout this research has been to reflexively “step outside of”

(Moosa-Mitha, 2005) and challenge the dominant power and knowledge regimes within

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conservation and positivist paradigms, emphasizing instead the subjugated knowledges,

and active participation of Indigenous and other traditionally marginalized groups (see:

Kovach, 2005; Spivak, 1999). Stepping outside creates a space for counter-hegemonic

and locally grounded knowledge production that emphasizes the significance of the

social and ecological agencies of Indigenous collaborators.

Epistemological and Ontological Assumptions

Conducting this research in the North Rupununi has further shaped the ontological,

epistemological, and methodological frameworks underpinning the study. The following

questions guided my reflexive stance (inspired by: Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006; Strega,

2005):

1) What beliefs, values, and moral assumptions underlie my analytical and narrative processes?

2) How can I effectively capture and/or reconcile the complexities and tensions of

the actors and worlds I am studying? 3) Whose voices and knowledges does my research empower or exclude? 4) Whose interests does my research directly and indirectly serve? 5) How do I negotiate personal and professional boundaries? 6) How can the integrity of the research collaborators’ contributions and of the

research be maintained, while challenging dominant research and conservation frameworks?

7) How can I maintain intellectual and critical integrity in the research process, while being committed to collaborative, decolonizing, and social or environmental justice processes?

The knowledge generated in this research is grounded not only within theoretical

discourse, but also within the life experiences and perspectives of the research

participants (human and nonhuman). I argue that collaborative and decolonized

practices, such as critical ethnography, participatory action research, and map

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biographies, can be emancipatory for Indigenous and other subaltern knowledges (see

Moosa-Mitha, 2005). Such practices must recognize and support marginalized peoples’

agencies, life experiences, and worldviews as they choose to embody and actuate them

in the knowledge-making process. This perspective reverberates in the understanding of

many Indigenous peoples that the beginning of knowledge is the recognition that every

being and phenomenological event in the world is interconnected, through relationships

of shared agency and interdependency (see: Youngblood Henderson, 2000).

Code (2006), similarly, explores the range of epistemic responsibility by

“developing an epistemological position for which critical environmental praxis are

primary sites for knowledge construction” (p.99). Such epistemological positioning can

also create spaces for the researcher and participants to engage in ethical

environmental praxis (Fawcett, 2000) and relationships of reciprocity, by re-envisioning

collaborative wildlife conservation. Cheney (2002) stipulates that “to articulate an

epistemology is to articulate an ethical practice,” where the “task of ethics is to explore

and enrich the world with a non-exclusive, open-ended consideration of all beings” (p.

91).

.

A Critical Praxis-Oriented and Collaborative Approach

Theoretical perspectives within the critical paradigm, including critical theory, feminist

theory, political ecology, post-colonial theory, and animal geography, have framed this

study, providing form and meaning and instilling a sense of intellectual integrity

throughout. However, it is the empirical study in North Rupununi, Guyana that truly

constitutes the uniqueness and heart of this doctoral work and has been invaluable to

the quality of this research: working closely with local and institutional collaborators at

the different project sites; absorbing the richness and stories of the landscapes, animals,

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and plants of North Rupununi; and gleaning insights into the myriad ecological, politico-

economic, socio-cultural, and historical dimensions conditioning local wildlife practices,

conservation relationships, management, and epistemic processes.

Challenging and moving beyond the boundaries of positivistic and traditional

research paradigms has been central to this work. The methodological design enabled

me, within the research to collaborate, engage, and explore context, in a grounded,

dynamic, and inclusive manner; thus, I was able to gain understanding of complex and

layered phenomena, which may have otherwise been impenetrable. I crafted this

research in a way that is simultaneously rigorous and influential within academic and

policy settings, as well as informative for local communities and conservation

organizations, within the study context and globally. Through data collection and

community engagement with diverse actors –– particularly youth, women, and elders ––

I sought to create a research experience that is as much about deep collaboration,

revitalizing knowledge and cultural traditions, and empowering local agency, as it is

about developing theory and scholarship.

Critical Ethnography

Critical ethnography, particularly its elements of critical engagement and praxis-oriented

research, has been instrumental in shaping this research study and analyzing the study

outcomes. Ethnographic research, in its colonial anthropology orientation, has led to the

systematic objectification, devaluation, and dehumanization of Indigenous and traditional

communities worldwide (Apffel-Marglin, 1998; Smith, 1999). Critical ethnography

emerged as a form of decolonizing traditional ethnographic research by de-centering

dominant and othering knowledge and power structures and focusing on the voices,

knowledges, and practices of the individuals or communities studied. However, in earlier

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critical ethnographic work there is insufficient focus on the positionality of researchers

and the potential ways that power and authority continue to be re-inscribed within

ethnographic studies.

Many community-led or centred research projects around the world have

employed praxis-oriented or participatory action research as a vehicle for critical

research, social justice activism, and movement-building (Castellano, 1993; Fals-Borda,

1987; Rahman, 1993). However disparities remain between the participation and social

action that Indigenous and local communities envision and the unfortunate reality of the

research, actually deepening socio-political cleavages and marginalization (Cooke &

Kothari, 2001). Noblit et al. (2004) critique traditional understandings of critical

ethnography and advocate for a more reflexive and decolonizing research approach as

integral to critical perspectives and social action. The new possibilities of conducting

research that is critical and reflexive, while committed to contributing to re-envisioning

and transforming social processes and relationships, have been particularly influential to

my work within the North Rupununi communities and institutional settings that inform

environmental and conservation attitudes and practices.

Furthermore, compared to other methodological approaches, critical ethnography

is unique in the researcher’s immersion within the multiple lived realities of actors within

the research context. My ability to share in the situated perspectives and stories of both

the community and institutional research collaborators revealed dimensions and

nuances of the research area, and the larger social context, that further enriched the

research analysis. I have thus crafted this empirical research as a form of critical,

reflexive, and engaged praxis (Lather in Brown & Strega, 2005). This study has been a

process of critical, social inquiry and agency and of emergent change, shaped by the

specific relationships and conditions of the research context.

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Praxis entails a union of theory, practice, and activism within the research

conducted and the scholarship produced. However, this multi-dimensional engagement

can be challenging; it requires a great deal of commitment and agency to move beyond

the conventional models and to re-envision a more democratic and emancipatory course

of research. Ruddick’s (2004) discussion of creating activist possibilities within

geography research underscores that the researcher’s ability to contribute to critical

social transformation requires more than a moment of activism; it requires “long-term,

committed, political and intellectual engagement” and “a different set of conditions to

nurture it” (p. 230). Such conditions include the researcher’s personal and professional

interest in particular issues and communities, sustained personal connections grounding

the researcher within the context, and the possibility for contributing to processes of

critical social change.

Re-envisioning emancipatory spaces in research also involves the commitment

to challenge and potentially disrupt discourses and regimes of power that work to

oppress and marginalize (Moosa-Mitha, 2005) the individuals or communities with whom

we collaborate. Re-envisioning also involves re-negotiating the research and knowledge-

building process, so that our research becomes embodied with the perspectives,

experiences, and knowledges of our collaborators. This study does not represent the

authoritative voice of either the Makushi and other Indigenous communities of the North

Rupununi, or the management and researchers of the IIC. However, my understanding

of this complex and substantive topic has been inspired and nourished by the knowledge

and guidance of the community and institutional collaborators, who directly and indirectly

assisted me. In terms of navigating the degree of reciprocity in this relationship, it has

been crucial for me to be conscious of what I leave the participants and their wider

communities with, and what I possibly take away from them.

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Since my research interest is intertwined with my desire to contribute to critical

and transformative change, I have approached this doctoral work as both an academic

and a social justice project. Within the context of this study on collaborative partnerships

in wildlife management in North Rupununi, a social justice project took shape. This

project has focused on promoting and supporting the locally embedded wildlife practices

and autonomous, socio-ecological governance structures within conservation and

protected area frameworks. Furthermore, this research has sought to challenge

dominant and business-as-usual discourses, while working to revitalize relevant

customary systems, influence institutional support for community-led conservation

structures, and explore the potential of syncretic knowledge and management

processes.

The research process has been reflective and transformative for me as a

researcher as well as for the community and institutional collaborators, who have

contributed their knowledge, stories, challenges, aspirations, and spirit to this study.

Thus, this dissertation is as much a project of the North Rupununi communities and

institutions as it is my own. It is my sincere hope that the quality, integrity, and

application of the outcomes of this research study become part of the process for

deepening understanding, dialogue, and critical social change within both collaborative

and community-led conservation strategies.

A Collaborative Framework

Similar to concepts of conservation and collaboration, for Indigenous peoples in the

North Rupununi, research is also about relationship-building between community

members and conservationists, and amongst community members. Collaborative

research raises questions about the dichotomous relationship between conservation

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“experts” and local “non-experts” and how research and knowledge comes to be

produced and valued. Furthermore, which group of experts or non-experts comes to

decide how the natural world, Indigenous peoples and animals are represented — and

to whose benefit?

Thus, while collaborative in approach, when only dominant scientific and

technical expertise are privileged, collaborative conservation can “reinscribe power

relations and authority between researchers or experts and the participants, rather than

subverting them…” (Cooke & Kothari, 2001, p. 158). With respect to decolonizing

collaborative or participatory research relationships between Indigenous communities

and external researchers, Smith (1999), Chambers (1997) and Cooke and Kothari

(2001) emphasize an imperative for reflexive awareness by conservation researchers of

how power is often inequitably configured within the research process. Power and

valuing “who’s knowledge counts” should be reconfigured so that Indigenous actors and

researchers feel empowered within the research relationship and throughout the

research process – from design to analysis.

The central and cross-cutting methodological approach that I developed

and employed throughout the empirical research study in North Rupununi is a

“collaborative framework” (Chung Tiam Fook, 2006). This approach is loosely based on

collaborative research strategies employed between Indigenous and non-Indigenous

researchers in New Zealand (Smith, 1999) and the Chocó, Colombia (Ulloa et al., 2004).

The framework consists of seven facets that coincide with praxis-oriented and critical

ethnography approaches – participation, autonomy, equity, interculturality, dialogue,

partnership, and continuity. When knowledge is collaboratively produced in contexts,

such as the North Rupununi communities where it resonates and can be practiced – it is

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deepened and enriched and becomes a vehicle for proactive strategy-building for both

the communities and their conservation partners.

Participation promotes the active involvement and interests of the community and

institutional participants, during the research process (including traditionally excluded

villagers, such as women and youth).

Autonomy respects the agency of Indigenous people to make

management and

development decisions, regarding management and use of their lands, wildlife and forest

resources, knowledges, and cultural institutions.

Equity challenges power imbalances and promotes equitable and

democratic

decision-making and power-sharing between the researcher and the participants and

amongst participants.

Interculturality facilitates the exchange of different forms of knowledge,

interpretation, and articulation between Indigenous and conservation epistemic cultures.

Dialogue ensures that communication and knowledge-building processes are

participatory, transparent, and inclusive of different voices and perspectives. Oral and

written communications are transmitted in culturally appropriate media and language

and complemented by materials that socialize information.

Partnership orients collaborative research and conservation relationships between

the researcher and the community and institutional collaborators, and between

community and institutional partners.

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Continuity enables a long-term process of engagement and reciprocity between the

researcher and the collaborators and between the community and institutional partners

that go beyond the instrumental scope of the project.

Research Methods in Context: The Research Sites

The designated research sites for this project comprise two types: primary and

secondary locations. The primary fieldwork sites are located in North Rupununi, Guyana

and include: the Iwokrama Field Station in Kurupukari; the Bina Hill Institute of Training

(BHI), Research and Development in Annai District; and the villages of Surama, Rewa,

Wowetta, and Fairview (see Map 4.1). The secondary site is the head office of the

Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development in

Georgetown.

The four North Rupununi communities included in this study have the greatest

collaborative linkages to the IIC and the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession and

the greatest geographic proximity to the Iwokrama Forest. These communities are

mainly composed of Makushi households (Wowetta Village and Rewa Village), as well

as mixed Amerindian and non-Amerindian households (Surama Village and Fairview

Village), including: Wapishana, Patemona, Arawak (Lokono), Indo-Guyanese, and Afro-

Guyanese villagers. The villages also represent a variety of ecotones and vegetation

landscapes that typify the region: primary rainforest, riparian forest, and savannah and

riverine areas (see Map 2.1). Thus, the forms of village social organization, cultural

institutions, governance, livelihoods, and environmental relationships are representative

of the North Rupununi region.

Although the assemblage of community and institutional structures and

relationships in these villages are particular to the region, the cultural institutions, local

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environmental practices and relationships, and conservation challenges and possibilities

are similar throughout Guyana and the Amazonic region. Hence, some of the broader

outcomes and policy implications of this study may be extrapolated to contexts within the

Amazonic region and, possibly, in other parts of the world, where there are comparable

collaborative conservation relationships.

While familiar with the coastal region of Guyana, I journeyed to the North

Rupununi for the first time on a pilot study in 2007 to discuss my proposed research

study and meet with staff from the Iwokrama Centre for Conservation, the North

Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB), and Bina Hill Institute (BHI). I was able

to locate key collaborators from NRDDB-BHI who were willing to assist me with some of

the planning and execution of the empirical research; they also provided me with

materials and background information on the social and conservation contexts of the

region. The pilot study was instrumental in designing the research and field study; it

enabled me to envision the biophysical, socio-cultural, and institutional contexts of the

case study as well as the actors and practices that would inform my research. I

established institutional affiliation with both the IIC and the NRDDB during the course of

the research project in North Rupununi, from 2008 until 2009.

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Map 2.1 Vegetation Landscapes of Guyana (Colchester, 1997)

In the North Rupununi, I was primarily based at the Bina Hill Institute and the

NRDDB in Annai District; I often visited and stayed in the four villages where I collected

data, the Iwokrama Field Station, and the Iwokrama Forest protected area. I trained and

collaborated primarily with my Makushi research partner for the duration of my empirical

study – a BHI staff member who has skills and knowledge on mapping techniques, local

wildlife and tree species, and Makushi translation. I also collaborated with several

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women community researchers from the NRDDB’s Makushi Research Unit; they

assisted me with Makushi language translation, identifying relevant research

participants, approaching village elders, and verifying that my interview and map

biography guides were culturally appropriate.

A Multi-Method Approach to Social Inquiry

This study is mainly qualitative in nature; however, I also employ quantitative tools such

as GIS geospatial software to analyze and create community maps, and NVIVO analysis

software for coding and organizing the qualitative data collected from interviews, map

biographies, and field notes. I have employed a multi-method approach in order to

collect varied and rich forms of data, to obtain multiple and alternative perspectives on

the research themes, and triangulate the data through independent sources, such as

interviews, documents, and participatory observation, enhancing the validity of the

research outcomes (see: Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006). This research approach includes

a combination of the following research methods:

documents and content analysis participant observation in-depth semi-structured interviews map biographies and community-wildlife use/interaction maps (sketch maps,

base maps, and GIS maps)

Documents and Content Analysis

Due to my institutional affiliation with the NRDDB, Bina Hill Institute, and Iwokrama

International Centre, I was privy to the use of sensitive documents that have been

invaluable for background research and framing this research project. These documents

are primary source materials, including: wildlife research studies; project and program

reports; community natural resource management agreements, plans, and guidelines;

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legal frameworks (Acts, agreements, regulations, and MOUs); and policy and strategy

drafts. Media sources, such as press releases by Amerindian organizations and relevant

Guyanese news articles and editorials, were also informative to this study, providing a

forum of discussion on such issues that are not formally published in a country like

Guyana.

I conducted unobtrusive analysis of both primary and secondary source

documents (see: Esterberg, 2002), searching for relevant emergent issues as well as

central themes and ideas that coincide with the research questions and the various

research themes. I was particularly interested in documents regarding community-level

wildlife and resource management frameworks, the collaborative management

partnership between NRDDB and the IIC, collaborative wildlife research, and local and

national conservation strategies. Analysis of these documents allowed me to generate

broad understandings of the global and national processes and agendas that influence

conservation policy and practice within the North Rupununi region. The documents also

provided detailed insight into the social and ecological contexts within the communities

and the institutional dynamics and micro-politics that influence local and national

conservation policy and practice.

Due in part to the oral tradition of most Indigenous societies in Guyana, their

customary knowledges are not well-documented either within the communities or by

external researchers and historians. Yet they live and breathe through elders and other

knowledge holders, and through customary institutions and cultural articulations such as

stories, teachings, myths, plant medicines, animal and plant taxonomies, communal

property and environmental management systems, leadership and decision-making

mechanisms, dance, songs and music, and craft-making. In terms of written

documentation, there have been few anthropologists and historians who have attempted

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to document Makushi knowledge, particularly in people’s own words and in accordance

with their own aspirations. Numerous articles and books have referenced, footnoted or

even been written about Makushi and other Indigenous peoples in Guyana, but mostly

as they illustrate other issues and/or showcase the author’s gaze on them (Brett et al.,

1868; Butt-Colson & Morton, 1982; Forte, 1996; Henfrey, 1965; Ralegh/Schomberg,

1848; Roth, 1915; Whitehead, 1993 & 2002). Hence, my commitment to including within

this study some of the rich nuance and complexity of Indigenous knowledge, cultural and

narrative forms as they constitute situated wildlife and environmental practices and

conservation.

Participant Observation and Field Notes

Participant observation was systematically employed to obtain a more intimate

understanding of the social interactions, communications (both verbal and non-verbal),

and underlying relational dynamics, within and between NRDDB/ BHI staff, village

leaders, villagers, and IIC staff. I was able to observe the interplay of power, authority,

respect, camaraderie, transparency, and/or secrecy at interpersonal and inter-group

levels, within informal conversations, office interactions, and, particularly, meetings and

other formal gatherings.

Informal discussions with staff, from NRDDB/BHI, the IIC, Conservation

International, Project Fauna, United Nations Development Program, IUCN, and WWF,

provided background knowledge of the region, different projects underway, and diverse

perspectives and institutional interests in relation to the forests, wildlife, and local

knowledge and cooperation. Where possible, I observed interactions between villagers

and local wildlife species. While collecting data with participants, domestic and wild

animals would often interact with us on some level and these interaction spaces

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included: the village compound; fishing, hiking, tour guiding, and educational field

excursions; and transects around the village with Project Fauna community researchers.

Furthermore, I engaged with the rhythms and activities at the BHI and

surrounding villages, particularly in interacting with the villagers, staff, researchers, and

students. It was also important to me that I contribute in some concrete way to the

communities and institutions that assisted me in the study. Since my time within the

research context was limited and I had many research activities to complete, I was

limited in my ability to provide the level of consultation and teaching support to the BHI

that was requested at times. Nevertheless, I was able to contribute my support and skills

through a number of interesting activities. My interest in environmental youth leadership

and the activities of wildlife and environmental clubs within the region inspired me to

provide mentorship to the youth and club leaders in residence at the Bina Hill Institute. I

enjoyed providing martial arts classes to the youth and assisted local teachers at the

training institute with developing wildlife management and community mapping curricula.

The most significant commitment I have undertaken through this study is

supporting community efforts to revitalize cultural institutions and customary knowledge.

I have produced community maps for the four focal villages, based on cultural and

environmental customs, wildlife patterns, and human–animal interactions; these maps

are generated from the map biographies I collected from elders, hunters, and village

counselors. The BHI currently has a mapping project underway to update the spatial

data on village boundaries, location of ecological entities, key resources, and community

resource use areas. The research maps and accompanying narratives provide an

overlay of cultural and ecological knowledge that is not easily accessible within the North

Rupununi communities. I have also archived the coded interview and map biography

data to provide the NRDDB and BHI with a database of quotes and stories on the

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diverse themes, issues, and practices that inform their conservation, community

development, and educational projects. Moreover, this doctoral research project has

provided the foundation for a long-term collaborative relationship that I intend to

maintain, particularly in the areas of environmental youth leadership, local conservation

capacity development, and local wildlife research.

Participant observations were documented in detailed field notes that provided

me with a record to refer to throughout the data analysis and writing process. Esterberg

(2002) states that field notes are more than an act of passively recording thoughts and

observations; they require an active process of decision making about what empirical

information is important to include and interpreting meaning from such information. While

at the Bina Hill Institute, in the villages, and in the Iwokrama Forest reserve, I noted

various layers of information. The social context and relational dynamics within the

communities and local institutions were significant in my notes, as well as pieces of

important project information, stories, and experiential reflections that were informally

shared with me. I also took note of my physical surroundings and made wildlife

observations, since they are foundational to my enduring interest in the research topic

and setting, as well as the practices and relationships I explore in this study.

Semi-Structured Interviews and Map Biographies

In-depth, semi-structured interviews and map biographies emphasize the first-hand

transmission of knowledge, especially experiential and intergenerational knowledge, as

expressed through one-on-one interviews with participants. Conducting in-depth

interviews and map biographies with my research partner, interview participants and

their family members, and the occasional local animals was a collaborative experience.

It entailed reciprocal engagement, rapport, and dialogue-building between myself and

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those present and the ability of the participants to articulate their memories, experiences,

and feelings in their own voice (see: Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2006).

An integral consideration within dialogical research approaches is language.

Language is central in the social interactions of human and non-human worlds and is a

particularly important factor in the articulation and development of environmental

knowledge and practice. For Indigenous societies in Guyana and much of the world,

language is one of the most significant features in the reclamation and continuity of

cultural and ecological knowledge systems.

Although familiar and comfortable with Indigenous narrative formats in the

Caribbean and Canada, I was delighted by how common place narrative continues to be

among the North Rupununi communities, even for the younger participants. Within the

in-depth semi-structured interviews and map biographies I conducted, animal and place-

name stories and stories about customary beliefs – such as sacred areas, animal

masters, and animal taboos – featured prominently. For the most part, the stories

narrated were collectively known within the community; richly detailed and animated;

and, although some were located in a particular historical moment, the stories had a

timeless and transcendent quality for the participants. Each story typically contained a

moral thread (Cronon, 1992); participants would directly or indirectly link the stories to

observing customary beliefs and practices and to respecting the animals, plants, and

environment around them.

In disrupting a more static, normative research framework, narrative-based data

enables us to engage “more situated local community perspectives; conversations about

moral, ethical, and critical consciousness; and social critique that connect personal to

social to environmental dimensions of discourse practice” (Hart, 2002). King (2003)

reminds us that stories open the door to our understanding of the world and of ourselves

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because stories make us who we are. Hence, the narrative form that the community

participants employ transcends detailed descriptions of the places, actors, events, and

practices that influence historical and contemporary ecological change and human–

animal relationships; it also represents knowledge grounded within personal

engagement and the collective memories that have contributed to the narrative.

Although I arrived at the research setting with a basic set of interview questions, I

collaborated with my research partner and other research collaborators at the BHI to

create the interview guides on-site. It was also important to gain a better sense of the

social context, particularly the social dynamics of the communities, roles, and activities

of relevant institutions and the engagement between the local institutions, conservation

organizations, and communities. I wanted to know more about the wildlife and

conservation research and projects that had been undertaken and were in progress as

well.

The Research Sample: Social and Thematic Groups

In determining the research sample, I first identified the social and thematic groups that

could provide the most relevant perspectives for understanding the different dimensions

of the research questions. For each of the four villages of Surama, Wowetta, Rewa, and

Fairview, I organized the sample groups under the headings of: 1) village leaders,

2) Iwokrama management, 3) former community environmental workers, 4) Iwokrama

rangers, 5) Wildlife Club leaders, 6) village elders and peaimen (shaman), and 7) village

hunters.

Village Leaders Village leaders consist of the village toshao (leader) and senior and junior village

counsellors, all of whom are elected by villagers for a three-year term. The toshao and

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senior village counsellors represent the village at the NRRDB and are invested with most

of the leadership, and resource management decision-making at the village level.

However, there are many points of consultation, and consensus decision-making is

conducted with the entire village, during regular public meetings, including report-back of

collaborative meetings and workshops with NRDDB, IIC, and other organizational

partners.

IIC Management

IIC management includes directors and managers from both the head office in

Georgetown and the field station in Kurupukari. The directors and managers coordinate

and lead diverse research, training, and programmatic activities for IIC and have

extensive engagement with the North Rupununi communities, especially a field station

manager and former field operations manager, who are from the communities.

Community Environmental Workers

Former community environmental workers (CEWs) were selected to represent their

communities in a program supported by IIC and which evolved from a community-

defined interest in having trained rangers based within different villages. The CEWs

were trained in diverse conservation and community participation workshops and acted

as an important liaison and source of information and knowledge dissemination between

the communities, the NRDDB, and the IIC. They were instrumental in raising awareness

and bridging knowledge and language differences on conservation; collaboration with

NRDDB and IIC on environmental and wildlife management issues; taking on

environmental leadership and supporting local wildlife club activities; and assisting in

projects such as community resource mapping, wildlife research, and village

conservation activities. Although IIC funding for the program ended in late 2002, the

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majority of former CEWs continue to be actively involved in conservation and leadership

activities within the communities.

Iwokrama Rangers

Iwokrama rangers are predominantly community members and have been trained by IIC

in diverse natural science, social science, and cultural topics. Although based in the

Iwokrama Forest reserve and the CI Conservation Concession, the rangers have been

important educational and conservation liaisons between the communities and IIC or CI.

They are also instrumental in bridging knowledge forms (particularly scientific,

experiential, and cultural), taking on environmental leadership roles in their communities,

and acting as a source of mentoring to village youth. The ranger activities in the

Iwokrama reserve and the CI Concession include: wildlife, road, and river monitoring;

assisting in wildlife and forestry research; community outreach; assisting visitors and

researchers at the Field Station; and general maintenance.

Wildlife Club Leaders

Wildlife club leaders are mainly older youth (with the exception of one teacher), who act

as either president or coordinator of a village club. They coordinate and lead activities,

such as wildlife observation and monitoring employing citizen science tools; creating

trails for wildlife observation; wildlife outings; providing encouragement and mentoring to

younger members; participating in centralized meetings and wildlife and conservation

workshops; and reporting back to other members. Wildlife club leaders aim to provide a

foundation for youth to gain first-hand experience in wildlife conservation and

management, wildlife research, and environmental leadership within the community.

Junior wildlife clubs and the ranger training program were developed by the NRDDB

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communities and are facilitated and supported by IIC as a significant and integral part of

the wildlife conservation and management program for the North Rupununi and

Iwokrama Reserve.

Village Elders and Peaimen

Village elders and peaimen are community members, who are predominantly aged 55

years and older. They are recognized and respected within their villages as those with

much knowledge and a long social and environmental memory of community life,

customary traditions, and environmental change within the region. Most elders possess

many stories and memories pertaining to animals, animal behaviours and patterns, place

names, ancestral and sacred sites, harvesting and wildlife practices, and processes of

change in social life and land and resource use.

The elders hold a pivotal role in the transmission of intergenerational knowledge

and the revitalization of customary knowledge and practices, related to cultural and

environmental conservation. Peaimen or shamans take on elder responsibilities, as well

as responsibilities as healers; they have knowledge of medicinal plants and advise

villagers on animal taboos, hunting bina (plants assisting hunting), and other cultural

restrictions related to harvesting. Many peaimen also claim to have a relationship with

animal and landscape master or guardian spirits, whereby they mediate between

villagers and master spirits, negotiating the terms of harvest and use.

Village Hunters

Village hunters are villagers who actively continue to hunt and fish for their families. Most

adult villagers are able to hunt and fish to some degree, but most no longer rely much on

harvesting animals and fish to supplement their diet, due to the increasing dependence

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on wage income and consumption of domestic animals. Village hunters and fishermen

possess much knowledge on the natural history of animals (both game and non-game

animals), including wildlife behaviours, range patterns, areas of human–animal overlap,

and abundance. Many hunters also possess knowledge of environmental change in the

region and customary wildlife practices; they are also active in wildlife management and

research activities with different organizations or at the community level.

The Research Sample: Participants

I asked the MRU researcher from each village to assist me in identifying interview and

map biography participants.7 (Interview and map biography guides are included in

Appendix B). My sample of participants formally interviewed for both the in-depth, semi-

structured interviews, and map biographies comprised of sixty community members from

the four villages (a couple of participants were from Apoteri Village). I also obtained data

from informal interviews with staff from NRDDB and BHI. I focused on obtaining a

sample group of participants from each village that was as representative as possible of

the different social groups within the community, making sure to include women, youth,

and elders, whose ideas and perspectives tend to be marginalized from institutional and

research conversations (see: Forte in Colchester et al., 2002). Depending on the

thematic group interviewed, I was able to solely focus on, or obtain an equal mix of,

those traditionally marginalized perspectives (i.e., village elders, wildlife club leaders

(mainly youth), and female elders, village leaders, and former community environmental

workers). Interestingly, all of the IIC managers I was able to interview were women.

Unfortunately, the groups of village hunters and Iwokrama and Conservation

7 Most interview participants overlapped in their association with different thematic groups for example, a

village counselor would also have been a hunter and a previous Iwokrama ranger. While I did not interview these participants for their multiple roles, participants shared their cumulative knowledge from their different associations into their responses to interview questions.

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International rangers are almost exclusively men, so it was not possible to obtain a

mixed-gender sample in this context.

I was cognizant that due to a historical lack of accessibility and opportunities,

many research participants had not experienced any formal schooling or exposure to

academic research. However, the participants, who had undergone some schooling or

training, and/or have worked with conservation, NGO, administrative, and religious

institutions, were able to understand vocabulary and concepts related to resource

management, conservation, ecology, and social research. In addition, like many

Indigenous and traditional societies throughout the region, Indigenous communities in

Guyana are predominantly oral-based in the articulation and dissemination of

knowledge. Hence, data inquiry methods, such as oral narratives and in-depth

interviews, are attuned to Indigenous oral and epistemological traditions. This has begun

to change among many nations in Guyana, such as the Makushis and Wapishanas,

since linguists have lexicalized their oral languages and the written forms are taught at a

basic level within schools.

Data Collection

Semi-structured interviews were conducted for all groups and map biographies were

also conducted for village elders, village hunters, and, in some cases, village leaders

(see Appendix A for participant matrix). I designed an interview question guide for each

sample group (see Appendix B) that reflected the specific types of data and knowledge

that are relevant to the research questions, as they relate to the specialized experiences

and knowledge of the groups. For the groups with whom I also conducted a map

biography, I designed explicit questions to solicit knowledge that would provide both

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narrative and map data: on ecological features, human–animal interactions, resource

use areas, wildlife habitats and patterns, place names, memories, and stories.

I verified with my research partner and senior MRU researchers that the language

and framing of the interview questions were relevant, comprehensible, and culturally

sensitive, as well as accessible, and non-threatening in tone. The verbal participant

consent script (see Appendix C) was translated into Makushi and my research partner

assisted me in translating the interview and map biography questions into Makushi, as

well as interpreting responses and narratives by Makushi-speakers. I am conversant in

Guyanese Creole and I learned some basic Makushi and Arawak terms, phrases, and

conceptual equivalents to engage and build rapport with the research participants,

particularly the community elders. I also wanted to understand, in their original

languages, the ecological features and place names that I was recording for the map

biographies. Thus, every effort was made for the research process to be as accessible

and meaningful as possible to participants, while maintaining the integrity of the research

questions and data collected.

The experience of conducting the interviews and map biographies was

educational, rich, humbling, and exhausting. As much as possible, my research partner

and I visited each household in advance to obtain consent and determine a convenient

time to conduct the interviews; we left a copy of the interview guide, so that participants

could familiarize themselves with the nature of interview questions. In cases that

participants could not read the interview guide, my research partner and I verbally

explained, with translation when necessary, the general idea of the questions. With the

exception of potential participants who were unavailable, the response rate was 100%.

Although I had worked with my research partner and collaborators to design the

research guides in a culturally relevant and accessible manner, I was often required to

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clarify and reframe my questions, employing Makushi or more relatable conceptual

terms in dynamic and inventive ways. After the first few days of interviews in Wowetta

village, I realized that the most difficult concepts for many participants, particularly those

less connected with conservation and local institutions and projects, were those

regarding traditional or local knowledge; customary management systems related to

wildlife and forest resources; sustainability; and sacred areas. The younger participants,

who have been educated, trained, and/or professionally affiliated with the IIC, NRDDB,

or other conservation projects, are more exposed to modern conservation discourse and

language and used to articulating such concepts. Whereas participants who are not as

engaged with these institutions and projects (particularly elders and villagers who

continue to speak Makushi or other Indigenous languages), tend to interpret and express

such concepts according to their specific worldviews and experiences. These

participants continue to conceptualize their knowledge and practice as more naturalized

and internal ways of knowing, being, and acting within their environment, rather than

external cognitive entities such as TEK or customary management systems.

In fact, most of community participants, whether institutionally affiliated or not,

consider their experience and knowledge as common-sense and part of daily

Amerindian life. Many participants find it peculiar that researchers come from afar to ask

them about their naturalized knowledge and practice, though those who are

institutionally affiliated have come to recognize the demand for such knowledge. An

example of internalized oppression that emerged was that some of the community

participants seemed to regard formalized knowledge, taught in schools and the

conservation institutions, as more valuable to the research (not necessarily to

themselves). Consequently, they seemed to feel that they did not have much to

contribute to the study, since they did not possess formalized knowledge and training.

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Methodological issues such as these highlight the vast differences and lingering

disconnect between Indigenous and modern conservation epistemologies and cultures.

They also indicate the level of influence, both positive and of concern, that modern

conservation discourse is having on community members, who have been trained and

employed within such contexts.

Grounded Analysis

I chose to employ grounded theory methods (Charmaz, 2000) in the data analysis as it

allowed me to examine the data in a manner that is directly emergent from the research

context; as well, it provides iterative strategies for conducting rigorous, yet inductive and

substantive research. By employing grounded analysis throughout the empirical

research, I was able to reflect on the data collection activities and experiences each day

and determine whether I was on the right track and gathering varied and insightful data.

At any stage of the research process I was able to diagnose problematic issues and

adjust my approach or techniques to facilitate smoother processes and outcomes. For

example, when I realized, during the interview and map biography sessions, that certain

questions did not evoke dynamic and rich responses, I discussed the issue with the

research collaborators and was more reflexive of my own assumptions and interests.

When I discovered that the digital GIS map files I was given for using as a base for

constructing the composite maps were no longer usable, I searched for alternative

techniques and sources to compile and represent the data that preserved the

knowledge.

Through the vivid recordings and transcription process, I was able to vicariously

re-enter into the data and research context in a very embodied and direct way. The

audio-recordings of the interviews and map biographies were in a mixture of Guyanese

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Creole, English, and Makushi. I transcribed nuances such as laughter, annoyance,

reflective pauses, references to ambient animals and weather conditions, and self-

dialogue in parentheses within text. I coded them as emphatic or ambiguous tones of the

answers articulated (whether affirmative, undecided or negative). Data sources, such as

field notes, interview transcripts, and map biographies, were thematically coded and

developed into analytical categories, employing NVIVO 8, a computer-based analysis

program.

Consistent with feminist (Harding, 1993) and grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000)

approaches, I developed codes that emerged directly from observations, ideas, and

responses in the data, so as to not impose my research assumptions on the data. I

constructed and interpreted analytical categories by grouping thematic codes and

developing broader concepts that link with the research questions and themes. My

intention for this dissertation has been to portray a very critical, nuanced and multi-

perspective exploration of the research context, and development of theory in response

to my research questions. Hence, it was important during the data coding and

interpretation stages to consider data that was both confirming and disconfirming of my

research questions in understanding the broader narrative.

As important as it was to analyze the data sets for patterns of confirming

responses to my questions and theories, and congruent ideas and experiences, it was

also critical to search for patterns of disconfirming responses and points of divergence.

Disconfirming responses to specific questions provide an extra layer of information, as

they often correlate with: i) differences in the positionality of the respondents within the

social hierarchies of the communities and/or the institutions and ii) feelings of personal

disconnect, disinterest and apathy with modern conservation and/or customary systems.

Furthermore, outlier responses that diverged significantly from the average response

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were revealing in terms of providing alternative understandings or more critical views of

a specific issue of inquiry. To be consistent with my findings, I have based most of my

arguments and theoretical positioning on the most frequent responses, while also

discussing divergent findings that are significant to fully understanding the research

context and issues.

I also consulted with my research partner in North Rupununi on the significance

of the analytical concepts and interpretations I developed, and their relationships to

specific research issues and themes (Appendix D). Following the detailed analysis and

interpretation of the empirical data, I then focused on building a substantive

understanding of the research participants’ experiences and ideas and weaving it

together with the theoretical discourses and foundations of my study.

Maps on Community Wildlife Use and Interaction

While conducting the map biographies, my research partner and I employed various

base map sources for each village, including: GIS community resource maps (Iwokrama,

2002), topographic scans of villages (Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission, 1971),

and sketch maps where participants could identify the specific features, relationships,

and habitat and harvesting locations under inquiry (Appendix E). I created community

wildlife use and interaction maps from the combined narrative and spatial and

descriptive map data that my research partner and I collected from village elders, village

hunters, and several village leaders. I also employed secondary spatial and descriptive

map data from other collaborative mapping projects (conducted by the North Rupununi

communities and IIC) with which my research partner has been involved.

Map biographies are an informative tool and were first used by several First

Nations communities in Canada, mainly for land use and occupancy projects. In his

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guidebook to land use and occupancy mapping, and documentation of Indigenous

spatial knowledge, Tobias (2000) refers to research techniques such as map

biographies as the “mapping of cultural and resource geography” or the “geography of

oral tradition” (p. 1). Map biographies and composite maps can be instrumental in a

number of projects to further Indigenous struggles, such as documenting elder’s

knowledge, negotiating collaborative or co-management agreements, self-demarcation

of ancestral territories and areas of ecological and cultural significance, providing

evidence for court cases involving Indigenous land rights and title, and providing

baseline data for long-term community planning and resource management. In addition

to the goal of graphically mapping resource use and sites of ecological, cultural, and

livelihood practices of importance to the North Rupununi communities, I was also

interested in capturing a sense of the environmental history of the region, as conveyed

through the memories and narratives of elders.

There is an inherent ideological power associated with mapping lands and

resources, particularly the inscription of colonial power and control that has indelibly

scarred many Indigenous territories and communities. At the same time, maps can

reveal vital stories about landscapes and the land-use patterns and interests of the

communities that shape those landscapes. Political ecologists Peluso (1995) and

Rocheleau (2005) consider the alternative possibilities of counter-mapping and multi-

mapping; these approaches both examine relationships between communities and their

environment, and place and re-appropriate the state’s mapping tools for use by

Indigenous and local communities in mapping their customary entitlements. For the

North Rupununi communities, diverse local perspectives and multi-mapping alternatives

“can help people to rediscover…defend the historical and current meanings of their

lands and to map their dreams for the future…. [I]t can serve to both express and

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expand the social, ecological, and cartographic imagination of all participants”

(Rocheleau, 2005, p. 358).

As I did not have time to record positional or waypoint data and create databases

for all of the sites identified and described by the research participants, I created a layer

of new attribute data by adding names and point features or symbols overlayed onto

previously constructed GIS community resource maps (Iwokrama, 2001). The GIS

community resource maps contained some spatial and attribute data on village

boundaries, habitation areas, ecological features (ponds, lakes, rivers, forested areas,

mountain, and hill contours), and English place names for the more prevalently

frequented ecological features and places. Stories are embedded in the map with audio

WAV files, but are also available as additional text transcripts.

In analyzing the data from individual participant’s maps and narratives, the

themes that emerged coincided, for the most part, with the specific features and sites I

explored:

i) wildlife habitat areas according to species ii) areas of wildlife abundance iii) areas of human–animal interaction iv) observations of ecological change v) sacred and spiritual areas vi) ancestral and petroglyph sites vii) legends and stories associated with sacred areas and ancestral sites viii) hunting, fishing, logging, and NTFP harvesting areas ix) Makushi and Arawak place names

I also examined the narrative and map data for similar values that shaped participants’

responses and which appeared indicative of the biophysical, historical, material, cultural,

and spiritual values of the larger community. I created a composite map (represented in

Fairview Village Map 5.1). The map biographies conducted with village elders and

hunters illuminated a significant intersection between temporal, spatial and ecological

data, and social-ecological memory within Indigenous knowledge systems. Elders and

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older hunters were particularly able to trace a fluid continuum between historical and

contemporary periods of ecological change and shifts in animal populations and ranging

patterns on one hand, and shifts in harvesting, livelihood and social practices on the

other hand. I also realized how comfortable and extremely adept most community

members are with maps, navigational concepts and spatial recognition. However, unlike

external cartographers and GIS experts, community members understand the

topography and spatial representation of their lands in very detailed and nuanced ways

that speak to their close relationship and situated knowledge of the land.

Ethical Considerations

Given my concern for engaging in equitable and participatory development practices, my

regard for ethical research has been considerable. The ontological and epistemological

assumptions and methodological structure framing my research study specifically

address ethical questions about integrity, respect, reflexivity, empowerment, advocacy,

authorship and sharing authority with regard to my research collaborators/participants. I

have clearly articulated and personally embodied principles of ethical research in my

engagement with research collaborators/participants at every stage of my study. Such

principles include: respect for human dignity; respect for free prior informed consent;

respect for vulnerable persons/groups; respect for privacy and confidentiality; respect for

justice and inclusiveness; balance and distribution of harms and benefits; and minimizing

risks of harm. My primary instrument for acquiring approval from collaborators/

participants for use of their knowledge and experience in my research has been the use

of informed consent forms – both written (English) and verbal (Makushi), depending on

the comfort level of participants with written English (see Appendix C).

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Confidentiality Protocol

All research documents and interview materials have remained in my possession. I have

personally transcribed all audio information, although I had to hire Makushi translators

from the Makushi Research Unit at some junctures of the empirical research.

Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are an extremely sensitive and important issue to

Indigenous communities. Too often, the knowledge and articulations of Indigenous

peoples have either been appropriated without their consent, or they have been used out

of context and for purposes that have been contrary to the community’s beliefs and

values. Both the North Rupununi District Development Board and the Iwokrama

Conservation Centre have been adamant about protecting Indigenous intellectual

property rights with regard to Indigenous ecological and cultural knowledge forms and

their integration into conservation and community development management plans,

reports and publications. Thus, I requested formal permission from the NRDDB and

individual Indigenous collaborators/participants for the use of their knowledge, narratives

and produced materials within my project. Indigenous peoples must be the first

beneficiaries of the knowledge co-created with myself as the principle researcher, and

other conservation collaborators. Furthermore, the ownership and use of knowledge

emerging from this research study must be accessible for all members of the community.

Summary

The critical ethnographic, collaborative, feminist and action-oriented methodological

framework and qualitative multiple methods (semi-semistructured interviews, map

biographies, participant observation and document analysis) I have mobilized for my

empirical research in the North Rupununi, Guyana have produced a body of data that is

robust, nuanced and place-based. A concept from Smith’s (1999) work on decolonizing

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methodology and crafting an Indigenous research practice, ‘research as transformation,’

resonates in both the methodological intention and experience of this study. My research

practice has been transformative for myself and for my diverse research participants in

surprising and progressive ways that have illuminated and complexified my study

outcomes. In the proceeding chapters, my research experiences and findings enable me

to trouble and nudge space within the dominant conservation discourses for the

ascendency of Indigenous perspectives, knowledges and practices, and possibilities for

transformative processes in global conservation.

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CHAPTER THREE: COLLABORATIVE CONSERVATION PARTNERSHIPS

Collaborative Relationships and the Impetus for Collaborative Conservation

In the Iwokrama Forest and North Rupununi villages where protected areas and

conservation programs have been established on Indigenous lands and harvest sites —

contrasting interests, environmental practices and knowledges have become intricately

entangled within the framework of collaborative conservation partnerships. The nexus of

relationships between Indigenous societies and conservationists and the interspecies

relationships between Indigenous peoples and local animals are at the heart of

collaborative partnerships in conservation.

The first set of important conservation relationships within Indigenous

understandings of conservation relates to the above-mentioned entanglement between

Indigenous communities and conservation authorities. Such encounters developed out

of the colonial period of contact and displacement between colonial agents,

conservationists and Indigenous societies — particularly, creation of the Western model

of national parks and nature reserves — and have slowly evolved into the current

orientation toward collaborative partnerships. While collaborative conservation

entanglements are often used to gain consent to Indigenous lands and local expertise

(and have been consequently unprogressive for most Indigenous communities) the

NRDDB-IIC partnership represents a consensus by the Iwokrama International Centre

(IIC) and North Rupununi communities, that relevant and socially just collaborative

partnerships are necessary. Both groups recognize that in the current era of global

industry and market pressures, decreasing state support and environmental politics,

neither of them can alone shoulder the onerous responsibilities of implementing

ecologically sustainable and culturally and economically viable conservation and wildlife

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management (Carlsson & Berkes, 2005; Langton, 2003; LaRose, 2004; Silvius et al.,

2004; Wondolleck & Yaffee, 2000). Reverberating throughout my conversations and

interviews is the sentiment by both community actors and IIC staff working on the

ground, that partnerships are essential for the success of conservation initiatives –– both

collaborative and community-led.

Connected to the centrality of relationship within community members’

conceptions of conservation are the revitalization and safeguarding of foundational

ethical and cultural values, language, customary institutions, socio-ecological

governance, and the people’s way of life. A village toshao and former IIC Ranger

concedes, “We cannot do things by ourselves alone…especially at the village level. We

need support in managing things and it is beneficial to have NRDDB, Iwokrama and

even CI to assist us” (IR6, 2009). A village leader from Fairview expands on this

sentiment (VC3, 2009):

We are trying to assist Iwokrama as much as possible in helping to reach its goals, and they trying to also help we with reaching our goals…so, by dong this, we can both show the world that it is possible, how a community can survive within a protected area and assist the reserve area to reach its goals…like our opinions with the organization, or the program, helps it to reach where it wants to go.

Hence, this chapter foregrounds i) the importance and texture of relationships

within conservation, ii) the necessity of productive collaborative partnerships for

Indigenous and conservation partners, despite the inherent challenges and inequities,

and iii) the promise that the NRDDB-IIC partnership offers based on the specific

configuration and evolution it has taken with the North Rupununi context. Within the

Brazilian Amazon, where wildlife and forest conservation and land-use politics are much

more contentious and widespread than in Guyana, more democratic and viable alliances

between Indigenous peoples and conservation organizations have thus far helped

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Indigenous nations secure legal recognition of approximately seventy-five percent of all

Indigenous lands within the region (Schwartzman & Zimmerman, 2005).

The second set of relationships are interspecies relationships: human and non-

human animals linked through reciprocal dynamics of interconnection and

interdependence (Deloria, 2006). Villagers interviewed — particularly elders who

participated in the map biographies and Iwokrama International Centre (IIC) or

Conservation International (CI) rangers from the villages — collectively recognize that all

animals, plants and ecological areas are interconnected with communities and that every

species and entity has a function and role to carry out within the process of life. North

Rupununi villagers recognize that people are dependent on animals and forests for their

survival and well-being, and animals and forests are dependent on people’s responsible

environmental practices and livelihood activities. Hence, they feel a deep sense of

responsibility and care for animal species and for ensuring their flourishing, sustained

survival and connection to communities. An elder from Wowetta Village (VE1, 2009)

articulates:

I see that we are depending on each other, the people and the forest. We look for animals and trees, plants to give us food and building materials…When we plant our farms, the animals are eating their stomachs full. If we don’ destroy all of the animals and forests, they will be healthy, we depend on them very much.

Although community members harvest and use certain species for food, cultural

practices and their livelihoods, there is a cultural understanding that they must act

respectfully in their interaction with, and use of non-human species. Such human–animal

relationships are also understood to be partnerships of mutual participation and

reciprocity that have assisted humans in their ecological adaptability. Cajete describes

that through such relational partnerships with local animals, “Native cultures gained

many important insights into the dynamics of animal nature and practiced their

knowledge for human benefit and survival” (p. 152).

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However, the combination of environmental, social and economic shifts

impacting the North Rupununi and a cultural disconnect from customary and spiritual

beliefs amongst middle-aged and younger generations has resulted in some community

members no longer feeling a strong connection or sense of responsibility to the

environment and animals. Such individuals have at times engaged in over-harvesting

and environmental degradation activities that are detrimental to lands and other species.

Indigenous peoples, especially elders and others interested in revitalizing local socio-

ecological relationships, understand that human–animal or human–nature relationships

have become dysfunctional and recognize that when dysfunction occurs, conservation

intervention is required to protect the landscape, animal or plant species that have

become threatened (Smallboy, p.c., 2010). Thus, conservation practice is a reminder to

villagers living amongst and using specific lands and animals that they depend on their

environment and their environment mutually depends on their responsible and reciprocal

practice. An elder from Surama Village echoes this idea (VE3, 2009):

One of the things when man destroys trees like lu, kokerite, akuryu…these are ones that the animals depend on and people throw them down to get the fruits or leaves and they are less now, so what happened is that the animals come and eat out the crops in the farms…and people crying out ‘man, the animals eating out my cassava’…but you caused them to do that…but you know, it all calls for a sense of responsibility and a sense of sustainable harvesting.

Awareness by the North Rupununi community members of the need to focus on wildlife

management and conservation in response to a dysfunction or transformation in

responsible human–animal interactions has also prompted their openness to participate

within the conservation partnership with IIC.

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Evolution of the NRDDB–BHI Collaborative Conservation Partnership

Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Development (IIC)

Global interest in IIC’s initiatives and the Iwokrama Forest has not abated over the

years. In fact, interest has been ever more stimulated in the present period with IIC’s

Guiana Shield Initiative and development of a market for Iwokrama Forest’s ecosystem

services, and the government’s highly profiled Reduced Emissions from Deforestation

and Degradation (REDD+) and Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) approach

(these initiatives and their implications are discussed later in the chapter). In 1996, the

Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development was

established through an Act of Parliament with a mandate to sustainably manage the

large area of rainforest and all of the inhabitant animal and plant species. Although

overlapping traditional Makushi territory, the Iwokrama Forest area is considered state

land and only in 2006 did Fairview Village gain formal land title for its village area of

22,000 hectares. However, regardless of land title, the North Rupununi communities are

traditional rights-holders to the Forest reserve area as they have a long history of

resource use, and strong ancestral, cultural and ecological ties to the Forest.

In his discussion of the collaborative partnership between NRDDB and IIC,

regional leader, Allicock (2003) clearly outlines the authoritative and exclusionary

approach that the Government of Guyana and IIC took at the outset of the protected

area consultations for the Iwokrama Forest reserve. The government and IIC did not

engage in a satisfactory consultation process with the Indigenous communities of the

North Rupununi, nor did they provide Guyanese people with sufficient information and

delineation of the proposed protected area and conservation activities, and the projected

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benefits for national and local populations. A village toshao bemoans this neglect (VC3,

2009):

We had a discussion with the Minister [of Amerindian affairs]…on the same issues of proper consultation of our communities in the process of establishing projects and protected areas in the region and of land title and what role communities would play …people would just come into our areas and set up projects without even consulting the communities, like not even saying where the area they want to use is, or what they intend to do there and what benefits or impacts will come to the communities.

In true contradictory fashion, while IIC and the Iwokrama Forest were being promoted in

Caribbean and international fora such as the Commonwealth Heads of State meetings

and the Rio Earth Summit, the Guyanese and Indigenous peoples who would be directly

affected by the initiative were almost completely oblivious. Until the emergence of an

outreach initiative facilitated by Guyanese NGO Red Thread, the NRDDB, and

community impetus for concrete outreach initiatives by IIC such as the Community

Environmental Worker program, people in the communities were marginalized. Allicock

contends:

Iwokrama was not a good example of democratic decision-making...one that did not harness, at the outset, the views, fears, hopes or interests of the rights holders/ stakeholders – the Makushi and other peoples whose lands and the sacred and spiritual values as well as their modern aspirations were at stake (2003, p. 3).

All of the interview participants who had acted within IIC outreach and village

governance capacities (CEW4, CEW2, IM3, IR6, IR8: 2009) commented that in the initial

establishment of the protected area, villagers were very suspicious as to what IIC was

and whose interests it represented. Such local suspicions slowly transformed into more

favourable opinions as a result of IIC’s inter-institutional learning through community

interaction and conservation practice.

Simultaneously, many North Rupununi communities were already thinking about

developing their own processes to develop their communities, livelihood possibilities and

forest and wildlife resources. They were feeling vulnerable and somewhat defenseless

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with different industry, conservation and research actors coming into the region with their

own agendas and little to no consultation with the communities and village councils.

Apprehension over IIC and the proposed protected area motivated the North Rupununi

communities and their village leaders to collectively assert their concerns, interests and

priorities in community meetings and open discussions with IIC. After initial criticism by

community leaders and other independent observers that IIC had failed to consult with,

and equitably include the North Rupununi communities, the organization stepped up to

the task in 1995 and has worked hard to support and collaborate with Indigenous

peoples. IIC’s directorship and field station managerial leadership from 1996 until 2004

is seen by NRDDB-BHI and community members as “the good years” when the

organization (VC1 & 2, 20098):

…did a lot of things that was really good over the years…in training and outreach to the community in all different environmental and wildlife management and conservation aspects. Iwokrama would update us on a regular basis. They used to always say that Iwokrama is our partner and we wish they continued doing all what they did in those times…of course, that was when we had different people managing over there…now you have different people managing things on their side.

The Iwokrama Forest reserve was collaboratively zoned by IIC staff and North

Rupununi villagers to include both Sustainable Utilization Areas (SUAs) and Wilderness

Preservation (WP), as stipulated by the Iwokrama Act (1996). Map 3.1 represents the

SUAs and WPs of the protected area in relation to the North Rupununi communities. The

Iwokrama rainforest ecosystem is comprised of a diverse variety of single and mixed

species forests (Map 3.2). Non-commercial customary practices and subsistence use by

Indigenous communities is permitted within the WP areas and does not require planning

permission, as long as its impact on the ecosystem is considered minimal. Sustainable

timber harvest, hunting, fishing, and gathering by Indigenous people are permitted for

subsistence use within the SUAs, and also for responsible business development

8 Both interview participants collectively contributed to quote.

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purposes. All of the access and use rights within the SUAs, as well as activities

prohibited within the WPs, are presented in Appendix F.

IIC’s genesis over the past sixteen years reflects both its collaborative

relationship with the Indigenous institutions and peoples of the North Rupununi and

trends in global conservation. Within the collaborative conservation literature,

collaborative management systems are increasingly perceived as social-ecological units

that behave as complex adaptive systems. As such, the organizational structure and

mandate of conservation institutions such as IIC have been evolving to integrate the

ecological and local systems that underlie adaptive protected area and wildlife

management (Olsson et al., 2004, Carlsson & Berkes 2005). IIC’s current programmic

areas reflect this integrated social-ecological approach to conservation (Iwokrama,

2003):

i) Conservation and use of forests and biodiversity ii) Sustainable business development iii) Capacity and human resource development iv) Collaborative stakeholder processes and governance v) Information and communication vi) Research, monitoring and evaluation of the Iwokrama Forest Site.

As a guiding principle, IIC has also committed to “build upon the traditional knowledge

and practices of the nearby indigenous communities” (Iwokrama, 2003, p. 10) while

respecting their customary rights to their lands and to use of the Iwokrama Forest. In

terms of the development and business orientation of IIC’s mandate with local and

national communities, IIC seeks to create best practice models of sustainabile utilization

of wildlife and forest resources that will help to alleviate poverty and provide income-

generation opportunities (Iwokrama, 2003).

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Map 3.1 Iwokrama Forest Reserve Sustainable Use Areas and Wilderness Preservation Areas (IIC, 2009)

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3.2 Iwokrama Forest Reserve – Diverse Forest Types (IIC, 2004)

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Thus, in an attempt to break from the inequitable and destructive scenarios of many

global collaborative conservation contexts, an IIC director committed to nourishing and

advancing IIC’s partnership with the North Rupununi communities describes IIC’s

mandate to work equitably with local people to ensure that they continue to benefit from

sustainable forest use and develop their cultural integrity (IM1, 2009).

One of the most exceptional and precedent-setting actions by the IIC in those

early years was to facilitate the formation of NRDDB, attempting to integrate some of the

cultural and political structures and knowledge forms of the communities within its

conservation and wildlife management programs. It has been particularly instrumental in

providing institutional support for community-level mapping, demarcation, titling, and

research. Allicock recalls, “We were walking towards that, we always wanted our own

movement…and Iwokrama gave us that opportunity as indigenous peoples to show what

we can do, to give us the chance…" (p.c., 2007). Moreover, IIC has facilitated the

communities in developing their human resources skills and knowledge capacity

(particularly for youth and women) with respect to managing the social and

environmental facets of wildlife management, conservation and community development

— capacity that they are now channeling into the revitalization and formation of

community-led initiatives and structures.

The 1996 Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and

Development Act (Iwokrama Act) and subsequent 2004 Memorandum of Understanding

(MOU) between the IIC and the NRDDB, form the basis of the NRDDB-Iwokrama

collaborative partnership. The Iwokrama Act and MOU legally recognize a shared vision

of sustainable use and management of the Iwokrama Forest and related ecosystems of

the region; Indigenous customary rights to exclusive use and management of the

Iwokrama Forest and its resources; respect for, and incorporation of Indigenous

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knowledge, customs, protocols and intellectual property rights; implementation of

equitable information-sharing, decision-making and benefit-sharing processes; work with

the NRDDB to minimize potential negative social and cultural impacts from IIC activities;

and guarantee positive benefits and outcomes from business enterprises and other

activities (Allicock, 2003; Iwokrama, 2006). These principles have ensured an enduring

partnership and collaborative relationship related to conservation and wildlife and forest

management.

Edward Glover, Chairman of the Iwokrama Board of Trustees, declares, “Local

communities are Iwokrama’s greatest and most valued asset” (Iwokrama Annual report,

2009). Whle most community members affirmed that they have felt valued as assets and

beneficiaries within the NRDDB-IIC partnership (due to the aforementioned community-

centered actions and regulations implemented by IIC), and that the collaboration has

been mostly beneficial to protecting their environmental and cultural resources, people

are increasingly feeling some schisms and areas of decline. Outcomes from my

interviews with community and IIC particiants indicate several cross-cutting issues facing

the NRDDB-IIC partnership that challenge and possibly undermine the positive

collaborative processes initiated by IIC and NRDDB, as well as attempts by communities

to successfully engage in such processes. Inequitable power relations and tensions at

the intra- and inter-community level and between external organizations and

communities; and social dislocation by external influences and resulting cultural shifts

and unsustainable ecological practices are examined within the contexts of the evolving

NRDDB-IIC collaborative partnership and the formation of local governance structures

such as the NRDDB and BHI. IIC’s institutional shifts and market-oriented policies are

analyzed with relation to the NRDDB-IIC collaborative relationship and their implications

for community-led conservation.

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North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB)

The genesis of North Rupununi District Development Board is unusual, not only for

Guyana but for much of the Amazonic region. The NRDDB was created in 1996 as an

umbrella partnership structure directed by the Annai District Council and village councils

of the sixteen constituent North Rupununi communities. It emerged as an Indigenous-led

institution invested with the authority to represent the rights and interests of its

constituent communities and as an independent watchdog of and mediator between the

IIC, CI and the numerous conservation, development and commercial agencies

descending upon the communities and the region. Accordingly, the NRDDB constitution

stipulates that it retains the right to elect an Indigenous representative from the region to

sit on the Iwokrama Board of Trustees to safeguard Indigenous rights and interests with

respect to IIC’s program and management processes. The NRDDB is recognized by IIC,

the Government of Guyana and Guyanese society as representing not only the North

Rupununi communities as rights-holders and central partners in IIC’s conservation

program, but also other conservation, research and development initiatives with interests

in the region.

Actualized by its member communities and developed with a strong self-directed

agenda inclusive of the role and rights of women, youth, elders, non-Makushi, and mixed

communities, the NRDDB symbolizes an autonomous and democratic Indigenous-led

institution that is respected throughout Guyana and the Amazonic region. The NRDDB

has thus emerged as an extremely vital forum for revitalizing Indigenous systems,

syncretic knowledge-building, collaborative dialogue, consensus decision-making,

education, project development and strengthening local capacities on critical

environmental and socio-economic challenges facing the region. The institution

ultimately exists to safeguard and strengthen Indigenous development, as defined and

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envisioned by the people themselves. As conveyed to me by many community members

and leaders of the North Rupununi (and reverberated in a study by Griffiths and Anselmo

(2010) on Indigenous peoples in Guyana and sustainable livelihoods) their vision of

‘development’ goes beyond improving wage incomes and material conditions. It includes

securing their rights to territories and resources, protecting and developing the

ecological integrity and health of their territories and peoples, and the cultural integrity of

their communities and their Indigenous way of life. They also envision increasing social

cohesion amongst the communities; food security and self-sufficiency; information-

sharing between communities and with conservation partners; strengthening local

human resources; developing conservation leadership and management capacities; and

strengthening Amerindian identity.

A former CEW and current community wildlife researcher explains the NRDDB’s

role and democratic process in facilitating environmental, socioeconomic and capacity

development for the communities (CEW2, 2009):

The NRDDB meets with different representatives from the villages directly and they are part of the collaboration, not only toshaos. If the community needs anything or wants to organize anything, they should go to NRDDB, and likewise, if NRDDB wants to start a new project or activity, they must go to the village to collaborate.

It is significant that Indigenous communities in other regions of Guyana and Roraima,

Brazil are eager to emulate the NRDDB model within their contexts. A community

member deeply entrenched within the collaborative partnership, environmental

leadership and diverse community and IIC conservation initiatives from the inception

reinforces (IR7, 2009):

The NRDDB formed with initially 13 communities, other villages asked to be part of the NRDDB because they saw the positive outcome from this membership within NRDDB and the partnership with Iwokrama. The benefit-sharing between Iwokrama and the NRDDB communities…they saw this as very positive. So they asked NRDDB to join as member communities.

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NRDDB’s highly regarded vision for its constituent communities has been

proposed in Guyana’s National Development Strategy (http://www.sdnp.org.gy/nds/

chapter24.html) and the institution has been active in defining national strategies,

consultations and recommendations for the 2006 revision of the Amerindian Act, as well

as educational and outreach activities to bridge understanding within the communities of

their rights and available regulatory mechanisms. The NRDDB also provides an

important forum for Indigenous leaders and community-based groups from the region

(and other parts of the country, government officials, and national and international

organizations) to engage in planning, decision-making, implementation and monitoring

processes through information-sharing and consensus. As mandated within its

constitution, NRDDB has provisioned for internal power-sharing mechanisms, and an

equitable division of roles and responsibilities amongst its staff, project units (i.e.

Makushi Research Unit, arapaima management project and tourism) and member

villages. Such mechanisms foster internal leadership and broad-based ownership of

governance, environmental management and socio-economic development processes

(Allicock, 2003, p. 4).

Benefit Sharing

The Iwokrama Act (IIC, 1996) and the Iwokrama–NRDDB Collaborative Management

Agreement (IIC, 2008) explicitly provision obligations on the part of IIC to equitably share

benefits accruing from collaborative conservation and management initiatives flowing

from the Iwokrama Forest reserve with NRDDB and the sixteen communities. IIC

identifies community benefits as both economic and non-economic (IM1, 2009):

economic (money and capital)

non-economic o capacity-development and youth leadership such as training and

educational opportunities

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o employment and income-generation opportunities o business partnerships and joint ventures o partnerships in scientific and social research o opportunities for increasing women’s socio-economic and leadership

status o affirmation and rewarding of Indigenous knowledge and cultural values o co-management of natural resources and environmental services

Additional benefit issues attributed to the North Rupununi communities under Section 4

of the CMA are (IIC, 2008):

4.1 Iwokrama and NRDDB acknowledge that the Program Site will be protected and sustainably utilized to bring lasting benefits to the aforesaid Communities and Amerindians, in accordance with the Iwokrama Act.

4.2 Iwokrama and the NRDDB agree to work together to develop mechanisms for benefit sharing with regard to conservation and use of the Program Site.

4.2.1 The Community Conservation and Development Fund has been

established by mutual consent between Iwokrama and the NRDDB to serve as one such benefit-sharing mechanism.

The majority of community leaders and members stated that despite their

collaborative challenges with IIC and CI, they have generally experienced positive

benefits from their partnership with their external conservation partners – IIC in

particular. They identified capacity development, youth leadership and training

opportunities and institutional support for their community-level projects and broader

initiatives as being areas of concrete benefit. However, numerous community members

criticize that in light of IIC’s shifting institutional and conservation priorities and the

resulting decline in funding and institutional support – the benefits are becoming less

tangible. According to community leader and hunter from Fairview Village (VH1, 2009):

I am not convinced what the benefits really are and for how many of us…especially for the young people here. What is the benefit for their future? How is the community benefiting from the airstrip? It is on our land and we are not receiving any royalties from the flights coming in and out. Also, the tourism fee…I do not see that those monies have come to us or what benefits have come from that.

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Although still at the level of funds for capacity development, community education and

research related to raising topical awareness and collecting data for the Guiana Shield

Initiative project, the benefit-sharing mechanism for community members from the

sixteen constituent communities has been a pivotal incentive for community

participation. The following components of benefit-sharing (EuropeAid, UNDP & IUCN,

2009) are to be included within a mechanism developed in collaboration between

NRDDB, IIC and the Government of Guyana:

1) Benefits must come to the communities, who are the customary users and managers of the Iwokrama Forest;

2) Communities wish to be participant in any processes that will determine their livelihood and development outcomes;

3) Community members demand inclusive decision-making regarding the management of their lands and resources;

4) Development of benefit-sharing and negotiations for flows of benefits to stakeholder communities –– i.e. small grants for businesses, education, and capacity development;

5) The BHI is identified as a critical institution of the North Rupununi and benefits from ecosystem services must provide institutional and administrative support to BHI;

6) NRDDB was identified as the NGO representative of the communities of the North Rupununi and should be a direct beneficiary of any flow of funds or resources as a result of ecosystem services compensation to stakeholder communities.

IIC Leadership and Indigenous Representation within IIC Staff Composition

The simultaneous turnaround in IIC executive directors and field station managers since

2003 has considerably impacted the NRDDB’s and communities’ relationships with IIC.

Although community-based and collaborative conservation strategies with local

communities are still central to the IIC mandate — and continue to be so in global

conservation — the more recent policy thrust of international conservation organizations

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and national governments is to insert Indigenous peoples within market-oriented

conservation networks as conservation business partners. Hence, there is a movement

away from more grassroots community engagement, cultural and socioeconomic

development initiatives toward business and market-oriented solutions for conservation,

while still capitalizing on partnerships with Indigenous communities as a means of local

support and legitimizing new ventures. Indeed the pressure has been on IIC to negotiate

different forms of funding sources and self-sustaining their operational costs with more

intensified business ventures and market and capital investment partnerships.

Under the shared vision and guidance of certain community elders, NRDDB

leaders and several earlier directors and field station managers, IIC’s collaborative

partnership and relationship with NRDDB germinated and flourished during the years

1995-2004. All community members spoke wistfully of the “earlier days” of the

partnership, or the times when specific directors were leading IIC. Those institutional

leaders were very much interested and committed to the pivotal and immensely valuable

role that Indigenous communities and their cultural and governance institutions play in

conservation and protected area management. Two village elders positively comment

(VE5 & 6, 2009):

People really tried hard on both sides...Iwokrama tried to bring back the culture and knowledge of the people…you know, most of the Makushi people, they are losing their cultural ways for modern living…they have with them wise use of their resources and stuff like bringing back the traditional beliefs…through Iwokrama, they tried to bring back the traditional culture here.

Community outreach, research, women’s empowerment and youth leadership

programs — i.e., CEWs, wildlife clubs; and the Makushi Research Unit — are fully

supported and integrated within IIC’s broader conservation and local development

priorities, as were elder knowledge and counsel, village councils and governance,

consensus decision-making and negotiation, forms of cultural articulation and sharing,

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and language. Capacity development and educational and employment opportunities

were also priorities for IIC and a diverse range of culturally relevant and community-

specific training workshops, courses and activities were facilitated in alliance with other

institutional partners for community members. There was a very strong sense of

partnership, of moving in a similar direction in their shared care of and commitment to

the environment, and that the organization really recognized and respected local

peoples as having a special ancestral relationship with their lands and with the Iwokrama

Forest. Two village leaders and former IIC rangers reflect (IR1 & IR7, 2009):

We are all trying to look towards the future and hold hands together as collaborative partners to manage the environment so that we could have a better place for ourselves, with everything intact and healthy around us. They [IIC] did recognize our ancestral connection with the animals and environment, our beliefs about animals and sacred places and why those are important to conservation and the environment.

In the initial years of the IIC, many directors, conservation researchers and

visiting scientists were foreigners. This dynamic could account for the lack of recognition

or understanding of the local Indigenous communities who inhabit the lands in and

around the Iwokrama Forest. However, under the general directorship of Graham

Watkins and David Castells, and elder Fred Allicock as Field Operations Manager, the

IIC became far more Guyanese- and Indigenous-focused, and connected with local

communities. As such, the permanent management and research staff became more

reflective of the Indigenous and Guyanese societies. IIC training and employment of

many Indigenous rangers and guides also contributed immensely to fostering a more

embedded and inclusive partnership between the Centre and the communities.

However, the dynamic is unfortunately moving back in the other direction over these

past five years or so with the increasing presence of foreign permanent and visiting staff,

a shift in IIC’s priorities (away from local issues and communities) and more elite

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qualifications sought for higher-level jobs within IIC. Two village leaders from Surama

critique (VC1 & 2, 2009):

They used to always say that Iwokrama is our partner and we wish they continued doing all what they did in those times. Their priorities seem to be different now and they are not as involved with us as those times. We are getting more and more foreign people coming through them. Ttheir interests seem to be aimed at whole set of other people. In those times, we had people involved in the whole process with Iwokrama.

While my research indicated that most community members are generally

supportive of their partnership with IIC, and perceive that the benefits have outweighed

the challenges, two village leaders from Surama bemoan, “It’s a sad thing…things really

started changing after Dr. Castells left and the new manager took over…and seemed to

radically change the whole program and relationships with communities” (VC1 & 2,

2009). The outreach, communications and capacity development initiatives supported by

IIC have been particularly cut back – ostensibly due to funding constraints and

escalating operational costs (Allicock, p.c., 2008; IM2, 2009).

An issue of particular concern for NRDDB, community leaders and community

conservation workers is that the flow of communication from IIC to the communities has

been declining at a steady pace in recent years. A village toshao explains his concern

and the conflicted feelings that most community leaders and members feel toward IIC

and other institutional partners (VC4, 2009):

I know that they mean well with this partnership and that we are important partners for them too…my strongest complaint is that we need the people from those institutions to come and talk to us in the community and then they can be more informed and they [villagers] would be more open to collaborate.

Aside from occasional central meetings and workshops organized by IIC,

NRDDB-BHI staff and community members complained that the outreach and

communication has decreased and that they have little idea as to what projects and

priorities IIC is currently working on. The communities are thus often left feeling unsure

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of where they are politically situated within the collaborative scope of conservation

program (MRU, 2009; NRDDB, p.c., 2009). A former CEW expresses most respondents’

sentiments: “The collaboration was really apparent in those days [1996-2004] and the

community was quite open…we had this communication between Iwokrama, NRDDB

and the communities, but now…we don’t really know much about what is happening with

Iwokrama” (CEW4, 2009). A village leader from Rewa Village reflects on the lack of

consistent communication and information-sharing from IIC and CI (VC4, 2009):

When researchers and villagers come and ask about what is going on with Iwokrama and with the concession area, we don’t really know because we not kept in the communication from the field station or CI. We don’t know all of the activities that are going on there or at the different sites. We don’t get to know what is needed at those sites or what the impacts or benefits are for us…

This is particularly true of the villages more geographically distant from the Iwokrama

reserve and field station, though even Fairview villagers remarked that aside from

meetings concerning their joint sustainable commercial logging venture with IIC, they

often feel disconnected and less integrated within IIC’s program and the collaborative

partnership. Due to changing global funding orientations and ideological shifts, the

present leadership for both IIC and CI have reconfigured these institutions’ conservation

priorities more intensively toward conservation market strategies and away from

community enegagement.

Although the shift in IIC’s leadership and conservation priorities have

undoubtedly impacted the North Rupununi communities in adverse ways, the respect,

commitment and energy of many IIC management and field staff toward community

engagement have remained uncompromised and provide a supportive buffer for

communities as they face a decline in community-oriented initiatives. Sydney Allicock

and many community members credit the positive elements of the partnership and

respect for Indigenous rights and active participation to the “committed work of a strong

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local team of dedicated Guyanese attached to the Iwokrama Programme, who work

through community structures and village councils, and the organisational base provided

by the NRDDB itself” (Allicock, 2003, p. 2). Furthermore, the success of the relationship

and partnership between NRDDB, IIC and the communities has been the commitment of

many IIC managers and field staff to not only respect Indigenous rights and cultural

institutions, but to work through and actively integrate those institutions and governance

structures. Two village leaders further explain:

That is what the NRDDB is there for…to help Iwokrama reach out to the communities, to make a bridge of understanding for the community members” (VC9, 2009)… “Yes, they have made an effort to know our ways and traditional knowledge and tried to make sure how they explained things to us would be interesting for us…particularly through NRDDB…” (VC10, 2009).

Furthermore, the majority of non-Indigenous IIC field staff and several head-office

managers have cultivated informal relationships, intimacy and mutual respect with their

Indigenous colleagues and local communities. Such relationships and committed

engagement with communities and their worldviews catalyze concrete ways for

conservation programs to become more progressive for Indigenous people, and to value

their connections to land and wildlife and their cultural and knowledge institutions.

Mediating Between Conservation Partners and Communities

The NRDDB-IIC conservation partnership is remarkable in that it departs from the

majority of collaborative approaches around the world whereby Western science and

capital dictate the contours of knowledge, resource rights and power in biodiversity

conservation. Thus far, the NRDDB communities maintain a progressive, though critical,

engagement with the Iwokrama Program and have ensured that Indigenous customary

rights to exclusive use and management of the Iwokrama Forest and its resources are

enshrined within the Iwokrama Act and Memorandum of Understanding (Allicock, 2003).

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The Iwokrama Act mandates the predominantly Guyanese staff and researchers from

the Iwokrama Program to recognize and enable community-led environmental

management and conservation approaches, locally grounded ecological research, and

to collaborate through autonomous community governance structures.

A key finding within my research has been that after struggling for more

transparent, inclusive and democratic decision-making and collaborative processes in

the formative years of NRDDB’s relationship with IIC, the institution and communities

have succeeded in creating a more democratic and people-centered collaborative

partnership model with IIC. In its role as i) watchdog of IIC’s conservation and business

activities within the region, ii) safeguarding the rights and interests of the communities,

and iii) liaison between the communities and the IIC, the NRDDB has been a central

pillar within the collaborative partnership. Since IIC is mandated to collaborate with the

communities through NRDDB and other community-level structures, NRDDB has had a

fair bit of weight within the decision-making and management processes of IIC,

particularly with respect to initiatives or actions that have more direct implications for the

communities. All of the interview respondents and personal communications conducted

with community members confirmed NRDDB’s intermediary role within such processes

(CEW2, 2009):

Actually, Iwokrama also comes through NRDDB as their liaison…anything like what we ask through NRDDB, Iwokrama will be the main one to do training or capacity support…it will come through Iwokrama. If Iwokrama wants to establish a project or initiative, or even launch some new regulations that will affect the communities, they must come through NRDDB to consult and negotiate.

Although there are problematic areas that were identified and earmarked for

improvement with respect to NRDDB’s effectiveness in its liaison and facilitative

responsibilities, interview respondents from all groups were overwhelmingly supportive

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of the collaborative partnership and NRDDB’s leadership within that partnership. A

village toshao states (VC3, 2009):

The collaboration…I think that most of the people understand it as something really unique because of the way we have it set up with NRDDB as our mediator between the communities and Iwokrama…so, if they have questions or need to understand something, they can ask Iwokrama, or even more, they can ask NRDDB…to assist in getting you onto something where you can start or develop something in a certain area that you want, and also, in terms of getting your knowledge and abilities up to a certain level and maintaining them up there…People feel that they are interacting and participating in how things are decided and done. If they have a problem or an idea, they can sit with NRDDB and discuss things and if there is a solution or something that can be done, they [NRDDB] will call a meeting with Iwokrama and we will all sit together and discuss how to resolve the problem or how to make a strategy.

Hence, despite new challenges, the NRDDB-IIC approach has evolved and

produced new possibilities for community conservation leadership, particularly in the

form of community environmental governance and wildlife management. Through the

leadership of NRDDB-BHI, and the support of IIC and other Indigenous and international

organizations, the collaborative approach has begun to address many of the issues and

reforms for conservation and development identified by Indigenous peoples within

Guyana (Colchester, 2006) and globally (First Peoples Worldwide, 2006) such as

revitalizing local knowledge, strengthening customary institutions and local capacity,

recognizing rights, and equitable benefit- and power-sharing.

Internal Challenges within NRDDB

Over the years there have been numerous micro-politics and internal challenges that

NRDDB has had to navigate. At times these have weakened NRDDB’s ability to

effectively lead and represent the diverse interests of the communities’ diverse interests.

Three of the enduring problems that the NRDDB has faced are not unique within

institutional contexts anywhere in the world. They are (NRDDB, p.c., 2009; BHI, p.c.,

2009; VC3 & 9, 2009):

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1) Lack of consistent and committed leadership, 2) Lack of local or regional human resources who have the knowledge and skills to

adequately meet the tasks and challenges required for their projects, and

3) Lack of transparent dialogue between NRDDB staff, BHI, village leaders and other partners.

The first issue relates to a paradoxical problem in that there exists a fairly high degree of

turn-around in the executive staff of NRDDB (with a subsequent lack of continuity in

leadership for the ambitious mandate and projects it engages for its sixteen constituent

villages) versus the persistence of staff and/or projects that are no longer viable to its

evolving mandate and projects (BHI, p.c., 2009). The second problem speaks to a

common challenge facing community institutions in similar small community contexts

around the world and alludes to the inability of most community members to apply for

higher-level IIC positions. The geographic and politico-economic isolation of the North

Rupununi has, until recently, created a complete void in formal educational and training

opportunities for community members.

Despite the enabling support from organizations such as IIC, CI, UNDP, UNICEF

and Project Fauna, and the establishment of more formal primary and secondary

educational facilities in the region, these initiatives are not being offered consistently or

enough to accommodate all those who are interested. Also of concern are cultural

barriers (such as language) or distrust in external organizations, and barriers facing

distant communities and poorer community members in accessing the educational and

training initiatives that are provided. Such capacity and human-resource development

issues are becoming increasingly challenging for NRDDB and BHI as they receive more

international funding and pressure to collaborate on diverse and sophisticated

conservation, research and social and economic development projects that are steadily

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growing in number and scope. A community wildlife researcher and former CEW

explains the complexity of the challenge (CEW2, 2009):

In all the communities, we need to create jobs and training for all the youths before they migrate more to other places like Brazil or town (GT)…All those things we had to really ask for and go after so that there are programs for them (youth) and they will have their jobs afterward…like traditional skills like craft, masonry, woodworking, joinery but also skills in modern areas like management and finance and so.

As a result, and much to the disappointment of NRDDB, BHI and community leaders, the

institutions must increasingly solicit staff from Guyana’s capital and from overseas. This

of course goes against NRDDB’s and BHI’s interests in developing local leadership

capacity and stimulating job opportunities at the community level, as well as changing

the cultural and power dynamics within the organizations and community.

Similarly, village leaders and community members more closely involved with IIC

accounted that it is getting increasingly difficult for local people from the region to secure

employment within IIC, particularly at a higher salary and responsibility level (non-

service or non-casual jobs). IIC’s emphasis is now on elite qualification requirements:

undergraduate and graduate degrees and specific professional training and experience.

Due to an underfunded and underdeveloped formal educational system (especially at

the tertiary level) and a major brain-drain epidemic, the majority of urban and

mainstream Guyanese society (much less Indigenous and rural communities) do not

possess such high-level qualifications. A former CEW adds (CEW3, 2009):

They [Iwokrama] could do more to employ us in higher positions…but it’s like we the Amerindian people are so low, they can’t employ us in many of their positions so they employ people from other regions. We have the ability but the young people need more training and knowledge so that they are qualified for those jobs and then they can employ more from our region. We have the people and the willingness.

The third problem can be unequivocally summed up in a popular Guyanese

Creole expression, “da left hand dunno wat da right hand doin’ ” - meaning that NRDDB

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staff often do not internally communicate with and collaboratively decide amongst

themselves on the activities for which each unit is responsible, let alone transparently

communicate and consult with other community leaders and BHI staff regarding such

activities (BHI, p.c., 2009; VC8, 2009). Another problem cited by several community

leaders and other members was that at times there appeared to be little democratic

involvement of constituent village leaders or representatives in decision-making,

particularly regarding election of new NRDDB staff. One village Toshao and former IIC

ranger complains (IR1, 2009):

Even our NRDDB... I hear a toshao ask at the last meeting about the new NRDDB executive director…I, myself, didn’t know that Mr._ was the new Executive Director of the Board, but when we had the meeting, they said, yes we have a new ED and he’s on board now with us…everybody was just like, ‘who is this?’ and he was sitting down there…so one of the toshaos get up and asked, ‘when this happened? Were we consulted, people have to get our opinion on this matter…but it already happened and there it was. Yes, not so democratic as they used to be.

Similarly, another village leader contends, “Probably the NRDDB Chairman already met

with them before and talked on behalf of the villages but we, now, the residents of the

villages, we don’t always know what is taking place behind our backs. They will say,

“Yes, we talked to X and this person’ and so on, I guess they were representing us at the

higher level…well, I don’t know” (VC6, 2009). Staff and coordinators from a couple of

NRDDB’s units also complained about being marginalized at times from decision-making

processes on issues affecting their programs and the communities. Such occurrences

are in contravention of NRDDB’s mandate to ensure internal power-sharing and an

equitable division of roles and responsibilities amongst its staff, project units and

constituent village leaders.

Bina Hill Institute (BHI)

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Another important NGO working alongside the NRDDB in its local environmental

leadership and community development mandate is the Bina Hill Institute for Training,

Learning and Development (BHI). Established in 1998 by the North Rupununi

communities and supported by IIC and numerous other international institutions (such as

ProNatura UK), BHIs mandate is to develop and manage training and development

activities for the North Rupununi communities, and to promote research and leadership

that will benefit the communities and ecosystems of the region. The institute coordinates

all of the region’s educational and skills training initiatives within diverse thematic areas

including:

i) wildlife, forestry and natural resource management ii) conservation iii) youth leadership iv) language v) community education vi) revitalizing cultural institutions and customary knowledge vii) social responsibility and accountability

Education and training on diverse wildlife and resource management subjects, and

environmental and cultural leadership training for local youth are particularly provided

through the Bina Hill Training Institute.

Alongside the NRDDB, one of the critical functions of BHI is to assist people of

the region to build and strengthen their capacity to adapt to increasing challenges of

ecological change, development shifts and external cultural and technological

influences. An important piece of this process for the institute is to create learning and

project initiatives that work to bridge and integrate the diverse forms of knowledge and

practice between customary traditions and external conservation and development

institutions. In attempting to mitigate the current brain drain affecting the region (and all

of Guyana) and to develop the human resources and leadership capacities of

Indigenous people of the North Rupununi, BHI’s and NRDDB’s initiatives are intended to

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assist youth and other community members to meet their personal aspirations and goals

while remaining in their villages and communities.

NRDDB-IIC Collaborative Management Agreement

As stated by a local ranger and IIC field station manager, the Collaborative Management

Agreement (CMA) (Iwokrama, 2008) was born out of a “long process of awareness”

(IM3, 2009) and has been instrumental in consolidating and strengthening the NRDDB-

IIC partnership. The CMA is based on the Iwokrama Act and provides mechanisms and

procedures significant to recognizing and protecting Indigenous rights and promoting

local environmental governance management of the Iwokrama Forest and village

territories of the North Rupununi. Section 6 of the Act pertains specifically to the

responsibility of IIC to provision for the protection of Indigenous rights and privileges

legally or traditionally possessed, exercised or enjoyed by any Indigenous community

member who has a particular connection with any area of land within or neighbouring the

Iwokrama Forest reserve area. The first part of Section 6 recognizes the responsibility of

IIC to develop appropriate mechanisms for, and engage with NRDDB and its constituent

communities in the collaborative processes of consultation, benefit-sharing and

information- and knowledge-sharing. Recognition of Indigenous peoples’ right to the

principle of free prior and informed consent (FPIC) is critical to achieving a rights-based

and inter-cultural collaborative relationship and as such, “The Centre must embark upon

a process of dialogue and interchange of views to ensure that the Indigenous

communities are adequately consulted and involved in the IIC in order to ensure that

their rights and privileges are not prejudiced by the Program” (Iwokrama, 2008).

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Another rights-based provision within the CMA confers to regional Indigenous

peoples rights, privileges and usage of the Iwokrama Forest reserve that have been

collaboratively planned and agreed upon by NRDDB and IIC in consultation with the

communities. Indigenous peoples from the region are also recognized as management

partners of the Iwokrama Forest reserve sustainable use areas (SUAs) and the

wilderness preserve areas (WP), with mechanisms provided for complaints procedures,

and dispute and conflict resolution.

With regard to recognizing the value and need to protect and strengthen

Indigenous knowledge amongst the North Rupununi communities, a village toshao and

former IIC ranger states, “Iwokrama’s goals are not to interfere in any of our traditional

ways, but to help us to strengthen the knowledge that we have. Especially the elders,

they [Iwokrama] through the MRUs, helped to document much of their existing

knowledge and helped them to gain some more knowledge about what is there” (VC3,

2009). As such, the following provisions within the CMA formalize this recognition and

support of Indigenous knowledge and customary institutions by IIC:

o Identify those aspects of traditional knowledge which embody traditional lifestyles and are relevant for the conservation and sustainable utilization of biological diversity within the Program Site.

o Identify the holders of that traditional knowledge including recognizing and respecting

the collective nature of such ownership. o Enable Iwokrama and NRDDB and Amerindian communities to apply such traditional

knowledge within the program site subject to the consent and involvement of such traditional knowledge holders.

o Assess the value of any benefits arising from the utilization of such traditional

knowledge. o Provide for the supplier of such traditional knowledge to receive an equitable reward

for supply of such knowledge, while ensuring that the mechanism, where applicable, provides for an equitable share of benefits to the communities collectively.

o Protect such Indigenous knowledge through relevant Intellectual Property Rights

systems.

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Centrality of Indigenous Communities and Indigenous Rights

No matter the circumstances under which collaborative relationships between

Indigenous peoples and conservation organizations develop, the centrality of Indigenous

communities, customary rights and their cultural institutions within potentially sustainable

and viable conservation and wildlife management actions is of paramount importance.

Jeanrenaud (2001) asserts that, “supporting the rights of Indigenous peoples and

conserving biodiversity are two sides of the same coin” (p. 10). Yet, it is a topic often

minimized or glossed over by conservation policy-makers, scientists and researchers.

For Indigenous peoples to truly feel interested in being a part of a conservation and/or

protected area initiative and endorsing that initiative, it is imperative that their rights and

way of life are respected and recognized within the framework of the initiative. There is

a tendency within policy and institutional circles to use the very technical and apolitical

term of ‘stakeholders’ when referring to partners and beneficiaries within collaborative

conservation arrangements (and the apportioning of rights, responsibilities, benefits and

limitations for each group).

However, unlike other social groups or individuals who may be partners to a

conservation initiative, Indigenous societies such as the North Rupununi communities

have a particular historical, cultural and political connection to the lands and resources

that are to be conserved and regulated. Thus, designation of Indigenous peoples within

collaborative agreements and initiatives should be as rights-holders, rather than as

stakeholders, since they do not hold the same historical and political positioning as

government, conservation organizations and industry. A Director from IIC confirmed the

organization’s recognition of this designation of the North Rupununi: “Iwokrama

recognizes the communities through NRDDB as the ancestral rights holders to the

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Iwokrama Forest. Our relationship is guided by the principle of co-management of our

natural resources” (IM1, 2009). Moreover, the regulatory frameworks governing IIC and

its collaborative management arrangement with NRDDB — Iwokrama Act, MOUs and

Collaborative Management Agreement — all enshrine recognition of the Indigenous

peoples of the North Rupununi as rights-holders to the territories and resources of the

region.

A rights issue of particular importance to enduring and locally grounded

conservation strategies is the recognition of Indigenous territorial or land rights. Land

rights refer to rights of tenure and/or use of land (inasmuch as these may be different)

and with respect to Indigenous and traditional communities, they may be recognized

under legal treaties or titling grants by the government or as de facto customary rights. In

Wilson & Parker’s (2007) documentary on Canadian mining abuses within Wapichan

communities and territories in the South Rupununi, Chief of Chiefs, Tony James conveys

the historical and emotional gravity of Indigenous peoples’ relationship to their ancestral

lands “the easiest way to kill someone is to take away their land…they die, they

disappear…that is what is meant by development.” Derivative entitlements from

territorial rights are collectively categorized as customary rights such as: cultural rights,

decision-making rights, environmental stewardship rights, self-governance rights,

spiritual rights and ceremonial rights. For Indigenous peoples in the North Rupununi and

throughout Guyana, their past, present and future are connected to land and their ability

to control their lands and resources according to the terms they have determined

(Allicock, p.c., 2009).

In many regions of Guyana, Indigenous leaders are concerned that their

traditional lands are increasingly being controlled by top-down conservation and

development projects, and occupied by extractive industries that threaten to undermine

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Indigenous rights and livelihoods. Griffiths & Anselmo’s (2010) study on Indigenous

sustainable livelihoods in Guyana highlights community members’ concerns that many

national and international development and environmental programs are often based on

inappropriate and imposed models “and often fail to understand Indigenous land and

resource use” (p. 5). Bulkan (2008, p.1-2) describes first-hand the concerns of

Indigenous communities in Guyana regarding formal recognition of their rights to land

title:

Always prominent on the agenda at every hearing, without exception, was the issue of land rights…time and time again, many Amerindians asked, with no small measure of bewilderment, how they could be “granted” what was already theirs…Indigenous people across the American continent are continually forced to grapple not only with the issue of their dispossession, but also with the arrogance of the newcomers.

Unfortunately, many conservation interventions and mainstream conservation

discourses have often prioritized biodiversity conservation agendas and the idea of

interest-based conservation as the standard for protecting ecosystems and wildlife and

collaborating with Indigenous or local societies. Accordingly, there has been the implicit

and hypocritical notion that once such societies can demonstrate that they are ‘compliant

conservationists’ according to the standards and agendas set by external conservation

actors, there may be some recognition of local rights to manage and use resources.

Smith & Wishnie (2000) unequivocally state that, “Indigenous rights to traditional

homelands and resource utilization should not be predicated on environmental

conservation. Conservation is not the criterion for property rights employed within

modern states, so it is hypocritical as well as unjust to impose it upon already

marginalized [communities]” (p. 516).

However, I argue that the inverse –– de facto (in practice, although not officially

ordained by law) or de jure (officially ordained by law) land and resource tenure and use

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rights for Indigenous territories –– is a precursor to equitable and sustained collaborative

conservation at the community level, and in protected areas that overlap traditional

territories. Case studies on protected area management, conservation and wildlife

management from around the world clearly indicate that the capacity for Indigenous or

local communities to regulate and acculturate sustainable harvesting and use practices,

“seldom emerges in the absence of rights” (Suich et al., 2009, p. 190). Protected areas,

for all their history of misanthropy and dispossession of Indigenous communities, have in

some contexts (such as the North Rupununi) served a wider purpose of buying time for

Indigenous people to secure outstanding land and resource rights, to identify the impacts

of neo-liberal development policies and to self-determine the collaborative relationships

and conservation pathways they wish to pursue (Adams, 2003). A village leader from

Wowetta contends (VC10, 2009):

We are trying hard not to let these commercial companies to come in and take our resources because we will not be benefiting…only they will be benefiting and our resources will be diminished. These organizations’ [IIC] type of management system is just adding to what we already strongly believed before. Much of these regulations, as long as they are securing our rights, are strengthening our traditional customs. If we did not have them in some form still, when these organizations came in, there would be nothing for us to hang on to…we had something like this before, not in writing or in a forceful way, so IIC has helped to make it more strong.

For the North Rupununi communities, a fundamental aspect of their ability to

enter into a relatively equitable and progressive conservation partnership with the IIC

has been IIC’s explicit acknowledgement of the Makushi people’s ancestral land claim to

the Iwokrama Forest and surrounding territories (Iwokrama, 2002; CMA, 2008). The

collaborative management agreement (CMA, 2008) specifically states: “…the Makushi

people and their ancestors claimed and used the Pîyakîîta (Place of Landings) – the

historic Makushi lands of Guyana, consisting of the area now described as the North

Rupununi, including the North Rupununi Wetlands, and the Iwokrama Mountains and the

Iwokrama Forest.”

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IIC’s support of the formal land demarcation and titling processes of all partnering

villages has been critical to the communities’ status and engagement interest within the

partnership. As for most Indigenous societies around the world, the land titling process

for hunting and fishing grounds that lie outside of titled village areas, but are vital for

secure livelihoods, are unprotected by legal land title9. The communities’ livelihoods and

subsistence practices depend upon customary settlements, farmlands and other

resource areas outside their titled areas, such as the Iwokrama Forest. Yet, most land

titles fail to recognize the jurisdiction of Indigenous communities over the full extent of

their traditional territories. David et al. (2006, p. 55) state, “In this way, indigenous

territories in Guyana have been broken up into (often small) islands of titled lands

intersected by State Lands.” Another issue of contention for the communities is that IIC

does not legally recognize rights by the communities over the reserve area –– only

access, use and a share of management rights. As such, IIC maintains primary decision-

making and management authority over the reserve area, or what it terms as the

‘programme site’ in its Acts (Iwokrama, 1996). However, a precedent-setting event

occurred in 2006 whereby IIC supported Fairview Village in attaining legal rights to its

village and lands within the reserve area (discussed below).

Tauli-Corpuz (2003) and the Indigenous Peoples Ad-hoc Working Group on

Access and Benefit Sharing for the UN Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) advocate for a

rights-based approach to the CBD and conservation policies including a protocol on

customary knowledge and institutions. Evidence from my interviews and observations

with community actors shows that they clearly articulate their rights to: committed

9 The 2006 revised Amerindian Act called attention to the government’s antiquated land titling mechanisms

and has facilitated the land demarcation and titling resolutions processes in many outstanding cases. While ninety-six out of one hundred and sixty-nine Amerindian communities (inclusive of satellites, settlements and villages) in Guyana have been granted legal title to the lands they occupy and use as of 2010, Indigenous communities in many regions throughout Guyana (including regions 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9) continue to be hanging in limbo regarding fair resolution of land claims and title extension.

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consultation and outreach by IIC and other organizations or the government; enact the

principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC); actively and fully participate within

conservation planning, decision-making and other management processes; and equally

benefit from the social and economic incentives derived from conservation activities.

Particularly inspiring is the recognition by most community members that they

have had a significant role in supporting and transforming the Iwokrama Forest protected

area and Iwokrama program from an ambitious idea into a relatively successful and

inspiring example of wildlife and forest management, conservation and research. The

rich experiential knowledge, cultural heritage, and commitment of community members,

has contributed invaluably to the development, integrity and sustainability of the

Iwokrama Program. According to several IIC rangers from the communities (IR2-5,

200910; IR8, 2009):

As a matter of fact, Iwokrama could not have been Iwokrama without the permission, support and knowledge of the communities…and without the main role of the communities. We had to agree to a lot of things that they wanted to put into place, or else they couldn’t have done it. The communities in sense, they could close down Iwokrama at any time if they want to; if they think that they’re not getting support anymore, or if they think that Iwokrama is doing something wrong, breaking the MOUs…they have the last say…whatever move, twist and turn that Iwokrama wants to do, they have to consult the communities…so they do have a central role.

Furthermore, the initial process of understanding and endorsement by the

majority of community members from the sixteen constituent villages have enabled IIC

and NRDDB-BHI to implement and conduct a vast and varied number of conservation

and research projects, cultural and capacity development initiatives, and sustainable

business ventures that have brought benefits to both IIC and the communities. IIC’s

commitment in the initial years (1995-2004) to community consultations, education and

sensitization to the context of rights, and cultural and socioeconomic realities of its

Indigenous partners, have gone a long way in gaining understanding and continued

10

Participants collectively contributed to quote as a group.

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support by community leaders and members for IIC’s mandate and collaborative

conservation initiatives. A former IIC ranger explains, “We went out to the communities

to do lots of consultation with the communities to let them know what it was all about and

about their rights in the new formation” (IR7, 2009). Also, the concrete stream of benefits

emerging from collaborative conservation and sustainable business initiatives,

particularly non-financial benefits, that have flowed to most communities in the region

have further consolidated community endorsement for the NRDDB-IIC partnership. A

village leader from Rewa affirms, “I am proud of what NRDDB and Iwokrama is doing

with our communities…there are always improvements but for the most part, I think it

has been beneficial for both sides” (VC4, 2009). Another leader from Surama also

expresses her support, although with reservations due to IIC’s changing priorities (VC9,

2009):

So in the older days, I would say that Iwokrama was very good…maybe because they had more resources then and now is a different thing…but I still feel and I still think that now we are much better off since they partnered with us…because we now have facilities where we could communicate and make manage things better for ourselves.

Morever, as revealed by increasing feelings of discontent and disconnection amongst

NRDDB and BHI staff and community members toward IIC’s shift in priorities toward

more market-oriented conservation strategies and decreased community involvement

and institutional support of communities –– conservation organizations like IIC cannot

afford to take community and local institutional support for granted.

An illustration of the significant role that the North Rupununi communities hold

relates to the crippling financial difficulties IIC was experiencing in its operations from

2001 until 2005, due to international funding constraints. In late 2004, twenty village

toshaos and senior counselors attended an emergency meeting called by Guyana’s

President Jagdeo to see what could be done to save IIC (Iwokrama Press Release,

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2004). A crucial factor in the government’s and international community’s decision to

resuscitate the IIC was the commitment to, and support of the North Community

communities as voiced by their village leaders in attendance. Having a central role within

IIC’s conservation program, local leaders’ validation of the importance of the Iwokrama

Forest reserve and IIC was instrumental in the government’s and ENGO’s decision.

In his pivotal discussion paper on developing the conservation partnership

between IIC and the NRDDB, former chairman for NRDDB and Indigenous

representative on the Iwokrama International Board of Trustees, Sydney Allicock (2003,

p. 3) corroborates: “The Iwokrama programme could not and would not survive and

would never meet its mandate without the good-will and participation and leadership of

the peoples of the North Rupununi.” He further underscores NRDDB’s mandate that IIC

take a people-centred approach to conservation and PA management which promotes

the rights and interests of the North Rupununi communities. The NRDDB further

mandated that the management approach be participatory and collaborative and

prioritize opportunities for community development, especially with regard to IIC’s

support for educational, training, employment and business opportunities.

There is also the recognition that while the North Rupununi communities have

definitely held a central role within the visioning, development and operation of IIC and

the Iwokrama Forest, it could always be stronger and more equitable for the

communities. Allicock (2003) and numerous village councilors and toshaos (p.c., 2009)

acknowledge that the power relationship between IIC, the government and the North

Rupununi communities has not always been equitable. This power inequity particularly

informs the relationship between the communities and government conservation and

development policies and interventions, where the government maintains a paternalistic

colonial role vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples. The inequity between the communities and

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IIC stems mostly from differential levels in financial and legal resources and capacity

(capital, technical, administrative, educational), some top-down processes and neglect in

prioritizing Indigenous interests.

It has thus been very important that the people of the North Rupununi recognize

and assert their rights, capacities and roles within both their partnership with IIC and

other organizations. Their efforts to assert their land, resource use, social and economic

rights and interests with respect to conservation and capacity development have pushed

IIC and other organizations to expand their management vision and conservation

approach to encompass the needs and realities of the communities. Community

members, and their relationship with IIC is succinctly expressed by a present community

researcher (CEW2, 2009):

I really do work for them, actually, it’s not really for them, it’s for me community, for the benefit of our community so we will know how much animals we have and how much we’re using the wild animals. Because we depend upon them in many ways.

Land-Title Process for Fairview Village

One of the most concrete and successful examples of IIC’s support for NRDDB and BHI

and the North Rupununi communities in their struggle to secure land and self-

determination rights within their villages, as well as to transition toward self-sufficient

wildlife and environmental management systems, has been the organization’s support of

Fairview Village’s land-title process. Apart from facilitating the formation and supporting

the institutional development of NRDDB over the years, the second exceptional and

precedent-setting action IIC has taken in collaboration with NRDDB and the communities

is its legal and administrative assistance to NRDDB and Fairview Village in demarcating

and securing land title to the village and territory in 2006. Fairview Village has a very

interesting geographic and political positioning as the only North Rupununi community to

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exist within the boundaries of the Iwokrama Forest reserve and which has gained legal

land and village title with the administrative and legal support of the IIC. Although IIC has

technically and institutionally assisted other villages in their demarcation and mapping

processes over the years, Fairview Village has required a broader range of institutional

support and resources due to the village’s close relationship with the IIC and its location

within the Iwokrama Forest reserve.

Prior to its titling process as a village and territory, Fairview Village was a

relatively young settlement that originated as an extended family homestead and later

attracted settlers from diverse Indigenous groups. It eventually expanded into a growing

settlement that desired support from IIC to make legal claim to the area for their

community. As such, Fairview now has legal title to nine percent of the Sustainable

Utilization Area (SUA) of the Iwokrama Forest (22,000 hectares) as enshrined within a

Memorandum of Understanding with the IIC, and it is a shareholder and primary

beneficiary within the Iwokrama Timber Incorporated (ITI), IIC’s sustainable logging

commercial venture. The village has a director on ITI’s Board elected through the

NRDDB, who represents its interests with respect to management of and benefits from

the logging venture. As thoroughly explained by the toshao of Fairview Village (VC3,

2009):

I mean, Iwokrama had originally arrived here and reach out to the settlers here and they left them as they are, until we applied to the government for formal title…well, before applying, we had a discussion with Iwokrama asking if they would grant us the permission that if we do apply for permission for land rights within the Iwokrama reserve…they all agreed to do it and so we sent through our application and the Minister had discussion with Iwokrama and NRDDB and that is how we come to have our land title…So Iwokrama and NRDDB facilitated a lot in that process, I mean, helping us to get it…because it is something really unique for Iwokrama and for Guyana on the whole, because we are the only community within a protected reserve area that have legal land title, after the reserve was already established.

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He goes on to illustrate how a combination of collaborative processes, proactive

community engagement and supportive action by committed IIC field staff has made

Fairview Village's titled status within the Iwokrama Forest reserve an international

exemplary model. It is very rare that Indigenous communities are “permitted” to maintain

their communities and territories within externally established protected areas, let alone

that conservation organizations actively assist such communities to secure legal land

and village title within the protected area. “It is really making Iwokrama a model…in

terms of other countries to see how is it possible. It is really unique for something like

this to happen, and to actually have an organization like Iwokrama follow through on

their promise to assist us with this title” (VC3, 2009). IIC's support of Fairview Village's

land demarcation and titling process demonstrates its recognition of the North Rupununi

communities as rights-holders and conservation partners. As such, it indicates the

institution's departure from the majority of global conservation institutions that make

rhetorical claims of respecting Indigenous communities as collaborative partners, but in

practice, conservation interests are pursued at the negation of Indigenous rights and

interests.

In summary, the NRDDB-IIC partnership and conservation context highlights how

on-going and emergent elements that are fundamental to more substantive conservation

partnerships, have catalyzed a strong alliance that also has the potential of enabling

local conservation leadership:

1) The sixteen partnering Indigenous and mixed villages have legal title and authority

over their territories and specific resources.

2) Fairview Village has been permitted to continue as a homestead and now as a titled

village within the Iwokrama Forest reserve boundaries.

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3) Village, district and regional leaders have a fair level of accountability and

commitment to protecting the rights and interests of their constituent members.

4) Community members have had an important and integrated role in the visioning,

planning and implementation of the Iwokrama Forest protected area, community

conserved areas, the collaborative management model and conservation

programming.

5) The North Rupununi communities are recognized as rights holders as well as

stakeholders within the Iwokrama Act and the NRDDB-IIC MOUs and Collaborative

Management Agreement.

6) While the North Rupununi communities did not initiate the collaborative relationship

with IIC and CI and were not even consulted adequately in the initial stage, they

have asserted their rights and conservation and development priorities within the

partnership from the beginning and have initiated many resulting collaborative

processes, projects and institutional support for their community-led initiatives.

Conservation International (CI)

Although the focus of my doctoral case study is the collaborative conservation

partnership between NRDDB, the North Rupununi communities and the IIC, the story

would not be complete without analysis of the developing profile and collaborative

engagement of Conservation International (CI) with NRDDB and specific North

Rupununi communities. Within the Guyana context, there are many points of

significance and overlap between CI, conservation, Indigenous peoples and the IIC (e.g.

former IIC Executive Director David Singh is currently directing CI Guyana). I focus here

on discussion of CI’s partnership with the riverine villages regarding the Upper

Essequibo Conservation Concession (UECC).

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Conservation International has numerous projects throughout Guyana, including

collaborative partnerships and conservation projects within Indigenous territories such as

the Wai Wai in Konashen and the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession in the

North Rupununi. As one of the juggernauts of global conservation (along with WWF,

IUCN and World Conservation Strategy), CI has had quite a controversial status in

Guyana and internationally due to its hardline “conservation as business” (Chapin, 2004)

mandate, its collusion with questionable corporations, and its dubious conservation

ventures and contentious interventions within Indigenous territories. The latter speaks to

CI’s bioprospecting and protected area ventures and subsequent allegations made by

Indigenous peoples in countries such as Guyana, Papua New Guinea, Mexico and

Costa Rica (Choudry, 2003) that CI, in the name of conservation and sustainable local

development initiatives, has failed to respect and consult with communities regarding

their activities (APA Press Release, 2002); has overstepped Indigenous intellectual

property rights; has not fulfilled its benefit-sharing promises and has failed to protect

communities from corrupt and harmful extractive industries and corporate interests.

Conservation International exemplifies the dominant positioning of industrial,

conservation and government agendas above Indigenous cultural and livelihood

interests, as well as the covert negotiating and privileging that engenders conflicts

between different village leaders and communities. “CI's approach is based on an

argument that the interests of some communities may just have to be sacrificed for the

greater good of conservation,” states Catherine Coumans of Mining Watch Canada (in

Siegel, 2003). Regarding the devastating cyanide run-off from gold mining production

(Romanex Guyana Explorartion Limited; Canadian mining companies: Omai, Shoreham

Resources) that overlaps both territories and proposed protected areas in Guyana’s

interior, Toshao Tony James iterates, “We don't have any problem with conservation.

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But why is it that when it comes to this mine that could destroy our communities and

have us fighting each other like dogs for whatever’s left, CI does nothing? Where are

they when it counts?” (Siegel, 2003). However, CI continues to herald itself as a

supporter of Indigenous environmental and livelihood interests and it has two

collaborative projects in Guyana that have been more positively received by their

Indigenous partners. The first is the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession in the

North Rupununi with Makushi partners; the other is the Community Owned Conservation

Area (COCA) in Konashen District with Wai Wai partners.

The UECC is the world’s first conservation concession and is globally hailed as

“conservation on equal footing.” The protected area is located in the expansive and vital

Essequibo River watershed and was established in July 2002 by CI with support by the

Government of Guyana. While an important wetland ecosystem supporting a great

diversity of wildlife and the riverine Indigenous villages of Rewa, Apoteri and

Crashwater, the area is quite distantly located from Makushi and Wapishana

communities. The Guyana Forestry Commission leased approximately 200,000 hectares

to CI for a period of thirty years for less than $100,000 USD per annum for the purposes

of conservation. CI also plans to ask for the inclusion of the concession site into a

legally protected area when the long-negotiated Guyana Protected Areas System is

finally realized (BHI, p.c., 2009).

There has also been the promise by CI and the GFC that full ownership rights to

the concession area will be transferred to the partner villages within ten years. While

mediated by NRDDB, the villages of Apoteri, Crashwater, and Rewa have been

designated as the primary collaborators and beneficiaries and worked with CI to

demarcate boundaries to ensure that they do not conflict with their traditional territories.

People from the older village, Apoteri, had traditionally used some of the concession

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area as their fishing grounds in the past. Similar to the Iwokrama Forest reserve, the

concession area also has sustainable use areas (SUAs) and wilderness preserve areas,

although there are much fewer SUAs than IIC because the reserve is remote and not

very accessible for people in harvesting for their sustenance. A local wildlife researcher

and former CEW explained further: “Since the organizations come in and set up the

reserves, I don’t think that people from Apoteri really go and fish in there anymore…so

things are changing now…now, with people getting involved with projects” (CEW3,

2009).

The communities, especially Rewa Village, have become quite involved within

the collaborative partnership with CI regarding the EUCC as they wish to protect their

territories and resources, as well as have funding to realize their local development and

sustainable livelihood priorities. A CI ranger from Rewa Village explains: “The

concession area is a way for us to protect this land and wetlands and when we need it;

we can expand and extend our land title…It helps to support our conservation and

community development here” (IR6, 2009).

With regard to the concession area, collaboration, and its promised benefits to

the communities, a village leader from Rewa states: “We agreed with the proposal

because we wanted assistance from CI to handle those kind of things. We wanted them

to work with us as partners and to get some capacity and support from them. We agreed

on an area from here to our boundary, going up the river” (VC4, 2009). The village

leader continues that the village “…asked CI to carry us to the concession area to see

what is actually going on there. We found a lot of faults there…a lot of projects need to

be done in that place to get things up to a good level. Now we are better informed and

we can try to see what needs to be done”. The communities appear to have benefited to

some extent from concession community funds and have invested the funds into

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activities such as handicraft production, livestock-rearing projects and a community-

owned eco-lodge in Rewa Village. However, most of the monies are channeled through

the Guyana Forestry Commission and it is clear from NRDDB staff (NRDDB, p.c., 2009)

and community leaders (IR1, 2009; VC4 & 9, 2009) that the communities are not

receiving the major portion of these monies.

Convergence and Divergence in Priorities and Responsibilities

There has been much debate within both the mainstream and critical collaborative

conservation literature about the issue of commensurability between Indigenous and

conservation organization (or state) priorities and interests with regard to conservation

and wildlife management. Of particular conjecture have been: how much convergence is

required between the two groups for a real sense of collaboration to occur (Keough and

Blahna, 2005); possibilities of difference (Stevenson, 2006); and approaches on how the

two groups can negotiate their priorities and interests within the partnership (O’Flaherty

et al., 2008).

Since environmental and wildlife practices and customs are an application of

Indigenous philosophical and social values and reciprocal human–nature relationships

as embedded in their particular worldview (Littlebear, 2000), North Rupununi community

members tend to intrinsically link environmental conservation priorities with those of

cultural conservation, livelihood and socioeconomic development interests. Such a

connection between conserving biological diversity and cultural diversity has already

been a niche approach within international conservation policy and academic discourses

for quite some time –– e.g. UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, WWF’s

Integrated Approach to Conserving the World’s Biological and Cultural Diversity, and

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authors such as Pimbert & Ghimire (1997). However, this integrated approach has rarely

been implemented by conservation organizations on the ground.

Due to the combined change in political direction of IIC leadership (from 2003

until the present) and ongoing funding constraints, the institution has shifted away from

intensive community outreach, collaborative research and capacity development

initiatives toward more market-oriented conservation strategies and promoting

“conservation as a business.” IIC’s targeted focus on sustainable logging, ecotourism

and ecosystem payments ventures has shifted the orientation of the Iwokrama Forest

from a protected area maintained exclusively for sustainable community use and

biodiversity research, to a commodified forest product. While necessary at some level in

terms of sustaining IIC’s programs, the institution’s intensified market focus has created

a contradiction between its discourse on Indigenous community integration and

protecting biodiversity — and its practice of conservation-as-business. There continues

to be an emphasis by IIC staff on partnerships with the North Rupununi communities and

equitable benefit- and power-sharing with regard to these business ventures, but at what

cost?

A former IIC ranger from Surama and a community leader from Fairview

expressed their concern for “the purpose of safeguarding the Iwokrama Forest area as a

protected area for the future of the communities – not for Iwokrama to make money”

(IR9; VH3, 2009). IIC’s sustainable commercial logging enterprise and their focus on

developing an international market for Iwokrama Forest’s ecosystem services are

perceived by community members as conservation priorities divergent from those of

NRDDB-BHI and the communities. A community wildlife researcher and former IIC

ranger articulates this disillusionment (IR8, 2009):

I feel disappointed with the fact that Iwokrama has shifted its priorities toward conservation as a business rather than the fact that it is a non-profit organization that

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should be focused on generating forest and wildlife research and supporting communities in community-based, sustainable use and management frameworks for wildlife and other natural resources. I particularly have bad feelings about…the idea of a conservation organization engaging in logging activities within the reserve. The MYC concession [Makushi Yemekun Cooperative community forestry initiative] area near Surama exists and if Iwokrama wants to support local sustainable logging initiatives and develop research in this region, then it should work more with MYC and not have created a subsidiary with Tiger Wood [British timber company] within the reserve. The use of chainsaws is not very environmentally friendly. Iwokrama has an EU-funded project to work with local loggers to use other less invasive and polluting methods. It pains my heart to know how Iwokrama’s logging enterprise had compromised both the ecological integrity of the forest reserve area, as well as the integrity of the organization as a symbol for conservation and sustainability.

There is a perception by community members that contradictions are inherent to

Conservation International’s reputation (NRDDB, p.c., 2009), and with IIC’s discourse

and practice in recent years due to the shift in IIC’s priorities and leadership. A village

leader and former IIC ranger articulates this (IR1, 2009):

The people heading the programs and the ones on the ground too, it’s not that they aren’t doing anything. But they are sometimes preaching one thing and doing something else. I see it more with CI because the concession and project is closer to my community and I have the CI rangers and researchers in my community, so I see this happening with CI directly.

A village leader adds his thoughts to the contentious and seemingly contradictory issue

of sustainable commercial logging done in the reserve area (VC10, 2009):

One of the concerns we have with what Iwokrama is doing right now is with the low- impact logging project. A contradiction I see is during the meetings and workshops you hear them talking about sustainable utilization of resources within the reserve area and within the communities. But you know, we are facing a lot of people asking us questions like ‘why is it that Iwokrama is logging?’…though we are trying to take care with our resources here and there (inside the reserve), there has been a lot of destruction that has been happening…first, there is the road, lots of transects.

Two highly respected village elders also share their concerns and reflections from a

lifetime of more than eighty years in the region (VE9 & 10, 2009):

We never saw people using chainsaws and so many people from outside coming and doing what they like here…but since Iwokrama came in, there are chainsaws and the noise is keeping away the wildlife. I am worried that as more activity increases and people come into the area, what will become of their lands, the forest

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and wildlife?...instead of keeping it safe with a good management system, we sees them (Iwokrama) clearing out the forest and people start burning more land for farms and we know that in our time, people never used to do those things.

There is some dissent amongst community leaders and members regarding IIC’s

increasing move toward commercial logging and other market-oriented conservation

ventures. Many community leaders and villagers are sceptical of IIC’s ideological and

programmic shift toward more profit-making strategies, especially business ventures that

are ecologically and culturally invasive, and incur within the Iwokrama Forest reserve.

They worry about the social and environmental implications of such ventures, and the

trade-off regarding the decline in community-oriented initiatives and institutional support.

They specifically feel that the sustainable logging venture is a breach of the institution’s

promise to help the communities conserve and maintain the Iwokrama Forest as their

traditional sacred and protected area. In contrast, some people trust implicitly in IIC’s

intentions to protect forest resources and community interests, and they are optimistic

about the ventures as long as they are ecologically sustainable and stimulate lucrative

opportunities for communities. Fairview leaders and villagers are particularly invested in

the sustainable logging business venture with IIC, are positioned to gain the most and

are thus most supportive of this specific market strategy. Also, a small number of middle-

aged and younger community members appear unfazed by the increasing

commercialization of their environments and conservation strategies (whether by IIC or

by local institutions) and are focused on profiting from any new income-generating

ventures. Most community members are supportive of IIC’s, and particularly NRDDB’s

community-based ecotourism ventures since they are small scale, minimally invasive

and generate much-needed income for communities.

As to whether both the NRDDB and communities, and IIC and other conservation

partners must completely harmonize their goals and interests regarding wildlife and

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environmental conservation for the collaborative relationship and conservation initiatives

to be viable, I must query: Is this even possible given the differential power, socio-

cultural, epistemological and historical contexts from where each group is oriented?

Adams and Hulme (2001) remind that collaborative conservation is a process and any

arrangement between conservationists and Indigenous communities must recognize the

possibility that desired environmental and social outcomes, will clash with narrowly

defined and pre-determined conservation goals.

In their discussion of the Whitefeather Forest Initiative land-based community

economic development renewal and caribou stewardship initiative collaborated on by

Pikangikum First Nation and the Ontario government, O’Flaherty, Davidson-Hunt and

Manseau (2008) propose a cross-scale and cross-cultural approach to collaborative

management, where these groups collaborate on designing and achieving outcomes

that correspond to both Indigenous and Provincial responsibilities. Hence, the approach

is grounded in community-level environmental stewardship principles and practices and

satisfies provincial wildlife management priorities at the ecosystem level. Massey’s

(1993) study also recognizes that active collaboration of Indigenous communities within

conservation initiatives will only come about if external organizations explicitly ground

wildlife and resource management systems in local values, priorities and institutions.

It is crucial for both IIC and NRDDB to clearly outline their respective goals and

interests, as well as administrative and decision-making boundaries, regarding

conservation and sustainable use of the Iwokrama Forest reserve and village lands. A

village leader from Fairview Village advises (VH1, 2009):

But it is both sides… It is not only Iwokrama to take responsibility or fault, firstly it should be our leaders, the Village Council. It is up to them to say to Iwokrama, look, this is what we really want. Especially for the young people to be engaged, informed and doing something productive here. More training courses and some forms of entertainment for young people.

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Community members, NRDDB and IIC staff attest to sharing similar conservation and

wildlife management priorities, although influenced by reasons stemming from their

different worldview understandings, values, interests in conservation, and relationships

with animals and the environment11. However, despite such similarities and the

well-intentioned attempts of IIC and CI community initiatives and many staff to integrate

local socioeconomic needs and cultural forms within conservation projects, IIC and CI

have a far more conservation- or business-focused mandate than do NRDDB and the

communities.

Relationship-Building: NRDDB, IIC and North Rupununi Communities

For Indigenous peoples in Guyana and throughout the Americas, conservation and its

requisite knowledge and governance systems is primarily about relationships (Smallboy,

p.c., 2010; Stevenson, 2006; VE7 & 8, 2009) –– relationships between people and land,

water, animals and plants; and between local communities, conservationists and other

collaborators. The North Rupununi and many other Indigenous societies particularly

identify alliance-building and collaboration with institutional and research allies as a

crucial and integral facet of their environmental management and development

processes. As expressed by a ranger from Rewa Village working within the CI

Concession, “We cannot do things by ourselves alone…especially at the village level.

We need support in managing things and it is beneficial to have NRDDB, Iwokrama and

even CI to assist us” (IR6, 2009). However, since collaborative engagements are

inherently complex and challenging to navigate for both Indigenous and conservation

11

Similarly in Canada, the collaborative relationship and intergovernmental cooperative agreement between

Haida Nation and the Federal government over the Gwaii Haanas National Park also reflect an overlap in environmental and cultural conservation priorities by the two governments –– although informed by different sets of interests (Gladstone, p.c., 2010).

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partners (particularly for the former), and they are fraught with potential conflict on

ideological, epistemological, and methodological levels –– understanding the nature of

collaboration and relationship-building between the groups is of paramount.

A pivotal and catalytic force within the largely positive evolution of the

collaborative partnership and IIC’s conservation program has been NRRDB’s presence

and leadership within the region, as well as specific visionary and charismatic

community leaders and IIC staff. As confirmed by a village toshao, “The collaboration…I

think that most of the people understand it as something really unique because of the

way we have it set up with NRDDB as our mediator between the communities and

Iwokrama” (VC3, 2009).

Building Trust and Community Outreach

A key element in collaborative relationship-building is building trust between the groups

entering into partnership. In the case of the NRDDB-IIC partnership, IIC particularly

gained and cemented the trust and interest of community leaders and members to

become key collaborators within the protected area management and conservation

programs through community outreach. Respondents from all of the community groups

interviewed agreed that IIC’s community outreach activities, (especially those facilitated

by CEWs, rangers and Makushi Research Unit community researchers) have been the

relationship catalyst in terms of gaining community members’ understanding, trust,

endorsement and active engagement. A former CEW speaks for all CEWs interviewed:

“I had to gain everyone’s trust in this new collaboration and it was not easy. They were

here in the village and not at the meetings with Iwokrama, so I had to bring those

meetings to them.” A village toshao elaborates: “When those people (IIC and CI) come,

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and tell us in advance…the people (villagers) come and listen…they can be prepared for

that and come and listen and have better trust in what it is all about” (VC4, 2009).

As too often occurs in overlapping Indigenous territory and protected area

scenarios, the initial lack of community consultations by IIC and the Government of

Guyana caused confusion, unease, and fear amongst communities. Many elders and

middle-aged community members were very wary of the concepts of ‘conservation,’

‘wildlife and environmental management’ and ‘collaboration,’ and suspicions also of the

organization, and its agenda regarding their traditional territories and way of life –– that

“the white man” was coming to take away their lands and resources (CEW2; IR7, 2009).

Such suspicion was particularly evident in the communities more distantly located and

disconnected from the Iwokrama Forest reserve, as well as those where many villagers

are not English-speakers. Village leaders from Surama recall people being wary that

“…others are coming to stop them from their traditional practices and how they have

been doing their way of life. They want to know how people can come in be talking about

things like hunting regulations...that you can no longer hunt as you want, or fish...” (VC5

& 6, 2009).

Under the early directorship of Castells and Watkins, IIC engaged in a number of

manoeuvres that have enabled the institution to earn the trust of the North Rupununi

communities and to forge a strong partnership that has, thus far, weathered the

challenging and disruptive pressures and shifts that would typically erode such

collaborative relationships. IIC has fully supported the emergence and entrenchment of

NRDDB as an autonomous Indigenous institutional partner and safeguard of Indigenous

rights and priorities within the partnership. IIC also facilitated numerous community-

based outreach, educational, consultational and training initiatives such as the

community environmental worker project, ranger training, wildlife clubs, participatory

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human resource interaction appraisals, community conservation contracts, and titling

support to assist communities in the integrative and transitional process toward

collaborative conservation and wildlife management.

Communities were also unclear as to where they now stood in terms of their

access, harvest and use rights vis-à-vis the Iwokrama Forest reserve. CEWs, MRU

researchers, rangers and wildlife club leaders recounted that elders, hunters and

fishermen who had become acquainted with the preservationist agenda from other

organizations and/or experiences from other Indigenous groups, assumed that IIC’s

mandate and their plans to establish the Iwokrama reserve had a preservationist

mandate. In contrast, the communities understand conservation practice as a relational

process of responsible and sustainable harvesting and use of environmental resources.

“Sustainable use is a better word because you can’t tell people not to touch things if they

need them to eat or use for their house…but they must use it in a responsible way”

(VC9, 2009). IIC has always maintained in their policy discourse and initiatives that they

are supportive of and interested in developing models on sustainable utilization of forest

and wildlife resources from the Iwokrama Forest reserve. A field station manager from

Wowetta Village relates (IM3, 2009):

This was the most important part for the Centre to eventually get the elders and others of the communities to understand that Iwokrama is all about conservation and utilization and NOT total preservation. Elders of the communities were afraid that at some point they would have been denied some of their traditional lifestyles.

Prior to the NRDDB-IIC partnership and all of the subsequent community–

institution collaborations, the North Rupununi communities were not accustomed to long-

term encounters with people and organizations external to the communities (whether

Guyanese or foreign) due to their remote geographic location and socio-cultural

configurations (VC5 & 6, 2009). Elements of the Western, urban collaborative

management models –– conservation and management discourses, administrative and

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financial procedures, strict timeframes and deadlines and business frameworks –– are

very different and new for Indigenous communities in the North Rupununi. They

represent quite a drastic learning curve for people, especially those who have become

actively engaged within the collaborative process and projects. In this climate, tensions

have often arisen over the years, due in part to the assumptions and occasional lack of

cultural awareness by IIC staff and other external organizations and researchers. A

village leader from Surama criticizes: “They are expecting we to be like them…but we

don’t have that…we don’t have those same facilities…we have the internet system but

we don’t have the power to keep powering it for 24 hours. Yes, it is a cultural difference

that they have to understand as well” (VC9, 2009).

IIC’s community outreach activities act as an interpretive and cultural interface

between IIC and the communities and have been profoundly effective in bridging and

creating understanding and trust between community members and IIC. An imperative

within effective conservation outreach and dialogue processes is that conservationists

attempt to reach across the epistemic and cultural divide to understand the world of their

Indigenous partners. Such understanding requires that, as much as possible,

communications be translated into the languages of the communities, and equitably

incorporate cultural institutions related to animals and ecological practice within all

collaborative and conservation processes.

The elders really did understand what it was all about, both conservation and management, when they understood it in our language. They may not understand the big English words, but interpreted in the Makushi way, the elders really did know and could connect it with the knowledge from long ago days. (CEW2, 2009)

Most community members agreed that “They [Iwokrama and CI] have tried in

some ways to understand our culture and way of doing things here, and some materials

have been translated into Makushi”, however, “…from my understanding, they mostly

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came in with their own program and agenda…” (VC7 & 8, 2009). This latter point refers

to the persistence of top-down decision-making and an inherent power differential that

exists within the collaborative relationship between Indigenous communities and

conservationists. Although understanding, trust and active participation have grown

exponentially amongst community members over the years (particularly from 1996-2004

when there were intense investment and support by IIC in outreach and cultural

revitalization projects) not all villagers comprehend the full scope of collaborative

conservation, of IIC regulations regarding the Iwokrama Forest reserve, or what is

expected of them by external and community institutions. An IIC manager from Wowetta

Village validates, “From a perspective of an Iwokrama staff and a member of the North

Rupununi community, one of the most challenging phase for Iwokrama and the

communities was collectively coming to understand Iwokrama’s mandate in its early

stage” (IM3, 2009).

Thus the importance of the constant presence of NRDDB as a community-based

mediator, as well as Indigenous leaders, rangers, researchers and facilitators within all

IIC and CI consultation and outreach actions, have all worked very well in cultivating

trust, and bridging interests and the cultural and epistemic divide between the groups. A

village leader encapsulates the benefits of such bridging actors within the communities

(VC9, 2009):

A lot of educating going on to allow people to understand. That is what the NRDDB is there for…to help Iwokrama reach out to the communities, to make a bridge of understanding for the community members. And they try to get feedbacks from the members of the communities as well. To hear if you’re in agreement with them and if not, what are the problems that need to be addressed.

An IIC director outlines the diverse community outreach activities that IIC initiated in

the first nine years (1995-2004) on behalf of the North Rupununi communities (IM1,

2009):

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i) Support for sustainable business and community-based enterprise development (e.g. IDB project business development training 2008-2009, El Dorado Aquarium Fisheries, North Rupununi Tourism);

ii) Community Development Fund: portion of revenues from Iwokrama Forest user fees and commercially-based conservation initiatives;

iii) Development of communications and information dissemination for NRDDB and

amongst contituent communities; iv) Support to Radio Paiwomak (Guyana’s only licensed community station); v) Support for youth development and environmental leadership, i.e. facilitation of North

Rupununi Wildlife Clubs, hosting Wildlife Festival for youth from fifteen wildlife clubs, annual outreach visits to wildlife clubs and fourteen primary schools, Community visits annually to 15 wildlife clubs, community visits to IIC site, support to the Guyana Zoo Volunteer Program; and

vi) Regular outreach visits by CEWs and rangers for conservation and wildlife

management training.

It is essential that there is understanding and consensus among community that

all of the conservation and development projects initiated and/or collaborated on by

NRDDB and BHI are in the interest of protecting and strengthening the environmental

and cultural integrity of the region, before the projects are implemented. A community

leader from Wowetta Village explains (VC10, 2009):

It’s bringing us to a level of understanding about the resources we have…how we must go about utilizing our resources responsibly and effectively to develop ourselves and our next generations. It is helping us to know about going about what we want for ourselves as Amerindians.

Dialogue

Navajo Chief Justice, Robert Yazzie (2000, p. 46) writes that, “Traditional Indigenous

communication is based on respect, using respectful language and respectful

discourse.” Yazzie continues, that in many other cultural traditions, “communication is

designed to compel the listener to accept the position taken by the speaker.” For the

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NRDDB-BHI and the communities, the oral tradition of their culture and the centrality of

their Indigenous languages in protecting and revitalizing their customs and way of life

have been focal points of their engagement with IIC and other institutional partners. IIC

has invested resources and institutional support into not only community outreach, but

also to facilitate language instruction and publication projects in partnership with

NRDDB, the Makushi Research Unit and the Canadian International Development Fund

(CIDA).

Moreover, under past institutional leadership, IIC has tried to provide dialogue

spaces throughout their collaboration with the communities that encourages community

members who are only able to speak in Makushi or Wapishana, to do so in their

communications. They have also tried to ensure that community interpreters and

translators (especially MRU translators) are always on hand for collaborative meetings,

workshops, research and materials provided to communities. Most community members

agreed that, for the most part, IIC has respected and encouraged their cultural and

customary practices, and have used culturally relevant modes of communication,

information-sharing and programming within their conservation and community

interventions (VC3 & 9, 2009; CEW1-4, 2009).

Despite IIC’s best intentions and efforts, however, community members indicated

that the onus has been more on community members to step outside of their cultural

worlds and adapt to the academic, technical and scientific languages and modern

modes of communication that have currency within global conservation and managerial

cultures. A village leader contends, “a lot of information given to us and brought into our

community have been in this complicated institutional and scientific way and it makes us

sometimes feel a ways…we already have our knowledge of things here and…they

expect we to find a way to understand and communicate with them” (VC10, 2009).

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Furthermore, despite the current feelings of disconnect that people feel in

response to IIC’s lessening outreach with communities, the villages are moving forward

with their own community-level initiatives to take more leadership and control over their

own conservation and management practices. Some have also created alternatives for

fostering better understanding, communication and information-sharing with the IIC and

CI with respect to collaborative projects and management of the Iwokrama Forest

reserve and the CI Concession. Village leaders from Rewa describe one such youth

educational project that will reintegrate rangers back into the village and facilitate the

flow of communications and outreach (VC7 & 8, 2009):

The community, rangers and CI will be working together on this. They will also establish a better base in the concession to hold the children for a few nights and better accommodations for the rangers too. This will provide more communication between the community and CI so we get to understand what their plans are and how we will develop our community…

Decision-Making and Consensus-Building

My research indicates that although the formation and flow of decision-making within the

NRDDB-IIC collaborative relationship was strived for by both groups, many community

members felt that top-level IIC decisions on conservation, research and business

interventions are increasingly being made at the institutional level –– with little

consultation and integration of community partners until the end stages. There appears

to be a consortium of conservation and state agency partners that plan and decide on

proposed interventions before they are finally presented to the North Rupununi

communities for feedback and implementation. A village toshao describes his

observations and frustrations (IR1, 2009):

I think that sometimes we get the decision-making and planning processes from top to bottom rather than from bottom to top…yes, they will come to NRDDB and each village council to let them know what is happening and get a sense from us about

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what we think about the proposals…but before that, they have often gone before to their higher authorities like EPA, GTMC, GFC and so on and during a board meeting, we will get to know what they have already planned and then they will say, ‘now we want to hear from you, it is your decision, according to your committees from the communities.’ And if you object to the decision because of certain concerns…they will say, how come and well, you may not have all of the information on hand…but you ask them, why didn’t you invite the EPA, GTMC or GFC personnel to discuss these issues with us so we could discuss our concerns…they will say, ‘oh we have already made contact with them and have come up with these proposals or agreements’…so sometimes, they have already made the decision and just come to we to look for formal approval…they already have an agreement made up and then come afterward and want us to sign.

Thus, the side-stepping by state, conservation and industry actors of customary

and integrative decision-making mechanisms within communities is a significant issue of

concern to Indigenous leaders in the North Rupununi and throughout Guyana. This

situation is particularly frustrating since these mechanisms are fundamental

requirements of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) and any consultative and

collaborative arrangement with Indigenous communities. In their assessment report of

case studies and experiences from different Indigenous societies where people have

asserted their right to the principle of free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), Colchester

and Ferrari (2007, p. 5) underscore, “by definition, ‘free’ should allow scope for

indigenous peoples to make decisions in their own time, in their own ways, in languages

of their own choosing and subject to their own norms and customary laws.”

Indigenous peoples in the North Rupununi and throughout Guyana maintain

relatively egalitarian customs around decision-making and cooperative actions within

their communities that are grounded in values of reciprocity and exchange. Cooperative

interactions amongst community members and between people and their environments,

“emphasize simultaneously the autonomy of the individual and the importance of sharing

between all members of the village or cluster of villages…between humans and what we

call ‘natures’ ” (Colchester et al., 2002, p. 22). The customary decision-making process

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amongst the Makushi and other Indigenous people of the North Rupununi villages has

been to come together as a collective regarding ideas, decisions and actions about

wildlife and forest harvesting and use, farming, community development and livelihood

activities. It has been very important to community elders and leaders that IIC, CI and

other conservation partners respect and integrate their tradition of consensus decision-

making within all collaborative management processes.

Although lengthy and complex, consensus-building thus provides more integrity,

inclusivity, and accountability within decision-making processes and also allows for

mutual cooperation amongst and between communities, organizations and government

agencies. It also discourages decisions from being imported or forced from above by

community leaders themselves –– especially by external organizations, researchers or

government. A village toshao outlines the significance of consensus decision-making to

the communities and to the collaborative conservation process (VC3, 2009):

When you come to have a discussion of anything that you are planning to do, any business, or any agreement within the village, or with any other parties or partners, you have to go through a long process of discussion to get everyone’s opinions and ideas...that is what we’ve been doing all the time here in the community. We reach together as a village and we go through the issues, we discuss things, we ask questions or for clarification and until people understand what the whole business is about. We going to say to the partner we are ready on this date for you to come for some more discussion and then, if the people are satisfied and the understand where we are going with things and feel confident about it, only then will we say all right, let’s proceed in a certain manner.

There has been some success: both IIC and community members agreed that IIC has

worked hard to encourage consensus and participatory decision-making, and to

integrate Indigenous decision-making processes within collaborative management,

research and business projects. An IIC manager working with community outreach

remarks, “Yes, centralized and community meetings are very participatory and

representatives are encouraged to bring issues and concerns from community to

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meetings and to report meeting outcomes to community afterward” (IM2, 2009). Village

leaders from Surama explain in detail (VC1 & 2, 2009).

Yes, they have been doing that, especially through NRDDB…allowing community members full participation. In all of my times participating in the meetings and collaborative process, they allow and encourage people to give their full views and respect their input that they put forward…they want to have that shared participation and that everyone can agree on a particular topic or initiative that has been put on the table…you all agree or keep discussing until an agreement comes together. You must not leave with only one person or institution making the decision and the others are not on board.

Community leaders, elder advisors, NRDDB and BHI staff attested to feeling that their

knowledge, concerns and priorities are valued and integrated by IIC within management

decision-making and project plans when they are able to dialogue and collaborate with

IIC partners. As exemplified above, the NRDDB plays a vital role in local decision-

making processes as they aim to democratically represent all sixteen North Rupununi

villages, mediating and facilitating community decision-making within broader

collaborative decision-making processes with conservation, development, research and

government institutions. IIC rangers from different villages outline the collaborative

decision-making process as it moves from grassroots to community institutional and

external institutional levels, and then back to the grassroots level (IR2-7, 2009):

The communities, through representation by NRDDB, the communities make the decision first and then they report to NRDDB and then NRDDB must then make or break agreements with Iwokrama based on those decisions…then those decisions are communicated back to the communities in village public meetings.

Of particular concern to the majority of village leaders and some NRDDB staff has

been the lack of involvement of entire communities within collaborative meetings and

workshops (VC1-5; VC8 & 10-11, 2009). One toshao explains, “I feel that they should

meet with everyone here and that the whole village should be able to participate in what

is discussed…to be more representative and consensus-based…I cannot be the sole

representative for both the community and for Iwokrama or NRDDB or CI” (VC4, 2009).

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Yet, full inclusivity and full participation by all community members would likely prove

challenging for the already financially constrained IIC. A community environmental

leader from Surama surmises, “if they would come more often to the village and

…present the project ideas and hear what people here have to contribute…how far we

could carry the projects together” (CEW4, 2009). Alternative ideas offered by community

respondents such as IIC and other conservation partners reinvigorating their community

outreach activities, and conducting regular bi-annual meetings with individual villages

would be very effective and allow community members to feel more informed, integrated

and valuable within the collaborative partnership.

Institutional Support for Community-Led Conservation

Provision of institutional support and capacity development by institutional partners such

as IIC are identified by all NRDDB-BHI staff and community members as essential in

building effective conservation partnerships. It is also foundational to IIC’s facilitation of

community partners in developing conservation leadership, autonomous management

initiatives, and socioeconomic development within their communities. However, while IIC

continues to be nominally supportive of community-level conservation transformations,

funding constraints and their decline in substantive engagement with the North Rupununi

communities has resulted in a decrease in financial and training support for such

transformations.

While such decrease has undoubtedly created tensions within the present

context of the NRDDB-IIC partnership, the IIC has committed to providing a relatively

consistent level of support to NRDDB, BHI and the villages — which has strengthened

local conservation capacities. IIC defines developing local capacity and human

resources as one of its program areas and a priority in its collaborative partnership with

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NRDDB and the communities. From the beginning of their collaboration, both IIC and

NRDDB recognized that a critical area of support from IIC would be to assist community

members in adapting to and developing the capacity to integrate conservation science,

technology and collaborative management procedures within their own cultural

understandings, customary practices and community initiatives. An IIC field manager

from Wowetta Village expresses IIC’s commitment within this aspect: “Iwokrama would

want to fully support the traditional practices as a management strategy for wildlife and

conservation” (IM3, 2009).

It must be recognized that central to the IIC and other external partners’

conservation success and longevity within the North Rupununi, has been the flow of

institutional support in developing the communitie’s conservation leadership and

management capacities at the village level. Alternatively, the diverse local skills and

natural history and cultural knowledge transfer provided by communities has been of

invaluable benefit to IIC and other partners in developing their conservation program,

research and collaborative management initiatives. As such, it is important to remember

within collaborative conservation and relationships and human resources development

initiatives that capacity training and needs should not be interpreted and designed solely

within the frame of modern conservation’s primarily scientific, technical, business and

managerial skill set and framework. It is thus important to ask, what does ‘capacity’

mean within the specific context and long-term needs of the communities?

Institutional support for conservation and community projects has taken the form

of financial, technical, administrative and legal assistance. Initiatives and projects

facilitated by IIC to provide institutional support and capacity development for NRDDB-

BHI and community members over the past ten years include:

Zonation of sustainable use areas (SUAs) ensuring community harvesting and use rights and access.

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Developing the Makushi Research Unit for community researchers carrying out

projects on: women’s empowerment, language, traditional knowledge, HIV/AIDS awareness and Prevention, alcohol abuse and domestic violence.

Wildlife and forestry conservation initiatives.

Linkage between ecosystem health and physical health.

Skills training and educational workshops –– wildlife management and research,

forestry, participatory approaches in community-based resource management, protected area management, GPS, community outreach, community mapping, communications, leadership, financial and data management, tourism and public-speaking.

Negotiation and support of Community Conservation Contracts within different

villages (community conserved areas, community conservation projects).

Community environmental worker, ranger and guide programs.

Developing sustainable community-based tourism. Initiatives promoting gender and social rights.

Junior wildlife clubs and youth conservation leadership.

Community resource mapping for North Rupununi villages (2000-2002 and 2009-

2010).

Participatory Human Resource Interaction Appraisals (PHRIAs) and socio-cultural impact monitoring tool.

Facilitating Fairview Village demarcation and titling processes; establishment of

buffer zone to protect community and forested land from illegal hunting, mining and logging.

Sustainable commercial logging collaborative venture with Fairview Village.

Inventories & Cost Analysis Surveys of Fruit & Nut Trees – e.g., Crabwood

(Carapa guianensis) and cashew (Anacardium giganteum) trees for the potential development of organic nut and oil-based products.

Publications including: Sustaining Makushi Way of Life, Iwokramî pantone:

Stories about Iwokrama and healthy lifestyle notebooks which were distributed amongst local schools and wildlife clubs.

Developing domestic and global markets for Iwokrama Forest ecosystem

products and services.

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IIC’s ability to connect NRDDB-BHI and different villages with different NGO’s,

researchers and funding agencies has resulted in long-term partnerships supporting the

communities and institutions in implementing community-initiated projects, and provided

capacity development for youth and other community members. A community

researcher describes (CEW1, 2009):

They [Iwokrama and NRDDB] give good ideas and try to help on different projects…like say with NGOs, they have linkages with some far-away places to help out with initiatives for the communities. Many people in the community say they feel as though these organizations are supporting we at the village level.

Collaborative Wildlife Management and Research

IIC facilitated two collaborative wildlife management workshops with the North Rupununi

communities in 1998 where rangers and community elders and hunters contributed a

vast amount of their knowledge and experience about wildlife and their habitats. A set of

integrative community-based wildlife management and research reports (NRDDB &

Iwokrama, 1998) were produced from the workshops, showcasing Indigenous ecological

knowledge and harvesting and use practices. The workshops fuelled interest from the

NRDDB and communities to conduct an in-depth participatory research project to collect

and synthesize a diverse range of local knowledge and data on: environmental,

demographic, cultural and socioeconomic features; wildlife and natural resource harvest

and use practices; and customary practices within each village. NRDDB requested IIC to

facilitate the appraisal project, called the Participatory Human Resource Appraisals

(PHRIAs) from 1999-2000.

The PHRIA project was part of IIC’s former Sustainable Human Development

Programme’s development of participatory sustainable forest and wildlife management

approaches and, moreover, enhancement of local management capacity while

facilitating community development needs and aspirations (Forte, 2000). PHRIA

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researchers trained Makushi Research Unit researchers and IIC rangers in participatory

research methods and working with the community researchers to collect and interpret

systematic data on all defined areas. Research from the PHRIAs was segued by

NRDDB and IIC into a community resource-mapping project for each of the constituent

villages. IIC trained former CEWs and local map interns to collect descriptive and spatial

data on: community wildlife and natural resources; resource harvesting and utilization

areas around the village (hunting and fishing grounds, farming areas, NTFP areas); local

wildlife, tree and plant species harvested; zonation of SUAs and village boundaries; and

settlement areas. The Geographic Information Systems (GIS) unit at IIC built databases

and created GIS maps for each village. The NRDDB and individual villages retain

intellectual property rights to both the PHRIAs and the community resource maps. IIC is

currently supporting BHI and local map researchers to update the community resource

maps for each village.

The data generated by the PHRIAs were immensely beneficial to the

communities and NRDDB in terms of having reference and base data on their natural

and cultural resources, environmental, harvesting and livelihood practices, income

generation and historical record. However, the PHRIAs do not focus very much on the

customary knowledge and institutions within the communities, nor on the relationships

between community members and their lands and resources, nor the linkage between

cultural systems and environmental practice. However, these linkages are critical to

understanding how the communities define their contemporary conservation and

community development actions.

Following on the community resource-mapping project, IIC negotiated and

supported NRDDB within the framework of community conservation contracts for each

constituent village. Contracts for protection, sustainable management and sustainable

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income generation target specific wildlife, forest or savannah resources that have been

identified by individual villages as valuable to villagers, yet under particular threat within

their territories. The premise of conservation contracts such as Ité Palm conservation,

community conservation areas (CCAs), and arapaima conservation is that by protecting

resources and habitat areas, villagers will be able to ensure the health and flourishing of

their environments and communities, as well as benefit from “the regulated and

equitable sharing of these key resources” (Allicock, 2003). Two village leaders from

Surama assert, “controlled areas are what we need. Identified areas where our

resources are and should be conserved, where we should control our activities in

sensitive wildlife areas…this protected area will be for the benefit of all the people” (V1 &

2, 2009).

Within the scope of such projects, CCAs have been zoned according to the

Iwokrama reserve with areas designated as SUAs for sustainable harvesting and use of

wildlife, forest and plant resources. WP areas are designated to protect vulnerable

species populations and/or habitats, where harvesting activities are regulated or

restricted until species and habitats are at a healthier level. Communities take leadership

of such projects –– monitoring progress, identifying contentious issues and potential

conflicts between and among user groups, and developing their own culturally relevant

solutions. Local knowledge, expertise and visioning have been harnessed and

developed within villages to meet the challenges of the projects, but they have also

provided capacity and leadership to villagers to take on broader conservation and

community development initiatives.

Although much of IIC’s conservation, research and business ventures have

become increasingly oriented toward scientific, technological and market goals, it has

initiated and developed a broad spectrum of conservation and wildlife management

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activities, and sustainable business ventures that are oriented toward the North

Rupununi communities and a more integrative framework of environmental and

socioeconomic objectives. Figure 3.1 shows all those projects and activities initiated by

both IIC and NRDDB or initiated by NRDDB and individual villages. Many of IIC’s

collaborative program and project initiatives with community partners (especially social,

community-oriented and collaborative management initiatives) have not been formally

evaluated in terms of their effectiveness and impacts on communities and conservation

goals. Most related studies have been conducted by independent researchers and

funding organizations and do not directly assess the quality of IIC’s community-directed

efforts. In contrast, I gathered data directly from community members and leaders —

particularly those groups who have been most engaged with either IIC and collaborative

Figure 3.1 Collaborative NRDDB-IIC Wildlife Management and Research Projects

IIC-Led or NRDDB/Village-Led

Wildlife Project*

NRDDB-led Arapaima Management Project – research, conservation and harvest management

IIC and NRDDB-led Black caiman inventories and monitoring

NRDDB-led River Turtle monitoring

IIC-led (fauna survey group) Mammal, bird and reptile species surveys

IIC-led Giant Otter surveys

IIC-led Tapir telemetry monitoring and surveys

NRDDB/village-led Aquarium Fish Project – raising diverse fish species for commercial export

IIC-led Developing wildlife monitoring protocols

NRDDB/village-led Beekeeping Project

IIC-led Butterfly Project

IIC-led GSI Monitoring Project – monitoring impacts of sustainable logging operations on mammals and birds

NRDDB and IIC-led Wetlands Monitoring Project

Village and IIC-led Regional facilitation of Junior Wildlife Clubs from different villages

IIC and NRDDB-led Participatory Human Resource Interaction Appraisals (PHRIAs) - data on wildlife harvesting, consumption and management

NRDDB/Village-led Reforestation and management of threatened palms – ite (Mauritia flexuosa) and kokorite (Maximilliana maripa)

NRDDB/Village-led Developing nature trails for wildlife observation and other eco-tourism products

NRDDB-led Developing seasonally occurring natural fish pond for: village food

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security, palm reforestation, fish habitat study site for school yard ecology and research

IIC/Village-led Memorandum of Cooperation to assist Surama Village with wildlife monitoring and patrols along the Burro Burro River

* Most projects have also been funded and supported by other partner organizations

conservation projects, or with revitalizing customary environmental knowledge and

practice and the development of community-led conservation initiatives. This study

sheds light on how the above-mentioned conservation cultural and socioeconomic

initiatives supported by IIC and managed by NRDDB and villages are impacting the

environmental and socio-cultural development of local communities (Figure 3.1).

Amongst village leaders and community members facilitating different

conservation and development initiatives roles, there was the sentiment that NRDDB-

BHI, IIC, and CI (especially the external organizations) should be providing an ongoing

commitment to both directly guiding and funding communities in their own local

wildlife/natural resource management, conservation and community development

initiatives. Unfortunately, there is evidence that external institutions have engendered

some level of dependency within the communities in terms of the belief of some villagers

that unless external institutions and experts provide workshops and funding for

community-based projects, villagers are themselves unable to progress with their

conservation and development priorities (VC 7 & 8, 2009). However, most community

leaders and active villagers expressed that their local knowledge and capacities,

combined with the training and support they have received from IIC and other partners,

is all what they need to maintain the ecological and cultural integrity and flourishing of

their communities and lands.

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Socioeconomic Incentives to Conserve Wildlife and Forests

It is widely understood that when land or forest–based societies’ livelihood and income-

generating options are constrained, they will likely put more pressure on their resource

base to satisfy sustenance and income needs. The increasing linkage of rural and forest-

based communities such as the North Rupununi villages to regional, national and global

markets has created many economic and job opportunities for people where there may

not have been any before. However, such opportunities have often come at the cost of

pressuring local people to over-harvest critical wildlife, tree and plant species, or be

involved in other forms of environmental degradation.

Many MRU community researchers and leaders feel that not enough viable

economic alternatives and job opportunities exist for local people in the region to pursue

more environmentally sustainable practices. Due to pressures to earn cash income,

people must often engage in environmentally degradational practices that make them

feel conflicted on normative and cultural levels. Leaders and elders worry about their

young people: contributing to environmental degradation, undermining their communities

and their environmental and development priorities, and defiling their cultural and

spiritual constitution. Village leaders and elders complained specifically that due to a lack

of job opportunities within the villages and conservation organizations, many young

people were migrating to mining areas in Guyana and Brazil to procure wage income.

Even numerous community members who had undergone training through NRDDB-BHI,

IIC or other partner organizations were forced into mining activities, unable to find

permanent jobs in the region. A village toshao and former IIC ranger describes this

situation (IR1, 2009):

Sometimes we have some men going into the goldbush [gold mines] and that is a big shame. The gold mining work is there, but they don’t even think about what they are doing to the environment, destroying the forest and their spirit. They get their little money and buy some things and then go back…without thinking about what is the

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impact of what they are doing. We need people who know about these sorts of things and teaching the others so that when these issues come up in the community, they can help educate them.

Hence the critical importance of creating culturally appropriate and sustainable

economic alternatives to accompany conservation initiatives, and moreover developing

culturally sustainable economic and livelihood opportunities and self-sufficiency at the

community level. Indigenous leaders throughout Guyana explain in a recent assessment

on sustainable livelihoods amongst Indigenous peoples in Guyana (Griffiths and

Anselmo, 2010) that they want “vibrant communities supported by secure land and

territorial rights that protect their customary economies and diverse and extensive land-

use systems” (p. 6). They also state that alternative economic and development

initiatives in their communities need to value and build on the richness of Indigenous

sustainable harvesting and food production systems –– such as hunting, fishing,

rotational farming and NTFP gathering –– while simultaneously protecting the

Amerindian way of life. Leaders also “caution against top-down conservation and

development assistance that seeks to change or ‘transform’ indigenous customary

economies” (Griffiths & Anselmo, p. 6).

Absorbing Indigenous Communities into Market-Oriented Conservation

Since global conservation regimes and climate change policies are ideologically

entrenched in neoliberal orthodoxy, market-oriented strategies aimed at protecting the

global environment while providing economic incentives are becoming more actively

promoted in local and international strategies. Neoliberal or “free-market conservation”

has expanded environmental conservation approaches in Guyana to feature business

frameworks and profit motives to such an extent that they have become normalized in

(Brockington et al., 2008, p. 90). With IIC’s increasingly business- or market-oriented

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“conservation pays” approach toward environmental conservation and management, the

NRDDB has also had to expand its liaison role. Within collaborative IIC and community

business enterprises (e.g., the sustainable logging commercial venture between

Iwokrama Timber Incorporated (ITI) and Fairview Village, and the Guiana Shield

Initiative), the NRDDB has taken the lead in insisting on benefit-sharing mechanisms

and negotiating equitable returns from such ventures that can then be invested into fair

and collective forms of development for the communities.

With the widening embrace of collaborative and community-based conservation,

Indigenous communities in the North Rupununi and elsewhere are increasingly targeted

by national governments and institutions like IIC and IUCN as partners in conservation

business ventures –– including developing carbon credit markets, selling ecosystem

services, ecotourism, and sustainable commercial logging. Carbon trading and

ecosystem payments have been particularly earmarked as lucrative ventures in

Guyana’s proposed low carbon economy.

Guyana’s ecosystems, especially tropical forests, provide fundamental life-

supporting services upon which humans are completely dependent for their survival,

livelihoods and cultures. These services include (Thomas, 2009):

moderating weather extremes and their impacts

carbon storage and sequestration

seed dispersal

mitigating drought and floods

nutrient cycling

protecting stream and river channels and coastal shores from erosion

detoxifying and decomposing wastes

maintaining biodiversity

soil stabilization and formation

contributing to climate stability

air and water purification

regulating disease-carrying organisms

pollinating crops and natural vegetation

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Guyana’s forest services, particularly carbon storage and abatement, are considered

public goods to both Guyana and to the world in that they benefit everyone when they

are healthy, harm everyone when they are degraded or destroyed, and require

cooperation from all nations (EuropeAid, UNDP & IUCN, 2009).

Specific commodities that are derived from forest and forest products are already

being marketed for consumption in forested countries of the global South, such as

Guyana. IIC describes them as (Thomas, 2009):

Wildlife for their ecological importance;

Food and trade;

Timber products (furniture, handicrafts, paper);

Knowledge-based products: Indigenous knowledge and skills, adaptive management, integrative knowledge-building (Indigenous and scientific), educational, skills and management training;

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs): food, oils, resins, handicraft, furniture;

Bioprospecting for plants with pharmacological value; fungi and bacteria with disease-resistant properties;

Eco-tourism;

Cultural services based on aesthetic, spiritual, ceremonial, recreational, educational values.

In its 2009 Annual Report, the IIC justifies its increasing interest in utilizing business

and market-oriented conservation approaches:

With rainforests located primarily in some of the world’s poorest countries, it is paramount that these unique global assets are retained in order to generate sustainable income for the communities that live there, not short-lived gains for others. If the services of the rainforest canopy can no longer go unrecognised or unpaid, the IIC’s pioneering solution is to pave the way for sustainable and innovative sources of derived finance to match a new global priority of rainforest preservation. Such a solution could help bring an end to the destruction of rainforests and create a new international market for eco-system payments and a regulatory framework.

This approach, they believe, will enable IIC to become an international conservation

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leader and will generate income for the IIC’s operation and for the North Rupununi

communities.

With an increasing global recognition that tropical forests and the ecosystem

services they provide are life-sustaining and thus extremely valuable to human survival

and development, numerous markets have emerged, both voluntary and legally

mandated (Thomas, p.c., 2009). Some of the emerging markets for environmental and

ecosystem services are: ecosystem-based carbon offsets and carbon trading, water

quality trading, wetlands banking, biodiversity credit trading programs, ecotourism, and

payments for hydrological services. In some cases, market-driven multi-stakeholder

policy frameworks like the Reduction of Emissions through Deforestation and

Degradation (REDD+) and Guyana’s proposed Low Carbon Development Strategy

(LCDS) are used to develop ecosystem services markets, or in the case of Guyana, they

are also components of government-led programs that directly link funding to ecological

performance measures (LCDS Draft, 2009).

However, the marketization of public goods like ecosystem services is a more

challenging process than that of forest products, since the benefits of services like flood

and drought mitigation are less tangibly defined and, therefore, less commodifiable.

Although market mechanisms are being developed to attribute economic values to

ecosystems and ecosystem services for their commodification on global trading markets,

they are still at present considered within the neoliberal economic model as externalities,

as they are not attributed with measurable economic value and exist external to the

market. As such, it is very difficult to calculate their value because there are no

commodity prices or trade markets for most of those services.

The one market for ecosystem services that the global community is willing to

invest in for its potential to abate carbon emissions through the conservation of standing

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tropical forests, is the carbon credit market (Creating Incentives to Avoid Deforestation,

2008). In his critical documentary, The Carbon Hunters (2009) Mark Schapiro

investigates the Nature Conservancy’s controversial REDD+ forest conservation and

carbon trading project on Brazil’s Atlantic Coast, stating that the carbon market is

becoming a multi-billion-dollar global trade industry in the business of climate change

and ecosystem services. The carbon pricing that is attributed to the carbon abatement

potential of Guyana’s forests “serves as a proxy for the economic value to the world of

forests” (Schapiro, 2008, p. 8). A study conducted by the McKinsey Group (a financial

consulting firm hired by the government) states that the economic value to the world of

Guyana’s state forests and their derived ecosystem services is approximately $40 billion

(Zoltan, 2010). Thus, to conserve Guyana’s forests and safeguard ecosystem services

for the benefit of Guyana and the rest of the world, the government expects annuity

payments –– called Economic Value to the Nation (EVN) –– from Norway and other

developed countries, of $580 million USD (National Toshao’s Meeting, p.c., 2009).

The parameters and regulations for carbon markets are still being conceived

(Shapiro, 2009) and there remain many nebulous areas in terms of how financial values

and deals are negotiated. The basic premise of carbon markets –– wherein highly

emitting nations and industries can offset their emissions in their own countries by

purchasing emission reduction credits in poorer nations like Guyana –– is highly

disturbing. A company like General Motors, for instance, can buy credit-trading rights to

an area of forest (as they have already done in Northeastern Brazil (Schapiro, 2009)), to

offset their high emissions and cultivate an ‘environmentally clean’ public image. While it

may appear to be rational and strategic in our increasingly globalized world to appeal to

government, corporate and industry actors regarding the adaptation of more ecologically

sustainable technologies and production practices through the same market language

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and methodology that they understand, there is much at risk in creating a culture of

commodifying the natural world. There is also the risk that Indigenous peoples and their

knowledges will become assimilated and commodified within conservation schemes –– a

reality that is unfortunately becoming more prevalent in many parts of the world.

In an increasingly precarious neoliberal economic climate where funding for

community development, cultural and livelihoods initiatives within conservation programs

is being stripped away, a challenging dilemma faces conservation and environmental

organizations working with Indigenous and local communities: Should conservation

policy and practice become more oriented toward valuing the natural world as a

commodity and expanding capitalist markets to make conservation more profitable? Or

should conservation policy and practice work to protect and strengthen locally grounded

wildlife and environmental management systems which value nature in cultural and

ideological ways, as well as material ways? (Brosius et al., 2005). Or should

conservation policy accommodate a balance between protecting biodiversity,

strengthening local environmental governance, and stimulating market initiatives that will

sustain conservation and community development initiatives?

One particularly comprehensive and inclusive market-oriented strategy that has

been implemented in Guyana to conserve rainforests, forest-dwelling wildlife and combat

climate change, is the Guiana Shield Initiative (GSI). EuropeAid (2006) outlines in its

Project Brief on the GSI that the project aims to promote at a macro scale, the

sustainable development of the Guiana Shield (comprised of Guyana, Suriname, French

Guiana, Colombia, Venezuela and northern Brazil) by means of an integrated and

collaborative eco-regional management framework that will develop policy, institutional

and financial resources. The eco-regional management framework is designed to enable

the six countries and their Indigenous and local communities to benefit from their tropical

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forests and forest resources while preserving the ecological and cultural integrity of their

forests and communities. Conserving valuable ecosystem functions such as climate and

water regulation, carbon storage, and biodiversity preservation will benefit stakeholders

at the local, national and global levels and help fulfill national obligations under the

Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). One of the central objectives of the GSI

project is to set up a system for payment for ecosystem services (PES) based on formal

trading markets (yet to be developed) or private transactions between GSI stakeholders

and buyers.

In Guyana, the framework has been largely spearheaded and piloted by IIC and

supported and funded by the UNDP, IUCN and European Union. The Government of

Guyana appears to have had little involvement with the conceptualization, planning or

implementation of the GSI program and this could arguably be an influential factor as to

its general acceptance by and implementation within local community institutional

initiatives. As the first multi-stakeholder policy and research initiative for environmental

conservation and climate change, the GSI has been relatively successful and is already

coming to the end of its second phase. In the GSI Annual Assessment Report

conducted by EuropeAid and UNDP (2009), however, UNDP and IUCN critique the

extremely ambitious scope of the project, considering significant challenges such as

funding and time constraints, enormity of geographic range, and immense diversity of

ecological, cultural, linguistic and political contexts throughout the Guiana Shield.

A noteworthy aspect of the GSI is that its target stakeholder groups are

Indigenous communities, Maroon communities (Suriname) and other forest-dependent

communities. For Guyana’s GSI project, the North Rupununi Indigenous communities

have been recognized and included as partners within many stages of the project cycle.

Alongside forest research, the project particularly supports sustainable livelihoods

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generation activities such as: assisting community-based and local NGO enterprises;

promoting sustainable harvesting, processing and marketing of non-timber forest

products (NTFPs); and supporting the strengthening of local cooperatives concerned

with sustainable management of timber and NTFPs. Innovative financial strategies are

to be created to support such activities, as well as to influence management initiatives

and policy formulation in Guyana’s forestry, land tenure, mining and logging sectors

(EuropeAid, 2006).

Another very important aspect of the GSI in Guyana is the ecological benefit of

the project to both the North Rupununi communities and the IIC. In particular, community

members and community rangers working for IIC have been collecting survey data on

mammals and birds –– and monitoring the population, ranging and abundance patterns

of such animals within both undisturbed and disturbed forests. This is to determine the

impacts of sustainable commercial logging operations on local wildlife populations within

the Iwokrama Forest reserve. Even though for many community members IIC’s

sustainable logging venture within the reserve has been a fairly controversial

conservation approach (Indigenous communities of the region are dependent on local

wildlife populations for their subsistence, cultural and livelihood needs) the GSI

Monitoring Project is considered a valuable source of data for the communities. Several

IIC rangers from neighbouring villages engaged with the project commented (IR2-5,

2009):

The GSI, it’s a good project and in the long term we would benefit, knowing the impacts of the logging. Whether we have to cease the logging operation within the reserve because the impacts on specific indicator species like the agouti and others.

In Guyana, Indigenous and other Guyanese critics of the proposed REDD+ and

LCDS framework (Bulkan, p.c., 2010) highlight that since actions implemented under the

framework are sure to displace the livelihoods of Indigenous, Guyanese and Brazilian

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workers and their families from the forest and mining sectors, development of alternative

livelihood opportunities for all those workers must be a top priority. Colchester’s (1997)

critical writings on the negative impacts of Guyana’s political economy –– particularly its

extractive industries –– on the region’s Indigenous peoples contends, “Giving people a

share of the profits that can be made from conservation in exchange for extinguishing

their rights and their local political autonomy, and transforming their way of life, may not

seem like a very fair deal to many Indigenous peoples” (p. 119). The Latin American

Indigenous Forum on Climate Change declaration states that strategies like REDD+

“allow states and transnational corporations to promote dams, agro-fuels, oil exploration,

tree plantations and monoculture crops, that cause expropriation and destruction of

indigenous peoples' territories and the criminalization, prosecution and even murder of

native people” (Zueras, 2010). Forests in developing nations like Guyana are becoming

new carbon credit frontiers where unlikely alliances between ENGOs, conservationists

and industrial companies have been forged amidst growing tensions and controversies –

– especially in terms of the nebulous positioning of Indigenous peoples and other forest-

dependent communities within these new green trading schemes.

Within the context of the LCDS framework and international forums on climate

change, the Government of Guyana has also shifted its rhetoric to be much more

inclusive of and interested in upholding the rights and participation of Guyana’s

Indigenous peoples. President Bharrat Jagdeo identifies protecting Indigenous peoples’

rights as one of the principles to be enshrined within the REDD+ and LCDS framework

(LCDS Draft, 2009) and purports to recognize: i) Indigenous peoples as traditional

managers of Guyana’s forests; ii) recognize Indigenous rights to free, prior and informed

consent (FPIC); iii) honour current Indigenous land demarcation and titling rights and

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mechanisms under the amended Amerindian Act of 2006; and iv) consider developing a

benefit-sharing mechanism for participant communities.

President Jagdeo has also visited many communities throughout Guyana during

the consultations process in 2009 and held a meeting with the Toshaos (village leaders)

of the North Rupununi to discuss the LCDS and regional development issues (National

Toshaos Meeting, p.c., 2009). Such strategic interest in developing partnerships with

Indigenous communities with regard to their involvement as stakeholders and as owners

of valuable lands and resources, is an increasing phenomenon in environmental and

conservation policy contexts. Although they are not often sincere forms of consultation

and partnership processes, the Government of Guyana uses such rhetoric to frame its

strategic interest in engaging Indigenous peoples as important stakeholders within the

REDD+ and LCDS framework.

Due to their long histories, socio-ecological relationships, environmental

practices and customary rights embedded within the landscapes of Guyana, Indigenous

peoples and their social and environmental governance institutions are crucial to the

implementation and viability of the proposed REDD+ and LCDS strategy, and any other

environmental policy that affects their livelihoods, communities and territories. In his

national address on the second LCDS Draft (2009), President Jagdeo acknowledges

that, “Our Amerindians continue to play a particularly vital role. They have protected our

forests for generations; a sizeable component of forest land is under their jurisdiction

and their insights are invaluable not only for their communities, but for the rest of

Guyana and the wider world” (p. 5). It is therefore a high priority to recognize and

safeguard Indigenous rights and Indigenous peoples as primary stakeholders for

government and national and international environmental organizations.

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The proposed LCDS framework includes Guyana’s state forest estates, and

since forests on Indigenous titled lands are under the jurisdiction of the communities, the

government has stated that communities are being given the right to opt in, or opt out of

the LCDS and REDD+ framework. The government assures that only after an

appropriate consultation process is undertaken in Indigenous communities throughout

the country, should the onus be placed on Indigenous communities to decide whether

they wish to commit their support and lands to the strategy framework. That being said,

communities whose titled lands comprise of forests and wetlands (like many North

Rupununi communities) are particularly important to the viability of a strategy like LCDS

and the structuring of a low carbon economy. Hence, there is a lot of political pressure to

ensure full Indigenous cooperation and support for the LCDS and REDD+ proposals.

Although more of a visioning framework than a concrete strategy with viable

transparency, accounting and benefit-sharing mechanisms, government representatives

strongly encouraged NRDDB and BHI staff, and community leaders to endorse the

proposals under the rhetoric that they would be very beneficial to the communities (BHI,

p.c., 2009; NRDDB, p.c., 2009). BHI teachers and youth leaders were also recruited to

engage communities in a series of community educational workshops on local impacts

of climate change and the importance of the LCDS framework as a way to mitigate

climate change and stimulate community development.

The declaration from the Latin American Indigenous Forum on Climate Change

(2010) confirms that the majority of forested areas and reserves that are being targeted

by governments and NGOs for REDD+ initiatives are located in Indigenous territories

due to their historical protection by the peoples who dwell in them. The forum delegates

worry that unless Indigenous peoples and advocates reassert Indigenous rights to

territoriality, self-determination and free, prior and informed consent as guaranteed

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under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, REDD+

actions may dislocate people from their lands and livelihoods (Zueras, 2010). Also

significant for Indigenous peoples in Guyana is that as an extension of the government’s

recognition that Indigenous peoples have been historically using and managing forests

according to their customary and local governance systems, the LCDS framework

should guarantee and support communities in developing community conserved areas

on their territories (APA, 2009).

As fundamental as FPIC is to Indigenous communities and to the implementation

process of a framework like the LCDS in Guyana, enforcement has been very unclear

and problematic in practice because Indigenous peoples and institutional agents hold

different standards and criteria as to what constitutes FPIC (Tauli-Corpuz, 2003).

Indigenous communities already have a history of struggling to assert their rights to

FPIC in many cases whereby government institutions and foreign extractive companies

have failed to implement communities’ rights to prior notice for extractive concessions

and permits, or prior consent for mining, logging or drilling activities on both titled and

untitled Indigenous lands. In Guyana, numerous communities from regions where

foreign large-scale mining companies have installed their activities under approval from

the government, have been struggling against both the companies and the Guyana

Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) (Colchester et al., 2002). Mining companies

and the GGMC have repeatedly failed to adhere to the laws requiring prior notice to

affected communities for concessions and permits, or obtain prior consent for mining

activities affecting titled Amerindian Lands under the 2006 Amerindian Act.

A more recent and topical transgression of Indigenous peoples’ rights to the

consultation process and FPIC concerns a British venture capital firm, Canopy Capital.

In 2008, Canopy Capital purchased exclusive rights to market and trade Iwokrama

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Forest’s ecosystem services with the promise of sharing revenues and benefits with the

IIC and North Rupununi communities. The firm and its legal advisers admit (Canopy

Capital website: http://canopycapital.co.uk/page.asp?p=5450) that the deal was not

adequately discussed and consulted on with the communities, but rather, discussed and

agreed upon with only the Board of the Iwokrama Centre, which has only one community

representative. All primary users of the Iwokrama Forest (Fairview, Surama, Wowetta,

Rupertee and Kwatamang Villages), were not directly consulted by Canopy Capital or

the government, nor were they involved within the decision-making process. In terms of

the implications of the North Rupununi communities’ exclusion from the decisions

around this deal for the NRDDB-IIC collaborative relationship, some NRDDB and BHI

staff (NRDDB, p.c., 2009; BHI, p.c., 2009), and community leaders (VC3, VC9 & VC10,

2009) feel that they have been left in the dark about the deal by both Canopy Capital

and their IIC partners. As they were given little information and were not directly

consulted by the two institutions, they feel either ambivalent or suspicious as to how the

deal and the marketization of ecosystem services will directly benefit their communities

and forests. However, in conjunction with the GSI initiative, IIC staff subsequently

conducted numerous educational and training workshops amongst the communities on

the ecological and commercial significance of protecting and sustainably marketing

forest ecosystem services, and how the communities can engage and potentially benefit

from such initiatives.

In June, 2009, the Amerindian Peoples’ Association held one of its first

workshops on “Indigenous peoples’ rights, REDD+ and the draft Low Carbon

Development Strategy” for Indigenous leaders and communities (Colchester & La Rose,

2009). The attending participants produced a set of probative questions and a very

comprehensive statement outlining their support in principle for the LCDS and REDD+

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proposals, provided that FPIC and numerous defined rights and equitable benefits for

Indigenous peoples are ensured (see Appendix G). With the exception of IIC and few

other locally grounded and more probative collaborative partners, the history of state and

institutional conservation and development entanglements with Indigenous peoples in

Guyana already demonstrates that rights and benefit-sharing agreements are rarely

created and enforced. Hence, despite the government’s enthusiastic promises to

recognize Indigenous peoples’ rights to FPIC, territorial and resource control, and an

equitable share of the financial and non-financial benefits that are forecasted to flow

from the implementation of the LCDS and REDD+ policies, there are several problematic

issues that potentially negate such promises:

i) Lack of an adequate consultations and consent process; ii) Lack of concrete mechanisms within the LCDS strategy proposal to

ensure incentives;

iii) Lack of benefit-sharing and rights protection for Indigenous communities;

iv) The market-based ethos that undermines Indigenous customary beliefs and practices regarding the environment.

These concerns indicate that the government and key industries in Guyana stand to gain

the vast share of benefits from the proposed LCDS agreement while Indigenous

communities are expected to offer up their forested lands and support for

undeterminable benefits.

Summary

This chapter has critically examined collaborative relationships in terms of: the impetus

for collaborative conservation in the North Rupununi; the genesis and process of

relationship-building within the NRDDB-IIC partnership; the centrality of Indigenous

communities and rights within the partnership; the convergence and divergence of

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priorities and responsibilities; institutional shifts and challenges; and the impacts of

market-oriented conservation strategies on Indigenous peoples and collaborative

relationships. Since global conservation regimes are sites of entanglement, negotiation

and potential struggle over contested resources, priorities, and divergent knowledge and

management forms –– I have shown that Indigenous agency, rights, knowledge and

cultural institutions; local capacity and institutional development; and supportive and

enduring partner alliances are key to facilitating conservation leadership and governance

structures at the community level.

The NRDDB-IIC partnership embodies many of these imperatives, as well as the

possibility of more equitable exchanges of power, resources and benefits between

Indigenous and conservation actors. However, shifts in IIC’s leadership and

management priorities, and the influence of increasingly market-oriented global

conservation strategies have transferred much of IIC’s conservation and institutional

focus from community outreach, collaboration and capacity development, toward more

business-oriented and elite research ventures. While such shifts and lessening

community engagement and support from IIC have undoubtedly been disappointing and

challenging, the North Rupununi communities have not been daunted in their use of the

capacity-building benefits derived from the NRDDB-IIC partnership as a springboard for

developing locally embedded conservation leadership and governance structures.

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CHAPTER FOUR: SYNCRETIC KNOWLEDGE-BUILDING IN COLLABORATIVE CONSERVATION

Another significant element for communities in utilizing their collaborative partnerships

as a springboard to developing more autonomous management systems, is their ability

to negotiate inclusive and supportive knowledge production and management

processes. This chapter focuses on the complex relationship between the North

Rupununi communities and the conservation discourses and management cultures of

their partner organizations; it explores their ability to negotiate and define alternative

understandings and practices of conservation and wildlife management12 that are more

responsive, and germane to their contemporary realities and priorities. For most

Indigenous communities, the process of cross-fertilizing local and customary practices

and knowledge with modern conservation science and technology is born out of

necessity and strategic positioning. Thus, whether or not the communities have engaged

in an intentionally syncretic process, this study demonstrates the transformative and

challenging possibilities that can emerge when communities work to revitalize their

Indigenous knowledge forms and relevant customary practices, while synthesizing them

with modern conservation forms.

Indigenous Engagement with External Conservation Discourses

Like many other polarized debates within collaborative conservation, much of the

12

While I include the term ‘wildlife management’ within this study in reference to its usage under the rubrics

of adaptive and collaborative management within global conservation policy and discourse and its increasing adaptation by the North Rupununi communities — an intended goal of this study is to challenge and expand the term to include more holistic, cultural and multi-perspective understandings of responsible and sustainable wildlife use and practice.

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discourse on the engagement and possible commensurability between Indigenous and

conservation knowledge systems is positioned between: i) fairly uncritical assertions that

the two systems are compatible and their integration will be a panacea for the gaps in

conservation and ii) that the engagement will either obliterate Indigenous knowledge, or

conversely weaken conservation science. This study offers an alternative interpretation

whereby a level of interplay and integration may be possible within certain conditions,

but through a syncretic, rather than assimilative process. An alternative interpretation

recognizes the epistemological substructure and integrity of each knowledge system and

its underpinning worldviews. While each system maintains its epistemological positioning

(underlying knowledge theories, assumptions, beliefs and relational dynamics), both

Indigenous and conservation actors are able to find points of convergence and spaces

for cooperation and knowledge-building without one system being privileged over the

other.

Sundberg’s (2006) research on transcultural conservation encounters between

Indigenous communities and conservationists in the context of protected areas in the

Petén, Guatemala, describes Indigenous societies as being “necessarily subject to and

subjected by the discourses and practices of conservation institutions” (p. 239). More

specifically, how do community members in the North Rupununi, with their own agencies

and locally embedded knowledges and customary systems, engage with the discourses

and practices of conservation, state, institutional and research partners? In what ways

are customary and emergent local environmental institutions and cultures within the

communities reconfigured through conservation entanglements with the Iwokrama

International Centre (IIC) and other partners? Are such entanglements and

reconfigurations detrimental or beneficial to local systems and environmental and human

development priorities? Conversely, how do Indigenous worldviews and knowledges

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influence global conservation discourse and policy? With Indigenous peoples throughout

Guyana adapting to and reasserting themselves through newly configured and

modernized local systems in the contemporary period, how does the formation of such

emergent social, spiritual, environmental and political institutions and actions

appropriately respond to the needs of Indigenous communities and environments

(Medina, 2002)?

An Interface between Divergent Worldviews and Epistemologies

The divide that exists between Indigenous and dominant conservation epistemologies

and knowledges appears incommensurable due to the divergent worldview and power

orientations that distance them. The differences between and amongst diverse

Indigenous and conservation knowledges can be organized along three axes (Agrawal,

1995):

1) Substantive — whereby each knowledge system has differences in its content and characteristics of each paradigm;

2) Methodological and epistemological — whereby each knowledge system

involves different ways of knowing, theoretical perspectives and methods in how it perceives and represents the natural world and non-human species; and

3) Contextual — whereby each knowledge system embodies the historical, politico-

ecological and cultural contexts where it variously emerges.

Collaboration and syncretism between Indigenous and conservation systems in the

North Rupununi entails going beyond the historical and discursive middle ground where

common goals of intercultural communication, common interests and identity,

negotiation and joint political action are mostly symbolic (Colchester & MacKay, 2004;

Conklin & Graham, 1995).

In her work about the frictions caused by diverse and conflicting global

discourses and interactions on environmental issues, especially regarding Indonesia’s

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tropical forests, Tsing (2005, p. 13) asserts, “Collaboration is not a simple sharing of

information. There is no reason to assume that collaborators share common goals.” The

instability of collaboration itself as a symbolic ‘middle ground’ is embedded in the often

vastly different worldviews and epistemological orientations of Indigenous peoples and

conservationists, and how each group differently understands conservation, animals,

social-ecological environments, human–nature and interspecies relationships, rights,

and collaboration. Their goals and priorities are often quite divergent as well. Hence, the

challenge resides in creating a more penetrative interface or space where Indigenous

and conservation actors within the NRDDB-IIC collaboration can reciprocally learn from

one another, cooperate and work toward conservation and research outcomes beneficial

for the environment, animals and local communities.

How discourse and meaning are differentially, and often unequally, framed and

deployed within collaborative conservation is immensely important to this study. Bryant

(2009) concludes that ideology and discourse are never innocent or apolitical, but rather,

reinforce or disrupt existing knowledge and power regimes. How the North Rupununi

communities grapple with conservation’s epistemic culture, while negotiating their own

contemporary wildlife and forest management regimes based on a syncretism of modern

and customary frameworks, is significant to broadening understandings of collaborative

relationships and locally grounded conservation. Geraldine Pratt discusses that when

seemingly disparate cultures and discourses interact in certain contexts, local actors can

negotiate spaces for resistance (in Sundberg, 2008) and reconfiguring the terms of

engagement. Furthermore, in some cases, collaborative partnerships present the

opportunity for both Indigenous and conservation groups to reach across the epistemic

and cultural divide that separates them within the conservation domain. In particular, the

North Rupununi communities have attempted to navigate and transgress the divide

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through their: i) adaptation to, and appropriation of strategic aspects of the dominant

conservation discourse and methodology, and ii) their customary and contemporary

discursive contributions to emergent, syncretized conservation frameworks.

Within contexts such as the North Rupununi, it is important to remember that

collaboration is already the framework for conservation engagement and practice by

diverse local, institutional and state partners (Brosius et al., 2005, p. 8). The North

Rupununi communities transform the discursive landscape of conservation science and

collaborative management through their place-based and culturally embedded

knowledges and environmental practices, and through collaborative networks and

capacities for local leadership and negotiation. Conservation organizations like IIC

transform the discursive landscape of conservation through their scientific research and

technologies, management and training frameworks, collaborative networks, and

capacities for institutional leadership and negotiation. Such extant conditions,

knowledges, networks and capacities are vitally important in building collaborative

conservation models that are progressive for both Indigenous communities and

conservation programs.

Exploring In-Betweenness and Syncretism

In-betweenness is an ontological condition which is shared by people who experience

colonization, migration and diasporic realities, ongoing engagement with disparate

cultures and worldviews, inhabitation within multiple worlds and/or living creolized

identities and histories. For those who experience in-betweeness, their way of

subjectively perceiving, engaging with and constructing the social world around them

becomes complicated by feeling positioned or suspended in a liminal space between

locations – whether such locations are constituted by identity, geography, place, history,

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ideology, spirituality or culture. While the world is becoming increasingly globalized and

politico-economic, cultural and ideological systems are compressing into, and

interpenetrating one another to create progressively more hybridized identities and

realities (Nederveen Pieterse, 2004; p.c. 2009) –– paradoxically, most dominant systems

tend to be singular and rigid in their positioning and thus inflexible to multiple and

confluent varieties. It is my experience that while people from diverse colonial and

contemporary cultural, ideological and geographic contexts experience such liminal

realities, or in-betweenness, many Caribbean and Indigenous actors have particularly

articulated their feelings, experiences and cultural strategies for bridging between worlds

(Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005; Glissant, 1989; Brayboy et al., 2008; Taylor, 2001).

There is a strong belief held by many Indigenous communities in Guyana and

Brazil that multiple worldviews and methods of constructing knowledges and worlds of

meaning can exist simultaneously without contradicting one another (Viveiros de Castro,

1998). Such worldviews and discourses have very different epistemological,

methodological, contextual and power locations, the capacity for their coexistence

requires a strategy beyond collaboration and common ground. In contexts such as the

North Rupununi, where Indigenous communities must live and mediate between the

contrasting cultural and knowledge forms of their own societies and those of the

conservation organizations that have entered into their world, necessity fuels the

process of syncretism. Syncretism works on two vectors of influence, one moving on the

path of the marginalized group (Indigenous community) and the other moves from the

more dominant group (conservation organization).

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In outlining the central conceptual processes of transculturation, creolization,

hybridity and syncretism13 within the context of Indigenous and conservation

collaborative relationships, I stress that they are processes in of themselves – not static

and essentialized objects of process (Bhabha in Kapoor, 2008) that can be ubiquitously

inserted into any cultural conversation or approach. Uncritical and ubiquitous use of

such concepts without reflexive understanding of the embedded power inequities

(race/ethnicity, academic elitism, scientific bias, knowledge bias, urban bias, structural

power), disruptions, and possibilities for transformative change – trivializes such

processes, and renders them hollow (Kapoor, 2008). Thus, when transculturation,

hybridity and creolization are removed from their politico-cultural framing: “then [they] will

cease to be analytically, not to mention politically, useful” (Young, 1996).

Transculturation and Articulation

Silvia’s Spitta’s (2005) work on colonial narratives of transculturation in Latin America

argues that Indigenous people have to transculturate and adopt some of the dominant

group’s discourse and systems while maintaining their own cultural forms to survive and

benefit from the partnership. Moreover, the dominant group may also transculturate and

adopt a recognition and understanding of Indigenous systems, and even some of their

forms, to negotiate and collaborate. Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (in Sundberg,

2006) defined the concept of transculturation within the scope of his 1940 study of the

influence of the engagement between Spanish colonialism and Indigenous people on

Cuban culture.

13

There are numerous terms that have emerged in the post-colonial, political ecology, anthropology,

humanities and cultural studies literatures regarding syncretic processes: mestizaje, transculturation, creolization, hybridity, synthesis and of course, syncretism.

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Ortiz defined the concept as involving very complex and simultaneous processes

of convergence, acculturation, deculturation and neo-culturation between two disparate

groups. In her meditation on the transculturated reality of living and mediating between

two waters, multiple worlds, multiple cultures, multiple epistemological and ideological

orientations and multiple definitions of subjectivity, Spitta (2005) further defines

transculturation as, “complex processes…that allow for new, vital, and viable

configurations to arise out of the clash of cultures and violence of colonial and neo-

colonial appropriation” (p. 2). Furthermore, Indigenous actors adopt and synthesize

external cultural and knowledge forms within their own systems to “create a space for

themselves, their world, and their cosmology” (p. 89).

Belyea (1992) discusses ‘geographic translation’ as a process of “communication

from one set of culture-specific measurements to another” (p. 270) between two spatial

knowledge traditions. This form of translation can be adapted to conservation contexts

such as in the North Rupununi whereby communication of concepts and strategies

related to wildlife and environmental management and protection — which are present in

both Indigenous and conservation repertoires — can be translated to the other group

using metaphors and symbols, maps, concrete examples and experiences, images and

diagrams, activities and stories. Such forms of articulation are recognized by both

community and conservation actors and having been very powerful and successful

forms of translation and dialogue within collaborative meetings, training and educational

workshops and community outreach. An IIC manager from Wowetta Village and a

former CEW from Surama explain transculturation by way of synthesizing conservation

science concepts within their local worldview: “Experience has shown that they are quite

compatible and understandable to our communities when the science and modern

conservation concepts are taught and practiced with local cultural examples and

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environmental experiences” (IM3, 2009). “We used different methods to integrate the

local knowledge and conservation ideas…pictures, films, diagrams, field activities,

stories, reporting and using examples from here that people would relate to” (CEW4,

2009).

Creolization, Hybridity and Friction

Another process related to transculturation and syncretism — and which has distinctly

emerged within the Caribbean discourse and is now transported to diverse cultural

contexts — is creolization. There are numerous theoretical positions amongst Caribbean

scholars regarding the processes of creolization and syncretism as they variously relate

to Creolized or syncretic identities, literatures, religions, languages, worldviews, cultural

systems and even environmental conservation strategies. Creolization emerged as a

discursive alternative to the primary understanding of Caribbean societies and cultures

as disjunctured, fragmented and lost somewhere within the transitioning between

colonial and post-colonial narratives. Edouard Glissant’s (1989) pivotal discourses on

Caribbean creolization and Creole poetics illuminated creolization as an ongoing,

dynamic and disruptive process that creates multiplicity and transformative change. This

interpretation of creolization is very different from the conventional understanding of the

concept as a static mixture of two pure and polarized cultural forms. Glissant’s version

includes elements of Bhabha’s post-colonial rendering of hybridity, wherein hybridity is

an in-between positioning, as well as a transformative process which exposes points of

vulnerability within dominant cultural and discursive forms and allows for interpenetration

and creative agency by marginalized discursive and cultural forms (Kapoor, 2008).

However, hybridity and creolization diverge significantly in that hybridity is

portrayed by Bhabha as an unreflexive process of cross-fertilization within a

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dichotomous positioning of the colonial or dominant discourse against the marginalized

subaltern cultural form. Marginalized actors appear to be unconscious and non-agentic

in their penetration of dominant discourses. Hence, active resistance and creation of a

third space by marginalized actors can only become possible as an extension of the

space and dynamics configured by the dominant form. Alternatively, Glissant’s

creolization offers a more complex and layered understanding of the conservation

entanglement between divergent discourses and actors and syncretic processes of

disruption, exchange, multiplicity and alchemy within contemporary, as well as colonial

contexts. Tsing states that knowledges and “cultures are continually co-produced in the

interactions I call ‘friction’: the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of

interconnection across difference” (2005, p. 4). I am in agreement with Tsing’s (1999)

assertion that a focus on the social constructions of Indigenous and local cultures and

environments can often interfere with scholars’ attention to new social movements and

hybridized processes that have the potential to shape alternative development paths.

Moreover, creolization considers the conscious agency and power of Indigenous actors

in the North Rupununi to negotiate and re-negotiate; produce and co-produce

syncretically combined discourses, institutions, practices and identities that reflect and

respond to their contemporary environmental and social realities. I am thus interested in

the adoption or crafting of Indigeneity by Indigenous people in the North Rupununi as a

means of asserting their environmental and political agencies within the contexts of

community conservation, and collaborative conservation and knowledge-building.

Syncretism

Similar to creolization, syncretism emerged as a distinctly Caribbean construct for

framing complex historical cultural and epistemological processes. Also similar to

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transculturation and creolization, syncretism does not refer to the supplanting,

assimilation or dissolution of one knowledge or cultural form into that of the other; rather,

syncretism describes the historical process whereby different actors and systems

(knowledge, cultural, religious, political) interpenetrate in the same space at the same

moment. The actors consciously interact and negotiate in ways that are can be

simultaneously disruptive, unequal, synergistic, adaptive, appropriative, and even

cooperative — to synthesize new systems or intersections of multiple knowledge forms,

perspectives and practices.

Longboat (2008) adds that “synergy exists in the two sides helping one another

to create divergence, and through their interaction with one another, they achieve unity

and forge a relationship of balance and mutuality (p. 34).” Similar to transculturation and

creolization, syncretic processes tend to have a self-determined process and outcome

since actors are conscious and agentic in their interactions. An outcome of Guyana’s

Indigenous peoples’ historical entanglements with colonial European cultures, enslaved

African cultures, and indentured Chinese, Indian and European cultures, syncretism

lives and breathes within many Creole cultural institutions, and most Indigenous

institutions. Since syncretic processes are continuous and dynamic, the contemporary

period in Guyana reveals a true mosaic or ‘pepperpot’14 of multiple and evolving cultural

forms that are syncretically constituted and reconstituted.

Within the creolization or syncretic processes inherent to the evolving NRDDB-

IIC partnership, both Indigenous and conservation actors have mutually and reciprocally

influenced how the other’s knowledge and cultural forms are newly transformed and

articulated within the contemporary conservation context. There is a reciprocal process

14

Pepperpot is the national dish of Guyana but it originates as an Amerindian stew. It has become

‘creolized’ in that it is now eaten by all ethnic groups in Guyana and takes on different ingredients and flavours depending on the cook. Pepperpot is popularly used as a metaphor in Guyana to describe products of cultural creolization.

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of each group offering its own knowledge and methodology, and of alternately receiving

the other group’s offerings, to create a dynamic and contextualized form of knowledge-

building. As such, they have attempted to build a rich and synergistic body of

conservation and socio-ecological knowledge comprised of specialized elder knowledge,

local experiential and natural history knowledge, customary knowledge, and modern

biological, ecological, sociological, economic and technical knowledge.

The strong cultural continuity and resiliency of Indigenous customary institutions

in the North Rupununi has maintained much of its integrity while undergoing many

historical and contemporary dislocations and transformations that have both preceded,

and occurred in conjunction with IIC and other collaborative partners. The communities

have individually and collectively discarded some aspects of their customary beliefs and

systems, while adapting, appropriating and merging many aspects of modern

conservation knowledges and technologies to create knowledge forms and wildlife and

environmental systems more responsive to contemporary realities and challenges.

My interest in Indigenous agencies and the possibilities embedded within

syncretic processes are inspired by Bhabha’s (1995, p. 208-9) metaphor of the third

space as a political place where Indigenous peoples’ agency and situated perspectives

and practices are recognized in their ongoing negotiation and re-negotiation of

ecological knowledge vis-à-vis their encounters with, and contestation of conservation,

state and commercial interests. In this way, the localized hybridization of the third space

becomes a political strategy (Kapoor, 2008) constructed by the North Rupununi

communities, NRDDB and BHI, and their conservation partner IIC, to transgress the

occlusion and dominance so often engendered within conservation discourses and

projects. Also significant is that the third space, like the ethical space framework and

syncretic processes, is in a state of fluid change — of constantly becoming (Bhabha,

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1995). In the North Rupununi, a third space strategy has taken the shape of the active

and ongoing transitioning from IIC-driven collaborative conservation partnerneships and

research, to community-driven conservation leadership, knowledge-building and

governance processes within the villages and their institutions.

Interface between Indigenous Knowledge and Conservation Paradigms

In his foundational discussion of Indigenous environmental philosophy and science,

Cajete (2000, p. 66-7) provides a template of methodological tools and concepts that

have traditionally facilitated different Indigenous societies in exploring and living in

relationship with the natural world. For the purposes of this study, I have created a

descriptive schema (see Figure 4.1) to reflect the bridging points between the worldview

perspectives and environmental practices of the North Rupununi communities, and the

modern conservation paradigm used by IIC that emerged from my research. Through

such an interface, Indigenous and conservation actors are able to communicate their

respective knowledges, and co-construct new forms of syncretic knowledge and

practice. They are thus able to narrate their different stories and negotiate across such

difference to create syncretic forms of dialogue and knowledge.

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Figure 4.1 Interface between Indigenous and Conservation Science Paradigms

Conceptual and methodological tools

Description of local scientific activities acting as an interface with conservation science

Observation Local people’s empirical sensory observation of: animals and plants; climate patterns and phenology; celestial events; ecological structures, processes and functions of natural habitats; animal natural history and behavioural ecology obtained during hunting, farming, gathering, medicinal activities; animal monitoring and research. Citizen science activities.

Experiment Community-based and collaborative animal and plant research initiatives, and wildlife club projects. Practical experimentation within hunting, farming, gathering and medicinal contexts to find ways to survive in ecological niches – in this way, sustainable and innovative technologies evolve.

Meaning and understanding

Local people’s ability to derive meaning and understanding related to relationships of interdependency, reciprocity and responsibility in human–animal relationships and conservation practices are priorities; rather than focus on prediction and control.

Objectivity Objectivity is founded on local people’s direct subjective experience and interpretation of the natural world; subjective experiences are valued and connected with close relationships with animals, plants and landscapes.

Unity Local people’s customary and spiritual beliefs in natural order, balance and holism are complemented by a simultaneous ecological understanding that ecosystems are complex, unpredictable and changing.

Frameworks Conservation, wildlife management and collaborative management frameworks are understood through a combination of scientific and cultural metaphors, stories, taxonomies, ceremonies, maps and norms. Conservation frameworks are layered with teaching, experience and meaning.

Causality Local belief in scientific and metaphysical causes or sources that affect and transform both material entities and processes, as well as forms of energy beings from the spirit realm.

Ethics Local people’s ways of understanding, valuing and interacting with animals and the environment is based on moral consideration of the natural world and beings, and relationships of reciprocity and responsibility. Ethics are ontologically and epistemically grounded: coming to be in the natural world and coming to know the natural world.

Appropriate technology

Selective and integrated adoption of customary and modern technologies that are ecologically and culturally suitable for hunting, farming, community development, conservation, and wildlife research.

Spirit Scientific understanding of the natural world considers the sacred energy that exists in animals, plants, landscapes, socio-ecological relationships.

Interpretation Context-specific and culturally embedded interpretations of ecological events and phenomena; and conservation practice.

Explanation Local people use metaphor, stories, symbols and images to explain conservation and managerial concepts; and ecological phenomena.

Authority Local knowledge gains authority through relationships with local environments and species based on collective and individual experience, and elder and shamanic specialized knowledge. Local expertise is recognized equally within collaborative conservation frameworks.

Place Conservation and human–animal relationships, knowledge and practices are situated and place-based.

Cosmology Local philosophies about the environment are related to the cosmos and

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emergence and relational role of humans and all non-human species within celestial, ancestral and natural worlds.

Ceremony and Ritual

Context for celebrating local human–animal and collaborative relationships, transferring knowledge and remembering responsibilities regarding animals, plants and the environment. Ceremony gives cultural meaning and facilitates in cultivating relationships and participation within collaborative process and conservation initiatives.

Elders Holders of specialized ecological and cultural knowledge based on experience and wisdom; holders of socio-ecological memory and keepers of customary and cultural institutions. Facilitators of intergenerational learning and advisors to conservation partners.

Pathways Envisioning new pathways in conservation and wildlife management reflect a syncretism of revitalized customary practices and progressive scientific strategies. IIC-supported, community-led conservation initiatives provide locally grounded and collaboratively directed paths for exploring, relating to, learning, protecting and restoring the environment.

I have been interested in the adoption or crafting of Indigeneity by Indigenous

people in the North Rupununi as a means of asserting their environmental and political

agencies within the contexts of community conservation, and collaborative conservation

and knowledge-building. Within the modern conservation context of their collaborative

partnership with IIC, local conservation leadership and activism require a “differential

consciousness” (Sandoval, 2000) by community leaders and members. They must

exercise adaptive flexibility to navigate the interstitial and often contradictory spaces

between their worldviews and practices and global conservation systems, in the hope of

achieving their environmental justice and human development goals.

A Continuum of Indigenous Strategies for Engagement

Contact zones within Indigenous communities and territories are permeated with the

bitter legacies of colonialism, and contemporary impositions from state, conservation,

development and commercial interests. Such entanglements borne from sites of contact

in Guyana and throughout the world have stimulated defiantly activist and resistance

stances by Indigenous communities including activism, migration, hostility, refusal to

cooperate and even warfare. With the exception of more progressive and probative

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actors and institutions in the contemporary period, such as the IIC — the majority of

national governments, extractive industries, Christian Churches and researchers have

operated according to their own varying interests. And often with little regard to the rights

and cultural and ecological integrity of Indigenous peoples and their territories. In

response, communities have had to resist the interventions of many groups and fight to

protect their customary systems and rights to their lands and resources.

The ways in which the North Rupununi communities mobilize their agencies —

interpreting and responding to varying models of conservation and development, and the

other globalizing forces that have entered into their lives — reveal both the resiliency

and embeddedness, and flexibility and openness of their knowledges and customary

practices when confronted with change. Both mainstream and critical literatures on

entanglements between Indigenous actors and conservation or development actors tend

to feature only total adoption or total resistance options for Indigenous communities.

However, the diverse approaches of the North Rupununi communities to engage

with conservation partners; protect their wildlife and forest resources; assert their land

and resource rights; revitalize and build their knowledges and local governance

institutions; demarcate and map their territories; and define their own conservation and

community development priorities and initiatives — reveals a continuum of strategies.

Most contemporary Indigenous responses follow the approaches of i) aquiescence,

ii) metaphor, iii) adaptation, iv) negotiation, v) adoption/appropriation, vi) syncretism, and

vii) political activism and resistance. Regardless of which Indigenous strategy, there is a

complex interplay between maintaining some level of local governance and cultural

systems, while simultaneously making social and political adaptations to articulate with

dominant conservation and development systems and ideologies (Medina, 2002).

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Aquiescence

Unfortunately, there continue to be contexts (particularly under either state conservation

regimes or extractive industries) where communities have felt overpowered — no space

for manoeuvre, negotiation or resistance — and have been forced to acquiesce to the

interests of the external actors. In some cases, self-interested community leaders will

opt to fully adopt external agendas, and consequently compromise the rights and

interests of their communities for personal gain.

Political Activism and Resistance

An example of unjust conservation interventions and Indigenous political activism and

resistance in Guyana is typified by the government’s proposed establishment of the

Guyana Protected Area System15 (funded by the World Bank’s GEF) and its pilot

protected area, expansion of the Kaieteur National Park (originally established in 1929).

The Patamona communities at Chenapou and other affected villages near Guyana’s

infamous Kaieteur Falls were initially amenable to the proposed protected area system

as long as their concerns, rights and aspirations were included within the planning and

decision-making processes. In actuality, however, their concerns and rights were not

included, and the communities became defensive toward the state’s protected area

strategy. Indigenous peoples’ history of systematic neglect by the government includes

disregard of: Indigenous territorial, customary and livelihood rights; rights to FPIC and

consultations; proper environmental and social impact assessments conducted, and

tangible benefits for affected communities. Under leadership and guidance from the

Amerindian People’s Association (APA), the Patamona communities tried to engage the

15

Previously, the National Protected Area System (NPAS). After being shelved by the World Bank due to its

review that the Government of Guyana was not recognizing Indigenous land rights – with particular regard to the Patamona village at Chenapou and Kaieteur National Park – the project was reincarnated under its present name, the Guyana Protected Area System.

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government and the World Bank in dialogue. However, talks with the government failed

and after much protest of the controversial, amended Kaieteur National Park, the

communities engaged the government in a legal battle based on the government’s

violations of constitutional and inherent Indigenous rights (LaRose, 2004). The World

Bank withdrew its GEF funding and institutional support for the project due to such

violations against Indigenous peoples, and a National Assembly amendment was

passed in 2000 for Indigenous people to have use rights within the Park.

The GPAS was reincarnated soon after, with promised funding and support from

Conservation International (CI) and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), and new

rhetoric promoting Indigenous people’s participation within decisions related to protected

area establishment. However, Wapishana activist for the APA and Indigenous

representative for the Protected Areas Secretariat, Jean LaRose (2004) states that there

continues to be no legislation within the GPAS structure to protect Indigenous rights or to

ensure participation by Indigenous peoples, and that all control is vested in the

Environmental Protection Agency. A village leader from Fairview elaborates on how this

case sparked concern for Indigenous leaders and communities throughout Guyana

regarding issues of consultation, respect for Indigenous rights, Indigenous agency and

resistance to interventions that are not in their best interest (VC3, 2009):

Kaieteur National Park is one of the big issues, because they never went in to have a consultation with the people who lived around there…they just decided the land area from a map in the office and sent out people to start the demarcation…when they went out there, it was a big problem because they never consulted with the villagers, so they protested. The government should be more responsible and now that there are processes and procedures they need to respect and follow…they have to reach with the communities and village councils from around the area first before they can carry out their agenda, what they want, then. With this upcoming Low Carbon strategy as well, consultation is key for our communities to know what we are getting into and what the benefits are for we people here.

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The Government of Guyana’s proposed Low Carbon Development Strategy has also

infringed on Indigenous peoples’ rights in the North Rupununi and other regions, and is

under active resistance and negotiation by the APA and numerous Indigenous leaders

and activists throughout Guyana.

While a powerful and necessary recourse in many contexts, such as that of the

Patamona communities and their struggle against the amended Kaiteur National Park

protected area, resistance is not the only form of agency or effective response for

Indigenous peoples confronted with conservation and development interventions.

Negotiation and adaptation are becoming the most prevalent strategies used by

Indigenous peoples, particularly within collaborative, participatory and multi-stakeholder

frameworks. Even in contexts where strategies such as political activism and resistance

are used, most communities have already sought paths of negotiation and reconciliation

with other actors — but these latter forms were not reciprocated. In contexts where

syncretism is engaged, such as the North Rupununi communities’ partnership with IIC

and other conservation partners — levels of activism, appropriation, negotiation and

adaptation are often requisite processes that facilitate syncretic outcomes.

Adaptation

The communities have had to engage with, and adapt to modern conservation ideology,

discourse and technology in the contemporary period through their interactions with IIC

and other conservation organizations. Many community members (especially elders and

older people) have had a significant challenge in negotiating and adapting their

worldviews to the knowledge and management models of modern conservation that

have entrenched themselves as the prominent methodology for conservation thought

and practice. Particularly difficult have been understanding and synthesizing scientific,

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technological and business language and methodologies within their own cultural and

epistemic repertoire. A village leader from Wowetta explains (VC10, 2009):

A lot of information given to us and brought into our community have been in this complicated and scientific way and it makes us sometimes feel a ways…because we already have our knowledge of things here and then they come with their way of explaining things and it looks like a strange thing to us.

However, once outreach and bridging activities done by IIC staff (mostly

community members) were used to bring the local and conservation systems into ethical

conversation at a level where most people could understand and feel grounded,

community members were able to adapt to the natural history knowledge, wildlife

ecology, sustainable livelihood and wildlife harvesting practices, sustainable use area

zonation and adaptive and collaborative management forms espoused by IIC staff and

IIC-trained community researchers. This is due to the foundation of such knowledges

and models existing already within many customary and more contemporary beliefs and

practices, ecological consciousness, and human–nature relationships. Such locally

embedded systems tend to be founded on values of responsible and ethical use and

relationship, and many have continued to flourish at some level within the communities.

In fact, elders contend that although some older people and youth are now engaged with

unsustainable activities, the Indigenous way of life is meant to be sustainable (VE3, VE9

& 10, 2009) because it is sedimented in enduring relationships and practices that are

based on respect for, responsibility toward animals and the environment.

Negotiation

Medina (2002) describes negotiation as a “proactive development by Indigenous people

of new cultural strategies to maintain cultural continuity” (p. 4) in response to external

systems, institutions and discourses that often enter new power dynamics, and cultural

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and ideological expectations into the relationship. However, the Western model of

interest-based conservation and protected area managemefnt policy- and decision-

making tends to frame the majority of state and international institution approaches. For

conservation institutions, the focus for negotiation and decision-making is often on

maximizing each partner’s ability to satisfy their own priorities and interests, with

outcomes usually favouring the more powerful and persuasive partner’s interests. Such

a model creates a bias from the outset against Indigenous partners who are more

inclined to collective dialogue and consensus decision-making and a rights-based model

of conservation management. As such, for negotiation to be possible for Indigenous

people, the space and vector for dialogue and bargaining must be inclusive of

Indigenous values, rights and forms of articulation. If the dialogue is inclusive, then

negotiation for Indigenous peoples holds the possibility for creative, flexible and enduring

outcomes through processes that enhance their relationships and alliances, as well as

strengthen customary systems such as dialogue, cooperation, consensus decision-

making and reconciliation.

The question is whether conservation institutions like IIC have the inherent

flexibility and sensitivity for creating an ethical space framework for bridging local values,

rights, and decision-making and discursive forms. For the North Rupununi communities,

formal modes of negotiation and decision-making have been a relatively new

mechanism for them to use in their dealings with external partners or actors. However,

their increasing entanglements with conservation, development, state, research and

commercial actors have accelerated the communities’ learning curve and negotiation

capacity. Fortunately, IIC has proven to be relatively flexible and sensitive to the

communities’ discursive forms, linguistic needs and rights within their management and

decision-making processes. Moreover, the NRDDB and BHI have served as conduits

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for representing and negotiating the concerns and priorities of communities vis-à-vis

IIC’s interests and priorities, as well as influencing consensus- and dialogue-driven

processes within the IIC’s framework. Hence, to certain level, the communities’ cultural

strategy of negotiation has been an effective tool in bridging the cultural divide with IIC.

A major strength for the North Rupununi communities is that, since the colonial

times, their customary and cultural systems have been flexible and adaptive enough for

them to respond to a variety of changes at ecological, social, ideological and politico-

economic levels. They have done so in a manner whereby they have been able to retain

much of their customary way of life, while adapting to, and integrating many features of

modern and external systems that may enhance their lives and environments. This latter

aspect relates to the communities’ capacity to synthesize relevant features of their

customary systems with progressive features of external systems to create a new

system responsive to their contemporary realities and aspirations. Two village leaders

from Surama articulate the adaptive and syncretic processes engaged daily by

community members (VC1 & 2, 2009):

This is where we are now as Amerindian people...trying to recover our own traditions and language. They are trying to adjust to the new changes and the other languages and knowledge that has come into our communities. Especially facing these present generations...

Of course, adaptation and syncretism have not been seamless processes and there

have been numerous costs and losses to the communities and their systems throughout

their interactions with external paradigms. A central focus of NRDDB’s and the Bina Hill

Institute’s community-based and collaborative initiatives with IIC and other conservation

partners has been to equip community members with the capacities and tools to adapt to

complex environmental, cultural, ideological, institutional and economic changes.

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Appropriation / Adoption

The Iwokrama Act (1996) formally recognizes and protects Indigenous intellectual

property. However, in the early years of the partnership, when the communities and

NRDDB were still trying to gauge the level of trust and sharing they could have with IIC,

many elders were weary of offering much of their knowledge to the institutions (VC9,

2009). They were also concerned about who would have access to their specialized

knowledge and to what ends, if disseminated through formal documents and

publications — a concern that continues to be held with respect to divulging knowledge

to outside researchers and scientists. Many elders and older community members hold

vivid memories and stories related by other Indigenous groups whereby missionaries,

scientists and researchers, government agents, bioprospectors and business actors

have harvested knowledge and cultural productions from people and either used the

knowledge to subvert them — or more commonly, to fulfil external goals with no

acknowledgement or benefits flowing back to the communities.

A recent issue facing the communities involves mining, logging and

petrochemical companies overstepping the permission process of district and village

council authorities (who have grievous concerns and some level of regulations

preventing such interventions). These companies attempt to solicit community members

with specialized knowledge and expertise in land surveying and mapping, tree-spotting,

local ecology, and medicinal plants, to assist in explorative and extractive activities. A

group of IIC rangers who helped coordinate a series of collaborative wildlife research

workshops between elders and other community members and IIC rangers and

researchers discuss such concerns by elder participants and IIC’s obligation to respect

them: “They saw how important that their knowledge is to Iwokrama and not forgetting

certain knowledge that they don’t want to give out...that it is their right that if there is

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certain knowledge that they don’t want to share with Iwokrama or others, that is their

special knowledge to keep” (IR2-5, 2009).

Langton (2003) similarly cautions that while many Indigenous peoples are open

to reciprocally sharing their knowledges and practices within the context of collaborative

approaches, conservation researchers must understand that such knowledges are part

of the peoples’ heritage and are not readily accessible or intended for mass

consumption. The National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia’s Biological

Diversity (Langton, 2003), and Guyana’s revised 2005 Amerindian Act and Iwokrama Act

similarly provision that: Indigenous peoples must be involved in any research and

species recovery/conservation programs related to their territories; the collection and

use of Indigenous knowledge is considered a privilege and should only be gathered and

used with the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples and to the direct

benefit of focal communities; there must be recognition of the continuation of Indigenous

customary traditions and use practices; and Indigenous rights must be safeguarded in

accordance with the 1993 UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2007 UN

Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The inverse form of appropriation relates to Indigenous peoples’ strategic and

selective adoption of modern conservation ideologies, vernaculars, networks and

technologies. Appropriation has facilitated them with a “vocabulary of legitimation” (Li,

1996, p. 509) in asserting Indigenous agencies and priorities within collaborative

partnerships. Similar to other contemporary Indigenous societies, the North Rupununi

communities are interested in adopting selective aspects of conservation knowledge,

managerial methods, and technologies as a matter of both enhancing their leadership

and livelihood strategies, as well as giving them more political leverage to negotiate with

conservation partners. The communities are discovering that appropriating conservation-

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related discourse, skills, technologies and funding networks – especially training

programs and workshops; use of internet, GPS and GIS; financial and administrative

mechanisms; funding and institutional networks — are strategically advantageous for

developing their own contemporary systems and institutions, as well as for furthering

their rights claims regarding land and resource rights and sovereignty (VC1-12, 2009;

Riley, 2003). Some of the younger community members also have a strategic interest in

adopting a more modern lifestyle and higher-profile employment through their

engagement with conservation organizations and other national or international

institutions.

While conservation encounters have shown that Indigenous and conservationist

or scientific understandings and practices related to wildlife and the environment are

“frequently out of step” with one another (Niezen, 2003), a more pragmatic and utility-

based ethos for valuing, harvesting and use of the environment has insidiously seeped

into the parlance and livelihood practices of many communities. Thankfully, such

adoptation has not been a seamless process due to the robustness and resiliency of

many Indigenous systems. Moreover, the North Rupununi communities and Indigenous

activists in Guyana have been struggling against neglect of their rights and the

encroachment of harmful interests within their territories, while creatively trying to protect

their cultures and environments and navigate the complex ecological and social changes

affecting them.

Decolonizing and democratizing spaces for Indigenous and conservation actors

to engage their divergent knowledges, worldviews and management systems can inspire

more sustainable and responsive approaches because they are ecologically and

culturally relevant. Although certainly not acknowledged or articulated within a

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decolonizing context by IIC, and far from the ideal — the IIC has attempted within its

legal, project and interpersonal engagements with the North Rupununi communities to

actively recognize and integrate: Indigenous rights, specialized knowledges and cultural

and capacity development priorities; and power-sharing responsibilities. The influence of

Indigenous strategies for negotiation, adoption, adaptation and syncretism has

particularly transformed the NRDDB-IIC collaborative relationship and management

processes to be more reciprocal and inclusive of Indigenous systems. Such strategies

challenge the hierarchical and dichotomous positioning, inherent within many

collaborative conservation regimes, which elevates and validates conservation priorities

and knowledge above Indigenous priorities and institutions. The NRDDB and proactive

community members have been particularly pivotal in sensitizing, democratizing and

Indigenizing IIC’s discourse, research, policies and collaborative processes related to

Indigenous partners. Thus, as evidenced by certain critical formations and elements of

the NRDDB-IIC partnership (especially within its formative years) such decolonizing and

Indigenizing influences have been transformative to the geography and practice of global

conservation within the North Rupununi and throughout Guyana.

Decolonizing Power and Knowledge Regimes in Conservation

Although global conservation has been evolving to become more inclusive of Indigenous

and local communities — by implying collaborative, participatory and community-based

approaches — colonial legacies, power imbalances and market ethos continue to inhere

in Guyana’s national conservation and protected area management policies and

discourses. Hence, recognizing and disrupting pervasive colonial legacies and power

inequities within collaborative conservation discourse and policy is a critical piece of

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building conservation partnerships and knowledge forms that are truly collaborative,

equitable and syncretic.

Foucault’s (1980) landmark theories on discourse and the shifting complexity of

knowledge–power relations are foundational to understanding the historical and socio-

political interaction of Indigenous environmental subjectivities, agencies and

perspectives with global conservation perspectives. Discourse provides the grounding

for the construction and representation of knowledge, as well as the pervasive nature of

power within discourse. With respect to the collaborative processes of relationship and

knowledge-building within the NRDDB-IIC partnership, it has been necessary that IIC

and other conservation partners working with the North Rupununi communities address

hegemonic16 forms of power that transform conservationists into the primary or even

sole objects and instruments of knowledge, truth and consciousness (Foucault, 1980). In

other partnership contexts, Indigenous knowledge and environmental consciousness

have become marginalized and negated and the integrity of the collaborative relationship

and management and research outcomes are greatly compromised.

Tom Bartlett’s (2005) critical legal and social analysis of Guyana’s revised

Amerindian Act and the North Rupununi District Development Board Constitution

examines how their embedded development and conservation discourses (differentially

framed by state, mainstream development and Indigenous worldviews) construct

stereotypical representations of Indigenous peoples, and situated collaborative roles and

knowledges. Bartlett discusses five ideologies framing the tension between the state-led

16

I use the term ‘hegemony’ to describe the embedded power relations that have framed both the colonial

and the contemporary discourses on conservation vis-à-vis Indigenous or local forms of knowledge and customary practice. Gramsci’s famous work on hegemony (See: Boggs, 1976) explores the ideological permeation and dominance of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality throughout a society as being the most legitimate and capable system. However, while Indigenous or local peoples do sometimes acquiesce to the dominant conservation paradigm, they often oppose such hegemonic forms and struggle to reclaim their own unique and counter-hegemonic forms.

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hegemonic discourse persisting within the Amerindian Act, and the counter-hegemonic

Indigenous-led discourse of the NRDDB Constitution (2005, p. 360–1):

1) Mainstream development and conservation discourses whereby underdeveloped nations like Guyana and internal Indigenous nations are expected to emulate the same development pattern as the global North.

2) Othering of Indigenous cultures through discriminatory or essentializing

stereotypes. 3) Colonialism/Orientalism where powerful nations or state actors try to

paternalistically protect and control cultures perceived as unique, yet in a state of decay.

4) Post-colonialism whereby Guyana attempts to construct unifying nationalistic

myths based on imaginaries of Indigenous peoples and their place within the new nation state; such a construction of unity and autonomy legitimates the state’s appropriation of Indigenous history and culture as processes of nation-building and cohesion.

5) Cultural nationalism by Indigenous peoples in the attempt to preserve cultural

identity, customary institutions and knowledge forms by simultaneously invoking the community as a moral entity and developing cultural forms through adaptation, negotiation and syncretism.

Creating an Ethical Space Framework within Conservation

In terms of decolonizing and democratizing collaborative management and knowledge-

building spaces within conservation policy and practice, I offer here the possibility of

Indigenous and conservation partners in the North Rupununi to create an ethical space

framework (Ermine, 2007). An ethical space framework is a form of democratic and

reciprocal engagement between groups with contrasting worldviews and knowledges,

such as Indigenous people and conservationists. Stevenson’s (2006) critique of the

advantages and disadvantages to Indigenous peoples regarding co-management

relationships with governments and conservationists, discusses “possibilities of

difference” (p. 168) as the development of alternative approaches that will create space

for ensuring inclusivity of Indigenous peoples, knowledges and institutions in

conservation and management decisions related to their lands and resources. He

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models such possibilities of difference and the space in between for mutual respect,

negotiation and innovative approaches on the Haudenosaunee two-row wampum treaty

model. Hence, ethical and epistemological positionings between the Indigenous and IIC

partners in the North Rupununi are often very different, and framed in other normative

settings the interaction would likely be fraught with power inequities and conflict —

particularly for Indigenous actors.

However, in an ethical space partnership framework whereby epistemological

differences between the groups are acknowledged and respected, cooperative spirit and

more equitable and ethical terms of engagement can be cultivated by both groups.

Ethical spaces are inherently value-laden, political places in that they work to decolonize

and democratize collaborative engagements and processes. Additionally, ethical spaces

are where Indigenous peoples’ agencies, and customary and contemporary systems,

are recognized in their ongoing negotiation and re-negotiation vis-à-vis their encounters

with, and contestation of conservation, state and commercial interests. A partnership

framework which develops negotiation and cooperation while recognizing mutual

difference can also, according to Ermine, create new currents of thought and forms of

knowledge that borrow from the most progressive of each group’s worldviews and

practices.

In Alsop and Fawcett’s (2010) examination of the political aspects of relational

spaces between Indigenous and Western knowledges, the authors discuss the

possibility of epistemic plurality and its creation of ethical spaces where “the uniqueness

and asymmetrical reciprocity” of different “knowledge traditions can be compared and

discussed without privileging any of them epistemologically. Although seemingly

idealistic and very rare in practice — particularly within most conflict-tinged global

collaborative conservation and participatory development contexts — the tools and

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possibilities for an ethical space framework are increasingly evident in many

contemporary collaborative relationships and alliances, such as that of the NRDDB-IIC

partnership.

Bridging Indigenous and Conservation Knowledge Systems

Collaborative management of protected areas and conservation initiatives have

particularly required the bridging and syncretism of Indigenous knowledge forms and

customary systems, with external state and/or institutional and managerial frameworks.

Unfortunately, state and external institutions tend to implement knowledge and

management frameworks based on modern scientific, technical, business and

administrative models as the normative structure for all collaborative processes,

conservation research and practice.

The relatively open and respectful institutional approach of IIC toward the

Indigenous systems of the North Rupununi — coupled with the strong ethic of NRDDB

and BHI, and active MRU researchers, community environmental workers, wildlife

researchers and rangers to revitalize and protect Indigenous systems while integrating

modern conservation — have created an ethical space framework. However, creation of

a space for collaboration and syncretic knowledge-building has been fraught with

challenges and although many have been resolved at some level, there are definitely

aspects of the modern discourse that continue to dominate the collaborative

conservation landscape in the North Rupununi. For example, while IIC has worked hard

to integrate customary and local natural history knowledge and Makushi language into

its management, research and training initiatives, the methodologies and knowledge

produced in its formal plans and reports are very much written in the language of

conservation science and business discourse.

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Just as syncretic processes have run along community and institutional vectors

to create new forms of conservation research and practice, transformation has also

traveled in both directions to influence change within each groups’ systems. Both IIC and

the communities recognize that knowledge and skill transfer between their two groups

has been on a comparable level (Allicock, 2003). For the communities, the strengthening

and building of local leadership, administrative and technological capacities through IIC’s

training, educational and supportive initiatives, have influenced their abilities to develop

their own conservation and environmental management plans at the community level. A

group of IIC rangers from the communities state, “The management plans which we now

have in place have been created by the people themselves, rather than Iwokrama giving

them something that they have to work with…[they have] what they learned from

Iwokrama and the customs they already had” (IR2-5, 2009).

Conversely, the specialized natural history and cultural knowledge and skills,

customary management, consensus ethos, and leadership capacities contributed by the

communities have influenced the quality and structure of IIC’s collaborative management

and research initiatives, and conservation knowledge and practice. Furthermore, the

reach of the communities’ contributions and influence has extended far beyond its

partnerships and projects with IIC and other conservation partners, to actively shape the

broader global conservation discourse. Similar to the ways in which Indigenous activists

in global contexts have struggled for multiple and expanded ways of understanding:

conservation, science, community and collaboration - their contribution to broadening

such understandings, practices and policies are profound and not to be underestimated.

A group of IIC rangers from the communities underscore such Indigenous contributions

(IR2-5, 2009):

Yeah, we feel that our traditional knowledge has been valuable and contributed to conservation and development. I think that we are satisfied that our knowledge is

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being used at a high level, that we are sharing some of our Amerindian knowledge and beliefs to the world.

Indigenous knowledge and conservation science are each sequential, pattern-

based and build on pre-existing knowledge. However, while Indigenous and

conservation knowledge systems may bridge well with respect to empirical facts,

discrete research data and even conservation project outcomes, the main differences

are related to underlying perceptions, values, relational understandings and meanings

attributed to environments and species. O’Flaherty et al. (2008) discuss such

epistemological differences in their study on collaborative planning and management

approaches for woodland caribou conservation between the Pikangikum First Nation and

the Ontario government, as well as the imperative to foreground Indigenous knowledge

and participation in all stages of wildlife management:

It is important to understand the mechanisms by which local people consider both their own knowledge and that of scientists and planners in creating approaches that move their own values forward…thus, in striving for active and meaningful participation in wildlife and forest management, it is not sufficient that indigenous communities merely document and share the information they hold; they need the ability to participate in planning decisions in ways that enable them to mobilize their knowledge. (p. 6)

Hence, while there are immense epistemological and methodological obstacles in

attempting to syncretize Indigenous and modern conservation systems, they are not

intractable. Syncretic processes require a move beyond rigid and pre-determined

epistemological frameworks toward more flexible, inclusive and dialogical knowledge-

building frameworks where convergence and change are possible. This calls for ‘two-

eyed seeing,’ what Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall (in Bartlett, 2007) describes as

learning to see environmental and scientific issues with the strengths of both Indigenous

and Western science perspectives. For Indigenous integrative science educators who

attempt to bridge the divide between Indigenous and Western science frameworks, the

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goal is to bring the two frameworks together through their different knowledge forms,

worldviews, stories, empirical and research applications, and education (Bartlett, 2007).

Wildlife club leaders, teachers, MRU and community environmental researchers,

rangers, elder advisors, and IIC staff involved with community outreach and training

have been working to bridge the two different worldviews and knowledge forms so that

the communities are able to integrate modern conservation discourse and

methodologies within their systems. A mentor for the Surama wildlife club and former

CEW recalls (CEW4, 2009):

The experience to educate people here about conservation and bring their traditional knowledge together with this modern knowledge was quite positive in our community. People were interested in sharing their ideas and were open to trying this new approach and see how it work for our community.

IIC rangers from the different villages have particularly facilitated in providing an

institutional interface between IIC and communities, contributing their vast and combined

local, scientific, and technical knowledges to develop conservation initiatives within their

villages. Bridging the two systems is not only for the benefit of IIC-led conservation

initiatives, but for the communities to develop their own viable forms of conservation

leadership and environmental governance within their villages. Community members

identified that the children and youth who become involved with wildlife club and other

wildlife and environmental activities from an early age are particularly able to bridge their

customary beliefs and experiential knowledge with the modern concepts, technologies

and methods they are learning through school and involvement in conservation

initiatives.

IIC has developed and/or facilitated numerous community outreach and

supportive initiatives to facilitate the knowledge and management bridging process for

community members such as:

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i) collaborative wildlife management workshops ii) citizen science and backyard ecology activities iii) wildlife club workshops iv) Makushi Research Unit projects v) community environmental worker program vi) publications of Makushi natural history and stories vii) educational materials in Makushi language viii) community education workshops ix) training workshops x) elder histories

A village leader and former IIC ranger and researcher recalls (IR1, 2009):

They [IIC] helped us produce a book, Traditional Knowledge and Methods on Wildlife Management, so like the local knowledge of what we had regarding certain species of animals, and put together with the present day conservation management styles for those animals.

A wildlife research manager and former IIC ranger reflects (IR7, 2009): “I was very

thankful that through Iwokrama…I had me the opportunity to go back to learning how to

speak my Makushi properly and to focus on both our traditional knowledge forms and

learning conservation science” (IR7, 2009).

Summary

This chapter has discussed Indigenous environmental agency, Indigenous peoples’

different strategies of engagement with conservation discourses, and the

epistemological bridging and syncretic knowledge-building processes that underpin

asymmetrically reciprocal collaborative relationships. Perhaps not intentionally or

explicity, and certainly not without challenges, Indigenous communities and IIC staff

have nevertheless engaged in syncretic processes to establish a sustaining

management and research partnership. As counter-narratives within the global

conservation domain, Indigenous knowledge and science have the power to disrupt and

transform (Alsop & Fawcett, 2010; Said, 1993) the dominant conservation science and

management discourses that have been constructed as meta-narratives or truth claims

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within global conservation. Furthermore, Indigenous peoples’ strategies for grappling

and engaging with global conservation discourses and cultures in the North Rupununi

are challenging the “epistemological demarcations and hierarchical and dualistic

categorizations” (Alsop & Fawcett, 2010, p. 1029) inherent within the conservation

domain. Through such engagements and the ethical space partnership framework,

Indigenous environmental actors (rangers, community environmental workers,

community researchers, Wildlife Club leaders and Village leaders) and their

conservation allies in IIC and other institutions are also crafting more dynamic and

reciprocal conservation relationships, wildlife knowledge and management systems

based on processes of Creolization and syncretism.

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CHAPTER FIVE: THE VITALITY OFINDIGENOUS CUSTOMARY SYSTEMS WITHIN WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

Central Role of Communities and Customary Systems within Conservation

Indigenous customary uses (productive, cultural, spiritual) of animals and forest products

are mediated and regulated through a complex customary system of laws and sanctions,

cultural beliefs and common property regimes which has local legitimacy and is

collectively socialized amongst community members. Customary systems in the North

Rupununi define harvesting and use, rights and responsibilities, social equity and gender

roles, norms of reciprocity (sharing and exchange), shared values and aspirations,

notions of property and territoriality (Colchester, 2006). Such systems are not always

obvious or explicit vis-à-vis contemporary understandings and models of environmental

management and conservation. In my study of the North Rupununi communities, I found

their customary systems to include (see also Figure 5.2):

i) Collective notions of communal property and group access, which define and control who has access to specific resources.

ii) Customary rules and protocols that guide and regulate settlement of

communities, access to lands and resources and particular areas of cultivation and harvest regarding designated areas and customary practices (for hunting, fishing, farming, harvesting and gathering), and rules condemning over-harvesting and wasteful use of wildlife species and forest resources.

iii) Diffuse expressions of power and social or cultural authority within society which

sanction behaviour through subtle social controls of approbation and criticism — such as consensus decision-making mechanisms, teachings, stories, myths and dreams traditionally mediated by village leaders, counsel and mediation by shamans and elders.

iv) Customary norms expressed through moral codes and spiritual beliefs that

underpin respect for customary authorities, norms and the opinions of other community members, as reflected in animal taboos, cosmology and ecological mythologies, sacred areas, master animal and guardian spirits, and shamanism.

Understandings of community, customary practice and conservation should be

grounded in the particular politico-ecological and social processes of the place where

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they emerge and interact. Hence, strategies that are community-led and apply place-

based and integrative knowledge approaches would be more adaptive and responsive to

the complex and dynamic processes of ecological change and human–nature

interactions that affect forests ecosystems and wildlife populations. Massey (1993)

similarly conceptualizes community or place in terms which emphasize connection rather

than separation, saying that, “what gives a place its specificity is not some long

internalized history but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of

relations, articulated together at a particular locus” (p. 70).

Taking this line of reasoning further, only when communities are recognized as

distinctive kinds of place with a distinctive way of life, and characterized by specific

cultural, livelihood, environmental and market practices, can collaborative and

contemporary approaches to conservation be effective on both ecological and social

levels. In light of their concerns about the dangers of mythologizing local communities

and community-based conservation into constructs crafted to assuage and remedy

environmentalists’ and academics’ disillusionment over modern conservation, state and

market domains — and based on almost three decades of case study evidence —

Agrawal and Gibson (2001) concede that many Indigenous and local communities

indeed have the tools to forge their own environmental management paths. In contexts

such as the North Rupununi, they explain that the temporal and place-based knowledge

of community members, combined with both their customary and contemporary

institutional arrangements, help communities to achieve their environmental use and

livelihood priorities.

Oral narratives conveyed by Makushi and Wapishana elders of the North

Rupununi discuss the primacy of an environmental ethics rooted in cosmology, and

socio-cultural norms –– such as sacred areas, designated and rotational harvest areas,

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taboos, myths, shamanism and hunting ceremonies –– in mediating and controlling

peoples’ harvesting and environmental practices. An elder from Surama Village and

former manager with IIC recounts (VE3, 2009):

Yes, definitely we had traditional systems for managing our forests and resources… the shaman played a great part in that…the peaiman…it’s only recently that I had started working with Iwokrama and from the dozens of workshops that we had, I realized why the older folks had the beliefs they had and what it really meant.

Two elders from Wowetta Village share (VE14 & 15, 2009):

Before, the elders would pass down knowledge and advice about using animals and plants wisely and controlling how people use and harvest them…the elders or peaiman would advise people on how to relate and use their resources and the environment responsibly. Now people don’t come for advice and they have been using the environment and wildlife as they please.

Elders also allude to historical periods of warfare and conflict with mainly Karinya

and Warrau groups that had repercussions on the environment and impart moral lessons

for modern generations of villagers. Community members also acknowledged a shift in

recent times by some villagers to more unsustainable practices of over-harvesting of

important animal and tree species due to increasing disconnect with customary beliefs

and a collective identity. Succumbing to the pressures of the market economy and a

growing culture of individualism and self-interest, many community members are moving

away from their worldview of reciprocity and relationship with their environments,

animals and plants and compromising the ecological and cultural integrity of their

territories. As expressed by an elder from Surama Village (VE3, 2009):

Through increasing modernization and commercialization, people now mostly look at the resources and land as form of sustenance and a way to make a dollar…you see, that spiritual belief, or the belief that this animal could protect you or look at certain places and try to protect certain species is dying out.

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However, under the vision and guidance of community leaders such as the above-

quoted elder, and stronger institutions such as NRDDB-BHI, and the collaborative

partnership and support of IIC and other partners, community members have again

recognized the value of their customary and experiential environmental knowledge and

are synthesizing such knowledge within progressive contemporary conservation

practices. A village leader from Wowetta Village confirms (VC10, 2009):

Much of these regulations, as long as they are securing our rights, are strengthening our traditional customs. If we did not have them in some form still, when these organizations came in, there would be nothing for us to hang on to…we had something like this before, not in writing or in a forceful way, it has helped to make our way more strong.

Customary Systems for Wildlife Harvesting and Use

The Makushi and Wapishana people of the North and South Rupununi, along with the

Arawak, Patemona and other Indigenous people who later settled within the region, have

developed a body of ethical values and customary practices adapted to their

environments that have enabled them to, at some level, maintain their worldview and

ecological context. Customary natural resource management in Makushi language is,

Penaro yainon epanamanto’ î’r î yenyakama’to’ yakaya, and in Wapishana language,

Wapichan kuduzu /kaiwai amazada Kotu’ainao kawan. These expressions speak to a

complex system of relational understandings and customary practices passed down

from the ancestors to the people regarding the environment and other natural beings

with whom they are connected. Their place-based ethical practice and customary

institutions have provided a foundation for maintaining a level of socially equitable

access and use, and controls to protect and inculcate ecologically responsible

harvesting and use of lands and resources. Cultural beliefs, cosmological knowledge

and mediatory mechanisms underpinning environmental practices also maintain

relationships and philosophical and spiritual values within Indigenous communities.

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This chapter focuses on the cultural embeddedness of conservation practice and

leadership within Indigenous societies and focuses on the convergence between wildlife

conservation and cultural revitalization within local and global contexts. A salient thread

here is that both cultural and biological diversity are issues of relationship and are thus

vital to conservation practice in any local and global context.

Figure 5.1 Connecting Biological and Cultural Diversity in Conservation

Biological Diversity: Assemblages of diverse animal and plant species, and natural entities

are nurtured, adapted and maintained by Cultural Diversity cultural communities and their customary Cultural practices and productions systems. are dependent on diverse species and natural entities for their development and expression.

An imperative for conservation partnerships and programs is that conservationists and

researchers understand that for Indigenous societies, ethical environmental practice and

conservation strategies are about more than protecting resources, they are about

protecting their way of life and the ways of their ancestors (CEW3, 2009). The Makushi

have an expression that encapsulates the full sentiment and gravity of these issues for

Indigenous peoples of the North Rupununi: Makusipe komanto iseru — which means

sustaining the Makushi way of life, including the knowledge, relationships and ways of

being and acting within their environments. My research demonstrates recognition by

NRDDB-BHI and community members, as well as IIC and other conservation partners,

that historically evolved customary practices, cultural beliefs and human–nature/

human–animal relationships are foundational to environmental awareness and wildlife

and environmental conservation initiatives. There has also been recognition by both

local institutions (MRU, p.c., 2009) and many IIC managers and field staff (IM1-4, 2009;

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Chin, p.c., 2007) of the centrality of cultural and knowledge continuity in environmental

practice between past and modern generations and community environmental regimes.

The connection between culture, language, environmental consciousness,

conservation and protected area management is immensely important and should be

entrenched in all management, educational, business and capacity development

initiatives related to conservation at the community level. Article 10c of the UN

Convention on Biodiversity, in conjunction with Article 8j recognizing traditional

knowledges, innovations and practices, requires states to: “Protect and encourage

customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices

that are compatible with conservation and sustainable use requirements.”17 The

Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy of IUCN (IUCN CEESP,

2007) also recognizes Indigenous peoples’ rights to customary institutions and

establishment of community conserved areas (CCAs) as tools for operationalizing a

rights-based approach to collaborative conservation. As evidenced by the respective

2001 and 2004 Judgments of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the cases of

the Mayagna community of Awas Tingni, Nicaragua and the Maya communities of the

Toledo District, Belize, international law also acknowledges that in addition to state

recognized titled lands, Indigenous peoples have rights to communal land ownership

and resource utilization in accordance with their traditional customs (David et al., 2006).

In Guyana, the 2003 amended Constitution recognizes Indigenous peoples’ right

to the promulgation, preservation and protection of their way of life and cultural heritage.

However, numerous studies find that existing national laws and policies do not

adequately recognize and protect Indigenous peoples’ customary rights, nor the critical

17

While Guyana ratified the CBD in 1994, its National Biodiversity Action Plan contains no explicit

recognition that Indigenous peoples’ have customary management systems pertaining to forests, nor is there any policy on Article 10(c) to protect Indigenous peoples’ rights in this regard.

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linkages between customary land and resource tenure and use and the strengthening

and development of associated customary institutions (APA & FPP, 2008; Colchester &

LaRose, 2010; David et al., 2006). The vitality and primacy of culturally embedded

Indigenous customary tenure and management systems within contemporary

conservation and environmental management policies at the community level have

much to contribute to national and global conservation strategies in terms of

cooperation, relationship-building and sustainability.

Customary practices amongst the North Rupununi communities promote

selective and rotational resource use to enable forest and savannah re-growth and

species regeneration. Although ‘sustainability’ is a relatively new term that has entered

the vocabulary of people in the region, the underlying concept of planning ahead and

developing harvest, cultivation and use practices that are controlled and responsible so

that future generations will be able to continue their reciprocal relationships with the

environment — is firmly entrenched in Indigenous peoples’ customary ethic.

Sustainability as a concept is expressed in Makushi as: morî pe yemkam to’ moropai

masa ronkon nîrama tom pe. Ethical and measured resource use is underpinned by a

shared sense of responsibility regarding the need to care for resources for future

generations and a strong belief that all life forms have their own spirits and must be

respected by humans. Serious repercussions are believed to befall a person who

transgresses customary rules and while many villagers do not find such beliefs and

institutions relevant within the modern realities of their communities, many other villagers

continue to believe in these customs as they shared stories and experiences directly

related to their families. Based on data collected from formal and informal interviews

from Village Elders, Village Hunters, Village Leaders and CEWs, Figure 5.2 displays

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diverse Makushi and Wapishana customary beliefs, norms and practices related to

wildlife and environmental relationships, harvesting and use.

Customary rules and norms are intended to reinforce the common property

system and socio-ecological governance institutions of the North Rupununi communities

by preventing social and ecological conflicts over land and natural resources, avoiding

spiritual dangers, maintaining health and security, enabling regeneration and flourishing

of species and renewable resources and ensure reciprocity and equitable sharing

amongst community members. Social norms amongst community members are upheld

through: retribution from spirit/master guardians (illness from violating taboos; ecological

upheaval or lack of game in sacred areas), and social sanctions including ostracism from

community activities and decision-making, or public identification and shaming (David et

al., 2006, p. 37).

While there are presently community members who are unconvinced of the

veracity or relevance of many customary norms, and consequently, may not observe

them — elders and other community members acknowledged that it was rare in long-

ago times for people to transgress them since such norms and rules were so embedded

within community members’ cultural identity, livelihood and recreational activities and

daily way of life (VE3, 6, 9-10, 2009; VC1-3, 2009).

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Figure 5.2 Indigenous Customary Norms for the Responsible Use of Wildlife and the Environment18

General customary norms for natural resource management

Use the land as the ancestors did

Act responsibly and respectfully

Do not practice wasteful activities

Harvest and use only what is needed for you and your family

Do not harvest for commercial gain

Do not ill-treat animals, plants, lands, bush

Do not pressure a resource or area by over use (farming, hunting, fishing)

Leave resources in a good state for those generations that “come behind”

Follow Makushi, Wapichan and other Indigenous customs (sacred areas, care of bina, respect for spirits, taboos, rituals, blessings, thanksgiving)

No access to outsiders unless formal permission sought

Harvesting and use of wildlife

Do not use out all game animals

Do not ill-treat animals; respect them

Do not kill young game animals

Do not shoot pregnant animals

Do not injure animals and leave them behind to suffer

Shoot only what you and your family need and can consume (only when there is no meat)

Do not put pressure on hunting grounds (do not over-hunt)

Do not put pressure only on one species

Do not hunt certain animals or in certain areas during breeding periods

Do not hunt steady in one area only (rotate hunting activity over different areas)

Share meat equally amongst family and on special occasions, village

Respect sacred areas, Master spirits and community conservation areas (more recent)

Fishing

Do not use out all catch fish

Do not use seine nets or large cast nets as they catch too many fish, including non-catch fine fish

Do not waste fine fish caught with larger catch fish

Do not use poison to catch fish as it harms other animals and people using water source; when poison was used long ago, only elders should advise on its use

Fish traps should be dismantled after use

Fish only what you and your family need and can consume

Do not put pressure on fishing grounds (do not over-fish)

Do not put pressure only on one species

Fish moving upstream to spawn should not be trapped, poisoned or netted

Do not fish steady in one area only (rotate fishing activity over different areas)

Share fish equally amongst family and on special occasions, village

Do not wash land turtles in the water

Avoid sacred areas (ponds, river tributaries, creeks, rocks) and do not provoke Master spirits, oma spirits or water people

18

Framed mostly within community members’ phrasing, and compiled from interviews with CEWs, village

elders, hunters and leaders from Surama, Rewa, Fairview and Wowetta Villages (CEW1-5, 2009; VE1-18, 2009; VC1-12, 2009; VH1-14, 2009). Also adapted from the Wapichan framework in David et al., 2006.

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Farming

Use the land responsibly

Cut only enough farmland for you and your family’s capacity and needs; do not waste the land

Do not cut farms in primary wildlife habitat or where there are many trees with edible fruits

Be responsible about clearing and burning savannah for farms, follow customary protocols

Do not over-cultivate the land; periodically leave land fallow to rejuvenate

Plant enough cassava and other crops to also feed foraging animals to still ensure a good crop harvest

Appeal to forest Master before felling; avoid felling spiritually dangerous trees

Logging and Gathering of Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs) (construction materials, natural medicines, crafts)

Do not cut all trees or harvest all forest products or plants

Harvest only as much timbers or products as you and your family need

Practice selective logging for cutting of timbers

Harvest fruits and leaves by climbing trees, not by cutting them down

Do not cut down or harvest from trees close to village compound

Do not cut down fruit-bearing Ité trees; older, dying and unproductive palms may be cut down

Leave the young shoots and take only mature plants

Consult with peaiman or elder for harvest and use of medicinal plants and other sacred plants

Share knowledge and medicines with sick villagers in need of a cure

No extraction by outsiders — though sick outsiders can be treated

I do not intend to paint an idyllic portrait of Indigenous communities within the

North Rupununi and elsewhere as being environmental crusaders or wildlife enthusiasts,

or that their customary systems are inherently conservation-oriented. While a thrust of

my central thesis demonstrates the primacy of such customary systems and practices

within historical and contemporary wildlife and environmental management contexts, I

feel that simplistic and idealized characterizations obfuscate the complex and situated

social and ecological processes that have conditioned the development of Indigenous

management systems. Such characterizations are also not helpful to contemporary

communities and institutional conservation allies in their attempts to strengthen and

develop long-term, culturally relevant and context-specific conservation approaches at

the community level. I also find problematic that conservationists and scholars, and even

some Indigenous community members, try to demonstrate or refute the relevance and

conservation value of Indigenous systems by framing and validating them according to

Western scientific and managerial conceptual models. Two village leaders from Wowetta

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appear to exclusively credit IIC for their environmental awareness and conservation

ethic, “It has been more through Iwokrama’s activities and workshops that we get to

know about conservation and protecting our environment and resources” (VC5 & 6,

2009). Such validation undermines the value and complexity of North Rupununi

customary and contemporary ecological understandings and systems on their own

terms, as well as it reinscribes notions of superiority and dominance within Western

systems.

Thus, it is imperative to understand the diversity of Indigenous customary

systems of environmental mediation and regulation within the specific places and socio-

political, biophysical and cultural contexts where they have historically developed.

Moreover, like systems and processes occurring in different cultural and institutional

contexts, Indigenous systems are also not static and existing within the ideological or

stereotypical casts that others would confer upon them. As human, animal and plant

communities, and landscapes are adapting and evolving in response to natural and

social forces, so too are the customary institutions and worldviews that people develop

and modify to cope with such forces. In his edited collection of narratives on Indigeneity

and the continuity and revival of Amerindian traditions, identities and activism in the

Caribbean, Maximillian Forte (2006) affirms that Indigenous customary systems and

cultural traditions in countries such as Guyana, having far from withered away or are

artificial constructions, are constantly being revitalized and reproduced according to the

contemporary contexts, challenges and aspirations of the societies which define them.

With respect to the syncretic engagement between Indigenous and conservation

knowledge frameworks, entanglement between Indigenous customary systems and

languages with mainstream Guyanese and Creole articulations have effectively

“creolized” many aspects of the Indigenous systems. The impacts can be seen

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particularly with the morphing of Creole cultural and Indigenous forms of dance, music,

ceremony, cognitive metaphor and modes of social interaction. An issue to highlight is

that while displaying obvious Creole influence, most Indigenous knowledge and cultural

forms retain a distinctly Indigenous positioning. Simultaneously, the process of

creolization has ‘Indigenized’ many aspects of Guyanese society and culture such as

place names in Cariban or Arawakan languages; community meetings and consensus-

style decision making; Guyana’s Republic Day or Mashramani carnival, borrows from the

Amerindian ethic of celebrating after the completion of a job well done; community self-

help projects; and many cultural influences in story-telling, cuisine and art. Indigenous

natural history knowledges, and animal tracking and harvesting methods have also

Indigenized modern conservation and wildlife management research and approaches.

Local cultural and governance structures have lent an Indigenous influence to IICès

collaborative management and conservation processes.

Though customary systems may have functioned in past historical periods,

contemporary entanglements with different societies, institutions and market and state

actors have created cultural and ideological shifts within Indigenous communities,

influencing their internal systems. The North Rupununi communities’ relationships with

many different conservation and development partners, government agencies, industry

and external markets and the Christian Church have greatly influenced the ways that

community members conceive of and interact with their environments and wildlife. Such

transformations took root in the colonial period, particularly invoked by Christian

missionaries and state policies. However, the greatest pressures on Indigenous

customary systems have come over the past forty years or more with increasing

exposure and contact with Brazilian hunters, researchers and conservation

organizations, development organizations, external markets, extractive industry actors,

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different Christian ideologies and tourism. Thus, community members from the middle-

aged generation to the youngest generation have been particularly influenced by these

actors and processes and feel the highest level of dissonance with customary beliefs

and institutions. These issues will be explored in more detail later in the chapter.

Yet, my research showed that while some people feel a complete sense of

disconnect with their traditions, many more community members realize that their

enduring customary knowledge and rules continue to have relevance and value. A

village leader from Fairview explains (VC3, 2009):

Now, some people want to say that those stories were all false and they don’t want to know about or believe those things anymore, but it was the culture of the way people used to manage and protect the animals and environment in the area.

Many people also attested that although some beliefs and practices are not completely

relevant in their modern context, they recognized the rationale and significance of such

practices in past contexts and believe that the practices continue to have cultural value

and comprise their Amerindian way of life and identity. Moreover, many elders, village

leaders, community researchers and rangers are working to revitalize progressive

customary institutions that can be foundational to, and/or integrated within contemporary

management initiatives. An example that will be later discussed is the Pîyakîîta Resource

Management Unit (PRMU) Guidelines, which integrate relevant customary and modern

community conservation and socio-ecological governance strategies and apply them to

the contemporary environmental realities facing the region.

Recognition of Customary Systems as Valid Forms of Conservation

Customary and/or local experiential knowledge is recognized by most community

members (of different age groups) as being immensely valuable to sustaining their

Indigenous way of life and for translating and implementing conservation and wildlife

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management at the community level. The wisdom of elders and people in past times to

care for and responsibly use their environments, is celebrated by many community

members to the extent that they equate elders’ specialized knowledge with the most

highly regarded formal education such as a doctorate or Western science. Community

members are fully aware that while most people do not have a high level of formal

education due to their geographic and social infrstructural marginalization, they possess

a wealth of invaluable practical experience and place-based, detailed knowledge about

the diverse natural landscapes and species of the region. As recognized by a village

leader from Surama (VC9, 2009):

We try to make Iwokrama understand that people around here are not that educated and have all those degrees and PhD and whatever…but we are the ones who have the knowledge and the experience and we know what we are talking about, we know what we are living with here in our environment.

Of particular significance to this study is that elder and younger community members all

agreed that the extensive and solid foundation of environmental and cultural knowledge,

and customary beliefs and practices that elders possess within the communities has

enabled local understanding and the intergenerational genesis of conservation interest

and action. A manager of wildlife research for NRDDB and former IIC ranger illuminates

(IR7, 2009):

Being aware of what our people used to do, like our ancestors. I keep telling people how important those beliefs were to protecting what we have here. One leader would say you mustn’t go beyond this area or use this species because something might happen to you…so people were more respectful and mindful…If our younger generations, even when I was a youth, had this knowledge and understanding they feel more connected and responsible for managing the area and animals...an important part to keep the bridge between the customary traditions and younger generations.

Similar to the centrality of communities within the collaborative partnership

between NRDDB and IIC and to the development of the IIC conservation program and

Iwokrama Forest protected area, the customary and experiential knowledge of

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community members has been a central and foundational feature of IIC’s conservation

initiatives and research projects. Two former IIC rangers and village leaders note, “Yes,

they [IIC] did recognize our connection with the animals and environment, our beliefs

about animals and sacred places and why those are important to conservation and the

environment” (IR1 & IR7, 2009). An IIC director further acknowledges, “Traditional

knowledge & skills provide an essential and excellent basis for effective forest

management” (IM1, 2009). Furthermore, such knowledges have greatly informed and

guided the research on countless university, NGO and graduate research projects

investigating the natural history, wildlife ecology, politico-ecological, cultural and socio-

economic facets of environmental conservation and protected area management in the

region. Two village leaders from Surama expand (VC1 & 2, 2009):

So definitely our knowledge is of value to Iwokrama and others who come here. Local people here who help scientists and researchers, who would take them around for three months or more and give them the knowledge of our people.

Customary institutions define, mediate and regulate access, harvesting practices

and use of lands, wildlife and natural resources within and amongst the communities of

the North Rupununi and as such, form an immensely valuable, cultural substructure for

local environmental and conservation practice that is resilient and adaptive. Customary

institutions serve to socialize environmental knowledge and practice and inhere a

complex and diffuse set of ethical and moral norms and codes. It is important to highlight

that like all institutions and processes constructed by human beings, Indigenous

customary institutions, knowledges and practices are not static, but rather flexible and

responsive to changing environmental, social an historical conditions. Most community

members specifically discussed the cultural, practical and regulatory value of customary

beliefs and institutions and how they functioned in previous times to conserve lands and

resources and to instill a sense of responsibility and respect for wildlife and natural

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resources. A group of young IIC rangers from different villages illustrate that, although

influenced by many different factors of modern life, they recognize the multi-faceted

value of local knowledge and customary systems (IR2-5, 2009):

These local people were the real conservationists, maybe without realizing, they had their ritual areas and traditional boundaries they had to respect…they said you cannot go in that pond because some Master or oma is there protecting the resources. It’s like some people find the Cock of the Rock nest and they realize that it is a nesting area and maybe should be a conservation area…or like a pond with Arapaima, they say that’s like an oma pond or a jumbie pond. Nobody must go in there. That’s a way of conservation, that’s what people used to do. They never used out everything and most of our resources are still flourishing.

Many community members admitted that they do not always believe in the

veracity or present-day relevance of beliefs and myths associated with animal dietary

and use taboos, sacred areas, bina usage, master animals and shamanism from what

they describe as the “old people” and the “old time days”. However, most also

acknowledged that such beliefs and myths functioned as customary laws and sanctions

to regulate the use of animals and to protect specific species and habitats from over-

harvesting. Two village leaders from Surama relate (VC1 & 2, 2009):

My grandmother would tell you all about what gonna kill you if you kill it and what you mustn’t kill and all of that. But I used to say, well I will believe if I see it. But that is what they believed in the old days…it was their way of trying preserve the animals and the forest. They had their own way, their own way of thinking.

The toshao from Fairview Village explains (VE3, 2009):

Now, some people want to say that those stories were all false and they don’t want to believe those things anymore, but it was really the way people used to manage and protect the animals and environment in the area. Some people are learning about the traditional way more, and some people continue to teach their children the same way, like if you trouble this, something gonna happen to you because you disturbing the nature of things…the customary way still happens in the communities.

As mentioned, the IIC and numerous other conservation and research partners are

identified by community members as recognizing and supporting the revitalization and

strengthening of customary systems, knowledges and language as a vital part of their

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collaborative conservation approaches with communities. Many community members

attested that IIC in particular have invested much effort into trying to understand and

integrate local knowledge and some customary practices within collaborative processes

and conservation and research initiatives. A village leader from Wowetta Village clarifies

(VC10, 2009):

We have our own traditional management system already, and when these organizations came, they seemed interested in helping us with our traditional management systems. Because our traditional beliefs looked like they were kind of dying for a while. But Iwokrama and Project Fauna have been reinforcing what we have and helping us with what we have. Yes, the roots were still there but needed some help to grow again.

In reality, while most IIC staff work to value, promote, and support through program

initiatives the revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and community capacity

development, they have not formally recognized the continuity of intact customary

systems and Indigenous knowledge and their importance for ethical wildlife management

practice. Personal communications and interviews with IIC staff revealed their common

perception that Indigenous ecological and cultural knowledge is a discrete body of

knowledge connected to the communities and that it is useful to wildlife and forest

research and management in very specialized or nuanced ways. However, there is little

recognition of Indigenous knowledge as a complete and integrative system that can be

used to understand and respond to diverse environmental issues affecting their locality

and even the region. This perception fuels IIC’s belief, and many such institutions

working closely with Indigenous communities, that the knowledge communities possess

regarding responsible management of their lands and resources is somehow incomplete

and that the gap needs to be filled by environmental organizations like IIC.

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Customary Land Tenure and Common Property Regimes

Indigenous property rights systems in Guyana entail recognition of a linguistically or

geographically based group of people as being ancestrally linked to a specific territory

and the lands, waters, plants, animals and ecological features that it comprises. The

group maintains collective stewardship or customary rights over the territory and

resources described also as ‘common property’ and ‘ancestral lands’ through political

and social institutions which govern and mediate allocation and use activities (Bulkan &

Bulkan, 2006). Like other Indigenous customary property and resource use regimes

throughout Amazonia, Indigenous communities in Guyana are contrary to Western

capitalist models of private and public property and ownership. Unlike Western property

systems, land and natural resources are not perceived to be commodities in Amerindian

customary societies as their livelihoods have been historically based on subsistence-

level reproduction.

Customary models of land use and wildlife and environmental practices amongst

the North Rupununi Indigenous people, and many other Indigenous societies throughout

the Amazonic region, have been adaptive and responsive to a complex mosaic of forest,

savannah, mountain and wetland habitat areas (Jansen-Jacobs & ter Steege, 2000)

related to different community livelihood, harvesting, cultivation and cultural needs.

These areas have included specific harvest and gathering areas, and sacred and taboo

areas (Borrini-Feyerabend & Tarnowski, 2005). Thus, in determining conservation

approaches that are culturally and ecologically relevant to the specific landscapes,

histories and lifestyles of local communities, it makes more sense to create a mosaic of

managed areas that includes sustainable harvest areas, protected areas with little to no

harvesting, and living and livelihood areas. Conversely, the normative model of state

and/or institution-managed protected areas tends to favour the establishment of “large,

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island-like protected areas surrounded by a territory dedicated solely to economic and

settlement purposes” (Borrini-Feyerabend & Tarnowski, 2005, p. 75). Also disruptive of

customary tenure or land and resource use systems are the land titling mechanisms in

Guyana, which often do not recognize Indigenous systems or the full extent of traditional

territories.

A study conducted by Wapishana researchers from the South Rupununi (David

et al., 2006) shows that Wapishana customary uses of natural resources and customary

practices within Guyana eclipse the common property and customary systems of the

Makushi and other Indigenous peoples of the North Rupununi. Notions of communal

property in the North Rupununi arise from, and are grounded in, Indigenous customary

institutions and lands that are held and shared collectively among families and

communities. Under the Makushi and Wapishana systems of communal property,

access, use and sharing of lands, watersheds, wildlife and natural resources have been

traditionally regulated according to a constellation of customary land and resource rights

that specify the entitlements, obligations and duties of resource owners and users (David

et al., 2006; MRU & Forte, 1996; VE3, 2009).

Presently, the current system of sixteen titled and bounded villages within

broader districts are designated a ‘community’ under the Village District Council and the

Amerindian Act; however, management of territories which are comprised of both titled

and state lands have traditionally been governed as an open-access communal tenure

system (Iwokrama, 2000). The proposed Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit (PRMU)

guidelines further state (2005, p. iii): “Most wildlife ‘used’ by communities migrates freely

between lands managed by individual councils and state authorities. Management on

both State and Titled lands are currently open-access, either legally or de facto, with

limited or no regulation of resource use.” As such, access to land and natural resources

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throughout each district is traditionally open, with controls mediated through customary

and more formalized institutional mechanisms. The general rule has been that

community members are free to pursue subsistence activities (cutting farms, hunting and

fishing, harvesting NTFPs) in the territories anywhere within the district, but they must

restrict their harvesting and agricultural activities to the designated harvest areas and

observe other rules as defined by the village council in relevant villages (VE1-14, 2009;

VC1-12, 2009).

Communal property access within the region has traditionally been regulated

under a customary system of land tenure, governance and decision-making. The system

functions through intra- and inter-community mechanisms of sharing and governance,

but limits the access of outsiders to the district. Outsiders must obtain formal permission.

However, for resource harvesting related to commercial activities, permission from the

village council must be obtained, as well as controls and agreements observed. Similar

to Wapishana communities in the South Rupununi, community institutions like Village

Councils are integrated within the customary system of “collective land holding, and

have begun to codify customary laws and traditional practices and are developing rules

to address emerging resource issues stemming from the use of introduced technologies

and non-traditional activities” (David et al., 2006, p. 4).

According to the common property and open-access system amongst community

members of what is now referred to as Annai District (including villages of Surama,

Wowetta, Annai Central, Kwatamang and Rupertee) there were no formally defined

traditional boundaries until recent demarcation and titling procedures were carried out.

Village territories tend to follow natural ecological boundaries of the savannah, forest,

wetland and mixed-habitat systems they occupy. Village elders and leaders explained

that individual villages did not have boundaries because they considered themselves all

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one people and could walk freely and cultivate, harvest and use resources from one

another in responsible ways. Much of this perspective still resonates within community

attitudes, as well as within contemporary community management and governance

systems where acknowledgement is made of communal or open access customs

(referenced above) and provisions for transboundary, multiple-village community

resource use permits (PRMU, 2005). Village elders recounted that in past times, diverse

Amerindian communities and nations were quite distant geographically from one another

and there was rarely any overlap or instances of threat from other groups invading. The

few instances of invasion mentioned in more recent memory were said to be resolved by

the village peaiman (VE12, 2009).

Designating and/or demarcating specific areas as farm grounds, logging sites,

hunting grounds, fishing grounds, gathering sites for non-timber forest products have

long been treated thus under the customary system of land use and resource harvest

areas. In fact, areas designated for responsible harvest under the customary system are

equivalent to what are now called extractive reserves or sustainable use areas. There

were also areas that were be restricted to villagers from harvesting or other invasive

activities - at least during specific periods of the year that corresponded with the mating,

breeding and spawning patterns of game species. Such restricted harvest areas or

boundaries, as well as sacred areas, correspond with the modern concepts of

community conservation areas (CCAs) and protected areas. An elder from Surama

Village thoughtfully recalls (VE3, 2009):

We had areas around the village which were the breeding grounds for certain animals and you couldn’t go there because you would destroy the young ones…there are times during the dry season when these animals retreat to the lowlands where there is some water sources and crabwood and other seeds and fruits, where they can live until the beginning of the rainy season in May when you would find these young animals now coming up…areas where they might look to start mating and the elders restricted that…they are more vulnerable in that time and we could not hunt then.

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A specific communal customary practice that continues to be promoted by elders,

village leaders and community environmental management initiatives is that of

community cooperative work or community self-help projects (Mayu in Makushi).

Community projects include: clearing and weeding farms for planting; harvesting crops;

building new school buildings, houses, health clinics; cassava work19; setting up youth

and women’s projects; creating duck ponds; snackettes and digging wells and pit

latrines. Community self-help projects are grounded in the communal or collectivist spirit

of Amerindian cultures and way of life. They create bonding between community

members, and sustain their sense of shared identity, ethic of working together and

common priorities to develop their villages for the benefit of all community members.

There is also a celebratory aspect to cooperative work projects that solidifies feelings of

communalism and bonding amongst community members in that after the work is done,

they can partake in parakari (a local drink distilled from cassava and referred to as

“drinking de culture”) and share food. The customary institution of self-help projects or

community work parties is a socio-ecological practice entrenched in most Indigenous

societies in Guyana. It has also been a feature of non-Indigenous societies on the Coast

during the early regime of former Preseident Cheddi Jagan and continues within some

Indo-Guyanese villages.

Indigenous Knowledge and the Role of Elders

Makushi customary knowledge is expressed as: penaro Makusiyamî neputî and is the

heart and foundation of all Indigenous human–animal and human–nature relationships,

19

Cassava (Manihot esculenta), also referred to as yuca and manioc, is a starchy tuberous root native to

South America and constitutes an important staple in the diet of Indigenous and diverse societies throughout the region. In the North Rupununi and many other Indigenous communities in Guyana, cassava is produced into numerous edible products such as farine, cassareep, cassava bread and tapioca.

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customary systems, environmental ethics and practices, and contemporary conservation

and management initiatives. Youngblood Henderson (2002) asserts that local ecology

defines an Indigenous society’s consciousness, just as it informs their situated, place-

based knowledge and the intergenerational teachings passed from ancestors to elders

to younger generations. Alsop and Fawcett (2010) contend that Indigenous knowledge,

“is a huge repository for natural history teachings that exist, thrive in some places and

are actively passed on inter-generationally” (p. 1034).

Makushi and other Indigenous elders from the North Rupununi lamented that

they are only now realizing the significance of having a living form of their language,

knowledge and customary systems documented, one that can be referred to, and will

endure for the younger generations. They acknowledged that knowledge and cultural

practices were understood to always be there — and though part of the rich oral history

of the communities that have been — no one thought in past times to record the stories,

environmental histories, rituals, ceremonies, and beliefs that were so integrated within

everyday life. The combined dynamics of ecological, social and politico-economic

changes increasingly affecting the region, and the passing on of elder knowledge-

holders and Makushi speakers have awakened people within the communities to the

knowledge and customary institutions being displaced or lost.

Moreover, they are heeding the warnings of elders and becoming increasingly

aware of the vitality of such knowledge for the cultural and material survival of present

and future generations. An elder from Surama notes, “it’s only now that we’re getting

aware of these things again and realizing how important our stories and traditions are…if

we had known better, we could have paid attention and even recorded them down”

(VE13, 2009). She discusses her observations that unlike Aboriginal societies in

Canada and other countries colonized so extensively by European settler populations,

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Indigenous societies in Guyana have taken their knowledge and customs for granted as

most people continue to live relatively undisturbed in their ancestral territories and

practice some aspect of their customary way of life. However, the dynamics previously

mentioned have disrupted many aspects of Indigenous systems and now, similar to

Aboriginal societies in the global North, Indigenous peoples in Guyana must also invest

into recovering and revitalizing their knowledges and languages (VE13, 2009).

Other than the Makushi-English and Makushi-Portuguese lexicons (Abbott, 2003)

and numerous Makushi language publications, the most comprehensive and unique

documentation of Makushi knowledge and customs is Makusipe Komanto Iseru:

Sustaining Makushi Way of Life, and was researched and documented by the Makushi

Research Unit (MRU) and edited by Janette Bulkan (nee Forte). Makushi researchers

(mostly women) from all of the villages interviewed many elders and community

members, and collected histories, animal and plant taxonomies, natural history data,

ethno-medicinal knowledge, and data on a wide variety of customary beliefs and

practices. They collaborated on writing and producing a compendium of their knowledge

and way of life that has been very valuable to people of the region.

Indigenous knowledge is described by Berkes (2008, p. 16) as a culturally

transmitted “knowledge-practice-belief complex” which translates as the situated

experiential knowledge underpinned by cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices which

Indigenous people cultivate over years of socializing their environments and maintaining

relationships with animals, plants and other ecological entities. Berkes (2008, p.17)

considers Indigenous knowledge at four interrelated levels: 1) local knowledge of land

and animals; 2) knowledge of land and resource management systems; 3) knowledge

and analysis of social institutions; and 4) knowledge and analysis of worldviews. Such

knowledge and beliefs inform Indigenous wildlife and environmental practices and are

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transferred inter-generationally. Within the knowledge-practice-belief complex, elders

and peaimen in the North Rupununi are considered primary knowledge-holders. All other

community members who have extensive knowledge and expertise about something

relevant to community life are also considered as “those who know.” Elders and many

community members within the North Rupununi hold a deep conviction that the majority

of their customary institutions and harvesting-and-use practices of animals, lands and

resources are responsible and sustainable. Many elders reference the healthy and intact

forest, savannah and watershed ecosystems of the region, as well as the relatively

abundant game animals in their territories (VE1-16; VC3; VC9; VC10, 2009). An elder

from Wowetta Village remarks, “why do you think the forest is still standing here? And

most wildlife are still healthy here. We are using them, but we are protecting the forest

and animals somehow from the beginning, with our knowledge and so” (VE10, 2009).

O’Flaherty et al. (2006) discuss that communities are mobilizing their Indigenous

knowledge and customary systems under the leadership of elders to develop new ways

of managing the forest. The authors acknowledge that while anyone can hold knowledge

about lands and animals, only respected elders in the communities are considered to

hold the specialized knowledge associated with the stewardship responsibilities of a

senior keeper of the land. This is because elders have a lifetime of experience

interacting with their environments, animals and natural resources and they are thus

central to both socio-ecological governance, and the reproduction and continuity of

knowledge, language and customary institutions.

Elders in the North Rupununi communities sketched their impressive breadth and

depth of knowledge on the natural landscapes; animals and plants; hunting, fishing,

farming and gathering practices; cultural practices and beliefs pertaining to the natural

world; customary norms and rules for environmental practice and use; and natural

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medicines. They distinguished between community members who have environmental

knowledge grounded in personal empirical experience, specialized elder teachings and

collective memory, and/or formal school studies and conservation training. Most elders

and peaimen consider themselves to have a combination of specialized teachings,

social-ecological memory and spirit knowledge (especially peaimen), and personal

experience engaging with the natural world around them. Numerous elders who have

formal education, or have trained and worked closely with IIC and/or other conservation

partners, also hold external environmental and scientific knowledge.

Many community members regard elders as community scientists and stewards

who possess expertise of the natural environments and entities of the region, as well as

how to responsibly care for them based on extensive knowledge and belief in their

customary institutions. A village leader from Rewa asserts, “the old people had their own

Indigenous science and didn’t want people interfering with the arapaimas [see Figure

6.3] in the pond, saying that they were the Master of the fishes” (VC12, 2009). Elders

understand their combined experiential, cultural and cosmological knowledges as

embodied through ethical and reciprocal relationships with all other natural beings,

landscapes and phenomena and it is their responsibility as the “ones who know” to

impart the wisdom of such relationships and knowledges to younger generations. In this

way, the Amerindian way of life (in its syncretic distillation of customary and modern

practices) has resiliency and meaning for communities, equipping people with the

cultural and epistemological tools to assist them in adapting to the myriad challenges

and processes of change they encounter. Thus, teachings and a living embodiment and

praxis of ecological consciousness and ethics are understood as the domain of elders in

the North Rupununi. With their long historical memory of place, time, ecological and

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social change and cultural practices, elders are perceived to have a more direct

relationship with their ancestors.

While there appears to be little explicit worship of ancestors anymore amongst

the Makushis, there are countless legends and narratives that community members

vividly recall of brave Makushi ancestors fighting off invading Karinya and Arekuna

nations and struggling to protect their territories, communities, cosmological knowledge

and cultural traditions. Elders, peaimen and some of the village councilors continue to be

conscious of, and to articulate, the value and continuity of the ancestors’ teachings and

historical memory and they continue to teach the younger generations such legends and

counsel them on how to practice and sustain the Makushi way of life according to the

paths of their ancestors. Many Wapishanas, Patamonas and Arawaks continue to

explicitly practice some form of ancestor worship within their communities (David et al.,

2006; Whitehead, 2002; VE3, 2009). Makushi and Wapishana peoples also believe that

local animals, birds and fish are part of the people’s ancestor community and some of

their animal community sacrifice themselves to people so that they may survive (MRU,

2009; VE10, 2009). A village leader from Wowetta details the unbroken relationship and

flow of customary knowledge and practice between ancestors, elders and younger

generations (VC10, 2009):

From our ancestors, we have our traditional rights…how we used to manage our forests…our resources that is in the forest…we had our traditional beliefs and our knowledge…we stick to that…we never had paper and pen in those times to write the whole thing down…how we learned was from our ancestors, our great great grandfathers and grandmothers and passed it down…the knowledge comes directly from our fathers and grandfathers to the children, that is how we passed it down our knowledge and our traditional beliefs.

Two elders from Rewa describe the experienced and wise counsel provided by

elders and peaimen to guide community members in developing ecologically conscious

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and ethical harvesting practices, as well as the consequences that emerge when people

do not heed elder’s counsel (VE14 & 15, 2009):

Our elders would pass down knowledge and advice about using animals and plants wisely and controlling how people use and harvest them. The elders or peaiman would advise people on how to relate and use their resources and the environment responsibly. For a time people didn’t come for advice and they start using the environment and wildlife as they please…now we making amends for that and looking back to some of the traditional ways to teach the people now.

Elders and the few remaining peaimen in the communities take their roles as “those who

know” very seriously and they particularly view their responsibility to teach and pass on

their knowledge to younger generations of community members as something vital and

special within their lives. An advisor to the wildlife club and former community

environmental worker from Surama affirms, “The older people already have that deeper

relationship and know what this life and nature is about…but with the younger ones, the

elders are trying to encourage them to be interested and caring to the animals and the

forest…to think about the future” (CEW4, 2009). All of the elders spoke of making

themselves available to young people for counsel on conducting customary and

contemporary environmental and cultural practices, and to share their wealth of

experiences and knowledge through storytelling.

However, while many are still actively engaging with family members, school-

children and village leaders in such ways, several elders lamented that many young

community members are no longer interested in hearing the elders’ stories, or in coming

to them for advice on customary practices that no longer seem relevant to their

increasingly modern lives. Elders emphasized that while the modern context is very

different than when they were growing up in the communities, the value of their

ecological knowledge and some of their customary systems continues to be both rich

and applicable to the contemporary environmental challenges and conservation culture

that affect the communities. Two elders from Wowetta Village discuss their practices and

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beliefs from long ago and how they are similar to the conservation and sustainability

issues that IIC and other conservation partners are now reprising within their programs

(VE9 & 10, 2009):

We used to use the area what is now the Iwokrama reserve. We would only use some of land inside for small farms, but they never went to cut trees or hunt inside there much…we still used to know about when and how much to harvest the animals so that we respected them and didn’t waste anything. We took only how much we could use, nothing more. We never misused the land and we tell people they must use the land responsibly and respectfully. They would share the animals and their crops with other villagers. We know this from we life and do not need to learn these ideas from Iwokrama.

In the North Rupununi communities, a custom that is still active in today is that

NRDDB and many villages convene a Council of Elders which offers advice on historical

and cultural issues for community initiatives, regional development, conservation

programs and youth initiatives. Each village also maintains numerous committees of

people with special expertise and knowledge on specific types of local issues and

initiatives such as wildlife management, fishing and hunting, farming, forestry, craft-

making, tourism, wildlife clubs and education. IIC has interacted with elder advisors from

different villages over the years with regard to many aspects of their conservation

program and collaborative partnership with NRDDB. After the elders’ initial weariness

regarding modern conservation and IIC, and the growing pains of the collaborative

partnership, most elders and community leaders are relatively satisfied with IIC’s

commitment to understanding and recognizing some of the local histories and customary

systems. IIC’s commitment to, and engagement with revitalizing local knowledge and

customary institutions is particularly evident in the organization’s facilitation of

community development initiatives, such as: i) Participatory Human Resource Impact

Appraisals (PHRIAs) project, ii) publishing of books and resources on Makushi natural

history knowledge, legends of Iwokrama Forest, language and educational materials,

iii) gender empowerment, iv) wildlife research and training integrating local knowledge

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and folklore, and v) seeking the expertise, vision and guidance of elders and other

community “one who know” in many aspects of the collaborative conservation program.

A wildlife researcher and former community environmental worker acknowledges

(CEW2, 2009):

Actually, that is very helpful to our people. Iwokrama want to know about our culture and history, they want to know how we do things and why we do things according to our culture and ancestors. Like the way how we depend on our farms and our cassava products. Those things came out through the MRUs, they get to record and share that information that this is our culture…so all those things are important for them to know how we use and value our resources here.

Bringing Cultural and Natural Worlds Together

Cosmological Knowledge

Anthropocentric-oriented cosmologies endow a sense of human entitlement to use and

exploit the natural world for human needs, with little moral consideration for the natural

world and non-human beings. This axiology has roots in Christian doctrine and is

particularly resonant within the contemporary global capitalist system and neo-liberal

ideology whereby human societies feel a sense of entitlement. By contrast, Indigenous

and other ancient cultural cosmologies map and integrate spiritual relationships between

people, natural landscapes, non-human beings, spirit beings and the universe.

Cosmology is understood as the foundation for Indigenous philosophy and ethical

practice and details the origins and attributes of the universe, humanity, spirituality, the

natural world and all species — and their interrelationships (Cajete, 2000). There are

certain transcendental themes that appear in many Indigenous cosmologies throughout

the Amazonic region, such as the belief in three primary worlds that are protected and

interpolated by animal masters or guardian spirits: i) the upper or sky world of ancestors,

sun, moon and stars; ii) the middle or earth world of humans, animals and plants; and

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iii) the lower or subterranean world of spirits and demon creatures. There are also the

twin heroes, who constitute and protect earth’s dualistic forces (Ulloa et al., 2004; Villas

Boas & Villas Boas, 1970).

However, each Indigenous society’s cosmological knowledge is specific to its

particular worldview (Battiste, 2000), historical and environmental context. From their

rich cosmological and ontological understandings of the spirit world, the natural world

and the cultural worlds of humans, Indigenous peoples of the North Rupununi have

developed a collective ecological consciousness and ethical practice that are encoded

within customary systems and knowledge forms. Numerous contemporary philosophical

and environmental ethics perspectives, such as eco-feminism (Harding, 1993; Plumwood,

2003), ecocentrism (Naess, 2003; Somma, 2006), eco-phenomenology (Wood, 2003)

and animal studies (Fawcett, 2009; Haraway, 1991 & 2008), challenge the

anthropocentrism and dualistic nature–culture divide prevalent within many Western

conservation and positivistic science models. Such perspectives pick up on the

cosmologies of Indigenous and other ancient traditions in their emphasis on revitalizing

cultural and spiritual relationships between human societies and the non-human natural

world, as well as prioritizing the intrinsic value of the natural world above its instrumental

value to humans.

The poetic words of Ailton Krenak of Krenak Nation in Brazil (Hecht & Cockburn,

1990) underscore the potent and sacred flow of how cosmological knowledge connects

spirit, relationship and culture with the natural world and environmental practice (p. 212):

We can miss so much of what a shell actually is if we cut it away from myths, practices, the people who discovered and named the shell and other similar shells, and the rituals and stories and secrets of that shell. There are strands of life and history and nature and what it means to be an Indian that tie that shell to the others.

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The cosmological affiliations that many older community members have toward animals

symbolize metaphors of reciprocity and interconnectedness with their physical and

spiritual worlds (MRU & Forte, 1996). Such understandings have direct implications on

the ethical values, rights and responsibilities that they hold toward animals and their

environments and how they become embodied in local conservation ethos and practice.

Historical relationships with the natural environment, and animal and plant beings are

particularly complex as they are embedded in ritual practices and belief in the sacred

world. However, such cosmological relationships, ethical orientations, and feelings of

interconnectedness do not resonate with some middle-aged and younger villagers due

to their experiences of cultural dislocation.

Indigenous peoples in Guyana believe that the world is inhabited by: human,

animal and plant persons; mythical creatures; ancestor, guardian animal, and evil spirits

to whom respect and reciprocity must be given (MRU and Forte, 1996; Viveiros de

Castro, 1998). They define animals and plants as a category of persons distinct from

human persons, although the human–nonhuman boundaries remain quite fluid. Also

fluid in Indigenous worldviews are corporeal–spirit boundaries whereby specific animal

species are believed to be creator or trickster figures or masters (spirit guardians) and as

such, act as intermediaries between the earthly, human and ancestor realms (Mentore,

2005; MRU & Forte, 2001). Trickster animal species can also manifest themselves in

human form. Elders and many other older people in the North Rupununi continue to

believe that animals are present in both the material and social life of the community,

and in the cosmological and inner worlds of individual persons. Thus, Indigenous myths

and narratives about animals are simultaneously tapestries of human inner knowledge

and understanding of the cosmos, as well as they are metaphors of the order and

function of the natural world. Shepard (1996) reinforces this idea by stating that the

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cosmological myths of Indigenous and traditional societies “may indeed illuminate

unconscious processes, but the context in which that inner world came into being is

ecological” (p. 94).

For people of the North Rupununi, natural landscapes are central to their

“reconstruction of ‘ethnic space’ as it embeds the mythology, cosmology, and history of

the people…central to their sense of place, identity, belonging and subsistence”

(Whitehead, 2002, p. 14). As such, the ethnic spaces that communities have constituted

from the mountains, forests, rivers and savannahs of the region are evident through their

cultural, ecological and spatial forms of interaction with such habitats and the animals

and plants that inhabit them.

People of the North Rupununi believe that medicinal plants and crop plants gain

special properties depending on the orientation of the sun and moon, for instance their

belief that planting root crops like cassava during the full-moon period will yield a fuller

harvest (VE3, 2009). A village leader from Fairview relates, “My uncle taught me that for

any medicinal plant, you must say a prayer and you don’t harvest after 6 pm, it must be

at sunrise and if you are going to harvest a bark, it must be on the eastern side where

the sun shines…to get the best benefit on the medicine” (VE3, 2009). In the Makushi

calendar, the appearance of the seven stars (tîmîkan) signifies the onset of the rainy

season, but also, each star holds cultural significance within the makushi worldview:

i) pauna kombi signifies heavy rain; ii) ipe` pîn is a man whose lost his leg; iii) miri kompî

signifies the ending of the rainy season; vi) kaiwano signifies the morning star; v) paowi

(powis bird) is the largest and brightest star; and vi) mîritî is the scorpion (MRU & Forte,

1996, p. 159).

Petroglyphs or rock carvings/paintings are another form of cosmological

knowledge that Indigenous ancestors created to depict spiritual and intuitive visions that

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they received regarding the cosmic and earth forces, animals, star constellations,

mythical creatures and spirit beings that had influence on their customary way of life and

cultural beliefs. There are many petroglyphs (Makunaima temehri - Makushi for “marks

of the ancients” or “rock carvings”) that are concentrated along the Essequibo River at

sites in Fairview Village and the Iwokrama Forest reserve: Fairview Landing, Kurupukari

Landing, Iwokrama Mountain, Port Arinda Island, Cashew Island Point and Stanley Lake

(Map 5.1). The carvings are known by local people to recount complex cosmological

relationships as well as daily human–nature and human–animal interactions and

environmental practices (VE4, 2009). They are said to visually and metaphorically

represent sacred relationships between hunters and game animals and also symbolize

the spiritual forces that impart teachings of human, animal and spirit realities for the

survival of subsequent generations (Cajete, 2000; VC3, 2009). They also retell the

peoples’ histories — such as the internal Amerindian slave trade facilitated by the Dutch

colonial regime, and periods of warfare and strife.

Mythology

Anthropological and historical discourses around historicity posit that historical myths are

Indigenous peoples’ narratives about their past, while history is based on external

narratives of Indigenous peoples’ past according to historiographical rules. The

relationship between Indigenous historical myth and historical accounts based on more

‘factual’ and verifiable events and phenomena and the relevance of both narratives has

been conjectured in the two fields for many years (Whitehead, 1993). There appears to

be an implicit positioning here of external historical narratives as verifiable truths and

more constitutive of ‘real’ history vis-à-vis the mythical narratives of Indigenous peoples

that are arguably not as verifiable and based more on folklore and metaphor than fact.

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Chickesaw writer and scholar Linda Hogan (2000, p. 117) writes, ‘myth’ has come to

signify falsehood, but when we examine myths we find that they are a high form of the

truth. They are the deepest, innermost cultural stories of our human journeys toward

spiritual and psychological growth.”

External historical narratives casually relegate Indigenous peoples and cultures

to the backdrop of events focused on Europeans. Or, if historical accounts are more

ethnographic and focused on Indigenous peoples, they are often based on mythical

constructions framed by non-Indigenous people. If mythology is understood as a

constellation of cosmological and cultural beliefs encoded through metaphors, stories,

legends, symbols and parables that express a people’s worldview and collective social

memory (Cajete, 2000), then Indigenous myths constitute a vital piece of a community’s

present, as well as their history. If mythology is understood as a constellation of

cosmological and cultural beliefs encoded through metaphors, stories, legends, symbols

and parables that express a people’s worldview and collective social memory (Cajete,

2000), then Indigenous myths from the North Rupununi constitute a vital piece of both

their history and their present. Elders’ accounts and the Makushi Research Unit’s

research of cosmological beliefs and interrelationships between humans, animals,

plants, landscapes, ancestors, spirits and the universe reveal how the old people infused

the natural world with cosmic sacred energy which continues to ground community

member’s hunting, fishing, farming and gathering practices.

Cajete (2000) writes that mythology can be conveyed in tacit, conscious, formal

and informal ways that transmit through family, community, art, local governance

systems and customary institutions. In the North Rupununi, stories, parables, jokes and

metaphors are a rich and vital part of daily social interactions and forms of learning. As

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already discussed, community elders and peaimen have a central role in safeguarding

specialized ecological and cultural knowledge, whereby they facilitate the continuity of

such knowledge, and the underpinning mythology that anchors local peoples’ spatial and

temporal, material and metaphysical, ontological and ethical understandings of both their

environments and sense of place within the larger cosmos.

Stories and Legends

Although transmitting specialized knowledge and oral histories through story and myth

tends to be the domain of elders and peaimen in the North Rupununi, many other

community members of varying ages also enjoy and practice the custom of storytelling

to share knowledge and build relationships. Thomas King (2003) and Gerald Vizenor (in

King, 2003) emphasize that stories open the door to our understandings of the world and

of ourselves because stories make us who we are. Raffles (2002) writes that oral

histories, such as Indigenous origin stories, ancestor legends and “just so” stories about

local animals and habitats are a discursive practice whereby the practice of conveying

natural history and cultural knowledge through stories reinforces material and visceral

connections between people, animals and the land. Even in their pragmatic or more

formalized descriptions of their natural history knowledge and wildlife harvesting and

management practices, community members often use story and metaphor as a way of

explanation and illustration. Their stories and metaphors also reflect the primacy of their

Amerindian identity, environmental histories in the land, and their way of life. A hunter

and wildlife researcher from Wowetta Village colourfully narrates his observations of the

mating ritual of the Cock of the Rock bird, which is protected by the communities (VH11,

2009):

When they are doing their mating dance…the male is in the middle and the females

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gather round him. He starts dancing all bold and sweetening himself to the ladies…and the males take turns and the females are going to choose the best dancer. You know, females always like someone to dance with them! When the female chooses her dancer, she gonna take him away very far to mate…so when they done mate, they gonna come right back to the site to nest. All the licking spots too, you will see males perched close by about one meter, protecting that spot, near where they do their dancing.

Origin stories and ancestor legends in the North Rupununi and most of Amazonia are

metaphorical and allegorical tales that embody how people came to be, how they moved

through and interacted with the cosmos, natural environments, animals, plants and other

natural entities (Vázquez, 1986; Viveiros de Castro, 1998). They are tales of evolution,

transformation, journeying, and learning about reciprocity and mutual responsibilities

between communities and between people and all other beings. Stories and legends act

as teachings about:

i) the nature of human–animal interrelationships;

ii) the strength and resiliency of Amerindian people in adapting to environmental and social challenges, or heroically transgressing obstacles from invading forces; and

iii) appropriate ethical and moral behaviour toward the natural non-human world.

Ancestor legends and stories also contain eclipse metaphors of the dualistic

features and relationships prevalent in Indigenous cosmologies and environmental

narratives. Such metaphors encode Indigenous beliefs that they once enjoyed a truly

symbiotic and reciprocal relationship with the natural world and non-human beings.

However, a natural- or human-induced cataclysmic eclipse cleaved human lives from

those of animals and plants (Melville, 1997) and thus, humans have become somewhat

estranged from the world of animals. As in all forms of oral history, each new generation

of storytellers adds something of itself and of its specific experiences and events to the

stories and legends shared within the communities.

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Origin stories about animals, plants, landscapes and people in the North

Rupununi and throughout much of Guyana are referred to as “just so” stories and have

similar qualities to the Anansi trickster stories that are also prevalent in Guyana and

throughout the Caribbean. Riley’s (2002) study of Makushi historicities and rights in

Guyana reflects observations of just-so stories similar to observations from my personal

experience and during my doctoral research. She says, “The fact that so many just-so

stories exist for explaining every physical phenomenon imaginable tells the Makushi

Amerindian living in Rupununi…that the knowledge the Makushi possess about their

environment is intimate, exact, missing no detail…” (p.151).

Stories particularly about interactions between animal persons, or people and

animal persons or landscapes are ontological explanations of how animals and natural

landscapes came to be, how they come to have their physical and cultural attributes and

how they have been both socialized and naturalized within Indigenous worldviews.

Similar to Caribbean Anancy stories, just-so stories often feature an animal trickster

character who is quick-witted and intelligent and transcends social or environmental

obstacles by tricking the others around him. Such trickster animals personify a quality of

survival and adaptability that are also featured in ancestor legends and continue to be

valorized within Indigenous cultures in the region. Riley goes on to say that just-so

stories from the region also reveal Makushi authority within their lands and

environmental practices, although not in a hierarchical sense but rather as gained

through experience and knowledge.

Two elders from Rewa Village narrate a just-so story about land turtle and tiger (land tortoise and jaguar) and how land turtle tricked tiger so that only some have prominent rosette patterns and others with dark fur have barely visible rosette patterns (VE7 & 8, 2009):

Land turtle and tiger they were against one another. One time the black tiger told the

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turtle “you mek a design for me now, for me skin” so the turtle start to make design now and he make it like what we know as the jaguar skin…“put the design 'pon me, now,” Tiger say to turtle, thinking that Turtle make a good tattoo-like design when all turtle make is a little back slip on he skin so you can barely see the design. He get cheated and tiger still black and wondering why only some of he partners get the design and others don’t.

Sacred Areas

There has been a small movement within international conservation institutions such as

the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) the International Union for the Conservation of Nature

(IUCN) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

(UNESCO) (Jeanrenaud, 2001; Kothari, 2006; Wild & McLeod, 2008; Wild et al., 2010)

to recognize sacred area systems and community conserved areas as an integrated

aspect of collaborative and community conservation policy approaches. Such policy

approaches recognize the interconnection between cultural and ecological landscapes

and hence, the correlation between conserving biological and cultural diversity within

Indigenous and traditional territories. Customary systems such as sacred areas and

designated harvest and non-harvest areas, as well as contemporary community

conserved areas (CCAs) within the North Rupununi exemplify such linkages and have

functioned to maintain the ecological and cultural integrity of important watersheds,

montane forests and animal species in the region. Some of the sacred areas referred to

in this section can be referenced in the map biographies from Fairview Village (Map 5.1)

which portrays layers of biographical and socio-ecological knowledge and memory

obtained through map biographies collected with village elders and hunters.

Sacred areas or sites are ecological areas and landscapes such as ponds,

creeks, caves, forest groves, rivers and mountains where communities customarily

believe that ancestral, guardian or evil spirits of animals and natural habitats reside

and/or protect the site and the animal species inhabiting there. In the North Rupununi,

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the Makushi and other Indigenous peoples particularly believe that animal or habitat

masters, evil spirits (oma in Makushi), and ancestral spirits protect and haunt different

landscapes. They believe that the sacred energy of such spirit beings is powerful and

therefore, certain, or all community members are prohibited from using those areas.

Some sacred areas in the region also eclipse important ancestral and archeological sites

such as around Fairview Village and the Iwokrama Forest reserve. A village leader from

Fairview elaborates (VC3, 2009):

Iwokrama Mountain is a sacred site because there are carvings there and during long ago days when the Amerindian slave trade was going by the Dutch, the Caribs had chased the Makushis into the mountain…that is why they also call the Iwokrama Mountain a place of refuge.

Chamberlin (2005) states that sacred sites are the dwelling places of spirits and they

represent a locus of past, present and future power for the natural beings, spirits and

people who inhabit the area (Chamberlin, 2000, p. 134).

Similar to other customary institutions, sacred areas have functioned to control

access and harvesting activities within certain areas and on certain species, according to

a set of moral codes and spiritual beliefs that have been socialized within Indigenous

communities. Customary rules and beliefs around sacred areas are complex and do not

often apply a complete ban on harvesting, nor do they often apply generally to all

community members and activities within the area. Some areas are warned to be

dangerous for entering or hunting at any time, while others are possible to enter with the

clause that people must not throw pepper or refuse into the water, as these will be

provocative to the spirits residing there. Most water sources that are considered sacred

areas are off-limits to menstruating or lactating women as it is believed that powerful

spirits can affect her baby, or that her menses will interrupt the spawning cycle of fishes

(MRU & Forte, 1996; VC1 & 2, 2009; VE3, 2009).

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Map 5.1 Fairview Conservation and Wildlife Interaction Map

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Areas presided over by animal or habitat masters can sometimes be entered if

the master has been appeased by a peaiman with tobacco smoke and promises by

hunters that they will hunt a specific species responsibly. People from outside

Indigenous communities who enter such areas are believed to be particularly threatening

and vulnerable to the spirits that protect sacred areas.

Elders and community leaders believe that sacred areas function as a customary

norm devised to: i) maintain spiritual connections between people and animals and

natural landscapes and ii) protect specific animal species and habitat areas from over-

harvesting and interventions by outsiders to the region (VE1-16, 2009; VC1-12, 2009).

Two elders from Rewa Village elaborate, “Long ago, the old people used to know how to

protect the animals and plants and resources with their beliefs about spirits protecting

certain places and animals…the old people had these beliefs strong and we listened to

them…” (VE7 & 8, 2009).

Since the spiritual relationships and philosophical values community members

have and attribute to their lands, animals and plants are foundational to their interest in,

and capacity to engage in ethically responsible environmental practices, Jeanrenaud

(2001) posits that global conservation must appreciate Indigenous peoples’ “need to re-

engage with the sacred” (p. 11). Berkes’ (1999 & 2008) landmark work on sacred

ecology and the centrality of Indigenous knowledge — or TEK as he refers to it — within

forms of natural resource management and conservation emphasizes that human and

natural worlds are intrinsically connected and interdependent. He also underscores that

the natural world is imbued with a numinous energy or the “sacred” and such sacred

energy similarly imbues the strong spiritual relationships and rituals that many local

people continue to have with animals and their environments. Despite the diverse terrain

of Indigenous knowledges emerging from different groups in different contexts, LaDuke

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reflects, “There is a striking unity on the sacredness of ecological systems” (2005, p.

127).

Within the North Rupununi, habitats imbued with spiritual energy and ecological,

historical and cultural significance are mapped in people’s social-ecological memory to

acknowledge the cosmological and life forces that keep things in natural order and

relationships of interdependency and interconnection. In her feminist ‘explorer’ narrative,

Surfacing (1979), Atwood describes Indigenous sacred sites as spiritually powerful

places where people could clearly envision and discover the truth of something,

especially when logic could not yield such truth and understanding. Relating to

understandings of place-based environmental and conservation practices grounded in

their complex cultural and spiritual relationships to ecological places and beings, Cajete

(2000, p. 77) notes, “People learn to respect the life in the places they live, and thereby

to protect and perpetuate the ecology.”

Sacred areas and perceiving the numinous energy that permeates natural

landscapes and beings may appear to conservationists and academics to be a culturally

novel system of local beliefs, myths and norms within Indigenous societies that would

not be compatible with scientific or management models. However, Wild and McLeod

(2008) demonstrate in their set of guidelines on sacred natural sites in global Indigenous

and traditional society contexts that recognizing and revitalizing the spiritual energy and

relationships within the natural world and between ecology and human culture are

foundational to scientific and empirical studies of ecology and conservation biology.

Since environments are systems comprised of relationships and energy flows — and

conservation and environmental management models also centre on integrated

ecological and human systems, relationships and processes — it is not a stretch for

conservationists to recognize the sacred forces that move within all organisms, natural

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cycles and landscapes and moreover, that interconnect human communities with their

environments.

Numerous community members who have worked with foreign scientists and

researchers on wildlife and conservation research said that the scientists and

researchers often challenge and/or try to disprove the veracity of local myths and

legends related to sacred areas (VH10 & 11, 2009; WC2, 2009). Furthermore, scientists

have questioned the notion that sacred areas functioned as harvesting and access

controls that could be interpreted as contributing to habitat and wildlife conservation.

However, research and case studies conducted throughout the world (Jeanrenaud,

2001; Wild & McLeod, 2008; Wild, McNeely and Oviedo, 2010) demonstrate that while

sacred areas may not have been intentionally established as conservation areas, or as

mechanisms to protect habitat and species, they have definitely contributed to

conservation of habitats and wildlife species. A village leader from Rewa contends,

“…and the old people warned about the oma protecting the pond…yes, that was the old

people’s belief, what I believe was their way of protecting the arapaima and the caimans”

(VC12, 2009).

Most sacred areas that are ponds and creeks within the North Rupununi villages

are also those that were plentiful with arapaima (Arapaima gigas) and are now the focus

of the NRDDB’s arapaima management project. Map 5.2 shows sites of differing levels

of arapaima density in all ponds, creeks, lakes and river tributaries in the North

Rupununi that have been measured by the arapaima management research team. I

have indicated on the arapaima density map the sites that also correspond with sacred

areas recognized by community members, demonstrating the regulatory and

conservational effects that sacred areas have had on arapaima species. Interestingly,

two village leaders from Surama state that since the village is relatively young and was

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established by an Arawak family who did not maintain the same customary belief of

sacred areas as the Makushis and Wapishanas of the Rupununi, their contemporary

community conserved areas (CCAs) are like “modern sacred areas” (VC1 & 2, 2009).

Sacred areas “affirm an indissoluble link between the protection of sacred sites…and the

right of such peoples to continue to manage and control the places that connect them to

their spirituality and cultural expression” (Jeanrenaud, 2001, p. 8).

There are many sacred areas and associated myths and beliefs that were shared

by community members and most myths have a similar theme whereby people cannot

enter into certain areas and/or perform certain harvesting or other activities because

they will provoke spirits or masters that will seek retribution. For both water and

terrestrial sacred areas, the retribution can take the form of the sky turning black,

thunder and lightening striking through the sky, tremors through the water or earth, the

appearance of ‘tigers’ (colloquial term for jaguars, pumas and other species of wild cats)

and possibly the person being sucked into the water, or carried into the mountain. I

include here a couple of examples of sacred area myths:

What we call a shocking pond…an oma Pond. Nobody could go and do fishing there. What used to happen there would happen in nighttime, like midnight…something like a thunder and it used to shock all around there and nobody can go there…it used to pull people in the water. There was something like a hole in the water and the oma would carry them into the water (CEW2, 2009). As a huntman, you know were these things are and if you tell the others, they would all go there and destroy the population of Cock of the Rock birds. The people would believe that if you go there, something may catch you…or there is a demon there, especially if you trouble the young ones (animals) or the pregnant ones. That was the management system to prevent or limit how people would use that area (VC3, 2009).

Similar to other customary norms such as cultural taboos, cultural rituals related to

hunting and animals, myths and shamanism, many villagers no longer believe in the

veracity or modern relevance of sacred area systems. Some non-Makushi Indigenous

people, and the younger generations in particular, feel disconnected from the cultural

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beliefs and conservation wisdom underpinning the custom of sacred areas, believing

that they were just stories of evil spirits and animal masters designed to frighten people

(VE1, 2009; CEW1, 2009). An elder from Surama Village recognizes, “it’s hard for many,

especially the youth, as they cannot really understand the meaning anymore…it is not

what they see as their reality now…to believe in these stories anymore” (VE3, 2009).

Furthermore, several researchers and tourists over the years have not heeded

the advisement of community members to stay away from sacred areas and have openly

transgressed local customary norms in pursuit of adventure and/or research interests.

As well, community guides, researchers or rangers have often had to accompany such

community members on the excursions and lived to report on their experiences. While

some elders and community leaders attest to some form of retribution befalling tourists

or researchers from the spirits or masters guarding the sacred area — “darkness,

thunder and lightening” and/or “violent waves and noises sounding from the water

source” (VE4 & VE12, 2009; VC9, 2009) — most people stated that nothing harmful

happened to the transgressors.

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Map 5.2 Arapaima Density Levels within Designated Conservation Areas

(NRDDB, 2009)

As such, community members who have been to sacred areas and consumed

taboo animals (i.e. arapaima) returned to their villages stating that nothing abnormal or

dangerous happened to them; thus the area is no longer protected by spirits or masters

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and local people should feel free to enter those areas and even possibly hunt, fish and

harvest forest products. Younger community members feel that since the communities

are now engaged with modern conservation practices, the relevance of sacred areas

and other customary norms is no longer as strong and as such, the spiritual power of

such areas has diminished. This more pragmatic rationale is that community members

now have modern forms of conservation and sustainability knowledge to substantiate

their local knowledge and are now conscious about responsible and sustainable harvest

and use practices and not damaging habitat (CEW1, 2009; IR1 & 7, 2009; p.c., 2009).

My research also generated accounts from Wowetta and Kwatamang community

members that a peaiman, during or soon after the Balata Company20 period between the

1920s and 1970s, performed tobacco blowing and prayers to appease the master and/or

evil spirits around the Iwokrama Mountain area and other mountains near Wowetta,

Surama and Kwatamang Villages (MRU, 2009; VE1, 2009; VE16, 2009). Since that

time, villagers have been able to freely enter into, hunt and fish within these areas

without fear of repercussion from spirits. However, elders emphasized that the

peaiman’s mediation and ability to appease the protective spirits indefinitely were

predicated on him promising that community members would not damage the forests

and would responsibly harvest (VE1 & 2, 2009). A wildlife researcher and former

community environmental worker from Wowetta explains, “The peaiman made a special

prayer and by doing that they used to get permission and then the spirits them cannot

harm them, the place cannot harm them. That is how the place come to now, where

there is nothing to harm people anymore…our parents told us about those days” (CEW2,

2009).

20

The Messrs. Garnett & Company from Scotland specialized in balata production (latex from the Bullet tree - Manilkara bidentata) within the North and South Rupununi regions. The balata trade began around 1859

and peak production was until 1920, at which it time it ebbed to a small production scale and ceased by the 1970s. Surama was the focal point for balata bleeding and most bleeders were Makushi and Wapishana.

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With these different examples of either “proof” that sacred areas are not really

haunted by spirits and masters, or that there are appeasement mechanisms that the

peaiman can perform to circumvent sacred area and cultural taboo restrictions, several

respondents admitted to being critical of the benefits of such customary systems and

beliefs as being a legitimate form of environmental management. As previously

discussed with respect to customary systems in general, there continue to be many

community members who, despite their doubts as to the veracity of the spiritual beliefs

and myths associated with sacred areas, continue to believe that they are relevant

customary norms that have functioned to sustainably control harvesting practices and

human interventions within certain areas. Many community members related detailed

stories of their own experiences, or those of family members, with the spirit

repercussions of entering into sacred areas. Village elders and leaders, particularly

believe that sacred areas also function to maintain important cultural beliefs and stories

about the spiritual relationships between people, landscapes and animals. An elder from

Rewa Village corroborates (VE13, 2009):

Yes, people still believe these things of sacred sites and are obeying it. I think that maybe it was the older people’s way of controlling what places people could hunt and fish, what animals they used and how much they used. Especially with the oma spirit and kanaima stories, it would scare people from certain places or using certain animals…because if not, maybe all would have finished by now.

Disconnect From Customary Systems and Revitalization Strategies

As alluded to at different points in the Chapter, the customary systems, languages,

knowledges, lands and cultures of Indigenous peoples in the North Rupununi and

throughout Guyana are under increasing threat of being assimilated, appropriated or

even eradicated through both their entanglement with mainstream ideological and

political regimes, and internal shifts toward an increasingly modern way of life. The

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consequent cultural and ideological dislocations of such external and internal forces

have caused many traumatic impacts on the communities and have community elders

and leaders deeply concerned for the younger generations, and for the continuity of their

way of life. Dislocation to local customary systems is certainly not new and has been a

persistent process since the colonial period. The following observations of colonial

Amerindian Welfare Officer, John Peberdy capture the complexity of historical and

contemporary push and pull forces that have sought to displace the deeply embedded

customary institutions of Makushi society (1948, p. 9):

The Macusi people have been brought into persistent contact and mental conflict over a considerable period of years with an originally impoverished rancher-industrialist-settler population struggling for establishment of Macusi country…the limited benefits derived by the Macusi, mostly of an impermanent nature, from rancher occupation, have not sufficed to replace tribal customs of self-sufficiency based on tribal laws which constituted the very backbone to racial dignity and independence. These customs have been greatly disrupted by alien infiltration and occupation.

In their comprehensive study of community conservation areas managed and the

challenges and constraints faced by Indigenous societies, Pathak et al.’s (2005)

research also reveals that customary resource management systems have broken down

in response to processes of globalization, inappropriate state and institutional policies,

and a host of threats from wider economic and political forces. Since culturally

embedded customary institutions and knowledges are at the heart of responsible and

enduring forms of environmental and conservation practice within Indigenous and local

communities, their break-down threatens the ecological health and integrity of

Indigenous territories. As such, this study represents part of what Longboat (2008) calls

a “survival strategy.” Such a survival strategy entails exploring possibilities for

Indigenous peoples to negotiate and transform unequal terrains of power and knowledge

by revitalizing applicable aspects of customary systems and synthesizing them with

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locally relevant modern conservation systems within strategies that equip communities

to deal with environmental, institutional and socioeconomic challenges.

Most community members within the North Rupununi have at some level become

integrated within the wage economy and trappings of modern lifestyles and

consequently demonstrate a disconnect with some of the cultural beliefs, stories,

mythology, ceremonies and customary practices that are now associated with “long-ago

days.” Specifically, some devout Christian, middle-aged and young community members

feel that while stories and beliefs transmitted by elders and peaimen may be interesting,

they are based too much on superstition and a lack of modern or scientific knowledge for

such customs to be useful within contemporary life or environmental practice (VE2,

2009; VH11, 2009). The push-and-pull forces of internal shifts and external systems and

challenges on customary systems is reflected in the complex evolution of their wildlife

and environmental management practices, as illustrated by the words of a former

community environmental worker: “Long ago old people never used to eat tapir, but now

many are…long ago, people never used to eat arapaima and then they start to fish

them…and now they are trying to conserve them again” (CEW3, 2009).

However, the vast majority of those who feel that the cultural beliefs and

practices of their grandparents and ancestors may be irrelevant within the modern

context, do continue to follow what is referred to as “the Amerindian way of life” within

their communities. Thus, an interesting dynamic has emerged whereby such people

continue to observe and practice many customs in their daily life –– albeit under the

guise of “practical knowledge” and “remembering the culture.” Responses by community

participants indicated that there is a correlation between community members who feel

most disconnected and unconfident with their cultural beliefs and customary practices,

and a sense of apathy toward community conservation and development initiatives and

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possibilities. A wildlife researcher and former IIC Ranger from Surama describes (IR8,

2009):

There are always people in the communities who do not want to engage or to really understand the purpose of what Iwokrama and NRDDB are trying to achieve collaboratively and what they offer…But they do not try to involve themselves regarding our traditional ways either and do not understand our efforts to maintain our culture, no matter what we say or do for them and that is just how they stay. I feel that is a minority though.

Furthermore, community members identified as having cultural disconnect and apathy

toward community conservation, are often involved with commercial and extractive

activities that are known to be harmful to the environment and community integrity.

Conversely, a correlation was identified between community members who recognize

the cultural value, if not also the ecological and practical value, of customary systems

and their relevance to contemporary conservation and their active involvement in

collaborative and community conservation initiatives.

Impacts of Language Loss and Christianity on Customary Systems

Christian proselytizing in the North and South Rupununi began with the arrival of the

Church of England Reverend Thomas Youd in 1838, who set up a missionary at Pirara.

Fr. Cary Elwes formed a Roman Catholic mission, St. Ignatius, in the South Rupununi

around 1907, and Reverend Williams from the Church of England established a mission

at Yupukari, in the North Rupununi (Butt-Colson, 1982). With the opening of the North

Rupununi through air transportation after World War II, many churches (primarily

evangelical) began to proselytize in the region. Christianization was offered to

Indigenous peoples in Guyana and throughout the region by colonial administrators and

clergy as ‘compensation’ for the expropriation of their ancestral lands and use of their

labour. In simple terms, “Amerindians were offered heaven for their earth” (See:

Menezes in Colchester, 1997, p.126).

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Community elders (VE1-3, 6, 14-16, 2009) reflect that since the evangelical and

Anglican Christian churches have become entrenched in their communities, their

spiritual beliefs and customary systems have been influenced, if not supplanted, by

Christian doctrine and rituals. An influential factor in this process, that will be expanded

later in the context of language loss, has also been the Church’s intolerance toward

Indigenous languages, and spiritual beliefs and practices. However, as with most

syncretic cultural forms within the Caribbean, community members have adapted and

syncretized these forms of Christianity within their own cosmological and spiritual

systems in conscious and tacit ways. Two elders explain, “Long ago, before Christianity

came to we here, people used to practice their Amerindian spiritual and traditional

beliefs…even until now, we are Christians but most of we still believe these things…”

(VE7 & 8, 2009).

Hence, while the vast majority of community members from all social groups

have been baptized as Christians in either the Anglican or evangelical churches, they

continue to protect and practice many aspects of their cosmological and customary

systems simultaneously with their adopted Christian practices. It is important to

acknowledge that during the colonial period, many priests who missionized within the

North Rupununi worked not only at converting Indigenous peoples’ souls to Christianity,

but more importantly, they advocated for land reforms in support of legalizing

Amerindian land and resource tenure (MRU & Forte, 1996). Some priests also produced

transcriptions and early lexicons of the Makushi language. While the processes of

nativizing and syncretizing Christian forms has enabled the resiliency and persistence of

customary beliefs and practices, many elders particularly spoke about Christianity’s

active repression of their language, culture and spiritual rituals. Two elders regretfully

state, “Yes, the Christian churches have also taken people from their culture” (VE14 &

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15, 2009). Consequently, some middle-aged and younger people perceive their

customary beliefs as parochial and irrelevant, or they find them amusing and charming

artifacts of “long-ago days.”

The loss of language amongst the Makushis, Wapishanas, Arawaks and

Patamonas in the North Rupununi has also had an enormous impact on the resiliency

and continuity of customary knowledge, cultural and environmental systems. The

combination of influences from: Christian proselytizing; the spread of Guyanese Creole

culture and language; increasing contact with predominantly English-speaking external

researchers, conservationists, institutional and industry actors; migration of young

people to Brazil and Georgetown; and the forced eradication of Indigenous languages

within formal educational institutions, have actively supplanted Indigenous languages

with English Creole, standard English and Brazilian Portuguese. Particularly damaging

to Amerindian identity, and the dissemination and development of Indigenous

languages, was the way that teachers from the Coastal region (mostly sent to the interior

regions of Guyana through hinterland placement programs) and foreign teachers

corporally punished Indigenous students who spoke their language in school. An elder

painfully recalls teachers yelling at children if they spoke their language, “That is not the

tongue they are teaching and they could not understand you…and they would beat

those who spoke their language…And in this generation now, you got many children and

youth who don’t know their own language, their own culture” (VE3, 2009).

Although many of today’s elders can speak some English, many past and

present elders only speak local languages; with the erosion of local Indigenous

languages, many community members from the middle-aged to youth cannot

understand the elders’ stories and myths in their local languages, particularly not to the

level where they can grasp embedded meanings and morals. There have been

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numerous collaborative and community-led initiatives to revive Makushi language usage

amongst community members, to teach Makushi in schools and through the Radio

Paiwomak community radio programs, and to produce and disseminate educational and

dictionary resources in Makushi.

Significant to NRDDB, BHI and IIC has been facilitating the communities’

capacity to adapt customary and cultural systems in response to major ideological,

economic, cultural and institutional influences. Protecting the resiliency and revitalizing

appropriate Indigenous knowledge, cultural forms, and customary institutions are

extremely important to NRDDB and BHI’s community project initiatives. IIC has also

worked to support and facilitate such cultural development initiatives by NRDDB-BHI and

individual villages, such as Fairview and Surama Villages. A wildlife researcher and

former CEW explains the investment of both local institutions and IIC to revitalize and

develop customary, cultural and language forms in the villages (CEW1, 2009):

Yes, they have…people really tried hard on both sides...Iwokrama tried to bring back the culture and knowledge of the people. Most of the Makushi people, they are losing their culture. They have with them the wise use of their resources and stuff like bringing back the traditional beliefs…through Iwokrama, they tried to bring back the traditional culture and language here. Before, the government had programs and worked through the schools to make us stop using our language and practicing our cultural practices…the churches have also taken people from their culture. Right now, people are working to remember who they are and bring that back.

There have been inspiring counter-processes whereby some aspects of

Indigenous customary systems have proven remarkably resilient to external systems,

while other aspects have proven adaptive and deployable within syncretic or integrative

systems. Two village leaders from Surama reflect, “This is where we are now as

Amerindian people…trying to recover our own traditions and language…trying to adjust

to the new changes and the other languages and knowledge that has come into our

communities…especially facing these present generations” (VC1 & 2, 2009). A

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Wapishana community leader further reflects, “In recent years, our people have

integrated new community and intercommunity decision-making bodies into our system

for governing our communities and caring for our territory. Our system of traditional

monitoring and customary regulation of resource use, for example, is today coordinated

with our Village Councils and District Toshaos Councils” (David et al., 2006, p. 45).

However, while there have been numerous externally funded and supported knowledge,

culture and language projects over the years led by the NRDDB-BHI and facilitated by

IIC and other international institutions, more long-term and self-sustaining initiatives are

needed within the communities to revitalize and nourish the continuity of customary

knowledges, practices and local languages.

Role of Makushi Research Unit in Protecting Customary Knowledges and Systems

A long-term entity based within NRDDB and the North Rupununi communities which has

been the life-force moving most knowledge, language and cultural revitalization

initiatives by NRDDB-BHI and collaborative projects with IIC over the years has been the

Makushi Research Unit (MRU). The MRU has emerged as an innovative community

development model under the NRDDB umbrella and its researchers (predominantly

female) represent most villages within the region. Their objective is to develop and

promote (MRU, 2009):

i) centrality of Indigenous natural history, cultural, ethnomedicinal and cosmological knowledges;

i) revival and recognition of Makushi language; iii) recognition and protection of customary institutions, values and skills;

ii) women’s and gender empowerment initiatives; and iv) educational awareness on social issues facing communities.

At a smaller and more on-the-ground scale than NRDDB-BHI, the MRU

researchers have been an invaluable catalyst with respect to mediating and bridging

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between the worldviews and customary systems of the communities, and the modern

conservation, research and development projects and actors coming into the

communities. The MRU were particularly instrumental in acting as language translators

and cultural/knowledge interpreters for IIC’s conservation program, collaborative

management processes and capacity development and socioeconomic initiatives during

community outreach workshops, meetings, training sessions and interviews. While their

projects and activities are diverse, the central mandate of the MRU is to both revitalize

and protect the Amerindian way of life, and to contribute to human development and

livelihoods within the communities (MRU, 2009). Key aspects of the MRU’s work are

recognizing and honoring the specialized knowledge, skills and contributions of women

and community elders –– facilitating both the socioeconomic empowerment of younger

women, and the passage of elder knowledge and cultural practices to younger

generations within the communities. Linguistic and cultural transcription and knowledge

documentation are also central to the MRU’s contribution to sustaining and protecting

the Amerindian way of life amidst the communities’ adaptation to external social, cultural,

politico-economic and ideological influences within the region.

As previously mentioned, the MRU collected research, translated and assisted in

documenting the book Makusepi iseru komanto – Sustaining the Makushi Way of Life

(MRU & Forte, 1996) which is a precious resource within the communities. The following

quotes encapsulate the significance and breadth of work that the MRU has done for the

North Rupununi communities: “I would say that the MRUs are well-recognized in all of

the knowledge and work that they have done and contributed. They are proud about it”

(VC9, 2009). “It is really the MRUs and outside researchers who write these stories and

knowledge down and do this research…through the MRU researchers, we can record

the stories and remember their value” (VE4, 2009).

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Summary

This chapter discusses the cultural embeddedness and knowledge- and place-based

formations of wildlife conservation and management at the community level. I have

presented the North Rupununi communities’ robust, culturally nuanced and adaptive

customary knowledges, ethics and practices related to their territories, animals and the

environment and how such customary systems have innovatively contributed to

sustainable harvest and use, and protection of habitats, species, environmental services

and cultural institutions –– both in the past and present day. The North Rupununi

communities have close material, cultural, spiritual and ecological relationships with the

animal and plant species, and natural landscapes they interact with and use on a daily

basis. As such, locally grounded environmental and cultural conservation practices are

understood as part of their Amerindian way of life.

Village elders and shamans, as well as more contemporary interventions by the

Makushi Research Unit, have been particularly catalytic in bringing the North Rupununi’s

cultural and natural worlds together by interpreting, safeguarding and intergenerationally

disseminating knowledge and cultural systems related to wildlife and ecological practice

within the communities. However, customary knowledges and systems are vulnerable to

the myriad influences and threats that have come into the communities over the years

and younger generations of community members have been experiencing a gradual

disconnect from their customs and cultural beliefs. Hence, a vital aspect of contemporary

conservation initiatives and transformations to more autonomous management

structures has been to recognize and revitalize the integrity of customary systems that

are germane to local socio-ecological governance, and collaborative and community-led

conservation frameworks.

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CHAPTER SIX: EMBEDDING LOCAL HUMAN–ANIMAL RELATIONSHIPS IN CONSERVATION

Human–Animal Entanglements

Adding another layer to the significance and complexity of conservation entanglements,

are the interspecies relationships between people and animals. Different species of local

animals in the North Rupununi are not only linked together by their shared habitat, they

are also linked through their encounters with hunters, youth and other villagers in

anthropogenic habitats (Fuentes & Wolfe, 2002) such as hunting trails, farms,

community conserved areas, transects and watersheds. The concept of human and

nonhuman animal co-ecologies represents the fluid intermingling of human

environmental and settlement practices in the North Rupununi and the ecological

functions and behaviours of local animals, within the anthropogenic landscapes of the

villages and the Iwokrama Forest.

Local socio-ecological activities related to animal harvest and use patterns, and

wildlife observation and conservation within diverse forest, watershed and savannah

habitats around villages (Map 5.1), indicate the level and quality of interaction between

people and animals within and around the communities. Most community members —

especially elders, IIC and CI rangers, village leaders and hunters — are very conscious

of the habitats, and ranging, mating and feeding patterns of diverse local animals and

they try to plan their farming, hunting, fishing and gathering activities in ways that do not

interfere with wildlife patterns. A village leader and hunter from Wowetta Village

explains: “Our traditional boundaries now, they follow the animals’ habitats and we know

that we can follow them to certain areas, but beyond that, we cannot go because that is

their area…we have a respect for animals” (VC10, 2009).

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However, elders and middle-aged community members all remarked that many

animal species that used to feel comfortable to move within village areas and closer to

villagers have now moved farther away. A village leader and wildlife researcher from

Rewa recalls, “When I was growing up and a young man, there were many more

animals coming around the village, even the shy tapir, peccaries, deer…now you can’t

find them around here, you have to go far” (VC12, 2009). Happily, with increasing

environmental and conservation awareness and a return to some of their customary

practices at the community level, many community members have observed that

vulnerable animal populations are not only resuming a healthy status, but many species

are re-inhabiting areas closer to the villages. A CI ranger from Rewa Village observes

(IR6, 2009):

I notice that things have been changing for the better around here…those animals that we weren’t seeing anymore close to our village because people were killing them too much or throwing down the fruiting trees for thatch…I see that now they are slowly coming back again.

Conservation contact sites such as the Iwokrama Forest reserve, and areas of

human–animal interaction around the villages, are fecund spaces for exploring

interspecies relationships (Haraway, 2008). Community members and local animals are

interconnected and actively engage in shifting ‘assemblages’ or ‘naturecultures’

(Haraway, 2001 & 2008) that can be constituted culturally, ecologically, semiotically,

materially and politically. The contact and quality of interspecies interaction between

communities and local animals have profound implications for how people come to value

and practice wildlife conservation.

Whatmore’s (2002) study of the hybridized societal and conservation spaces

where human, animal and nature interactions take place also analyzes protected areas

and wildlife conservation projects as sites where interspecies relationships are

configured according to the social relations and ecological formations forged by humans

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and animals. In such local interspecies encounters, the separate subjectivities of people

and animals can also become culturally and materially entangled, particularly where

human and animal habitats overlap. Every animal, plant, ecological feature and

landscape is filled with agency, and the presence and function of each indirectly and

directly influence how local people construct and modify their societies, livelihoods and

landscapes (Cronon, 1992). As such, Indigenous people from the North Rupununi are

transformed in their inter-subjective relationships with local animals (Haraway, 2008)

whereby both people and animals are understood to possess agency and responsibility

in their social and ecological roles and interrelationships.

Such subjective, relational and reciprocal understandings of animals and their

multi-layered presence within natural and human worlds are a vital complement to the

biologically deterministic and anthropocentric image of animals portrayed by more

positivistic scientific models. Barbara Noske’s (1997) study on the slippery boundaries

between humans and non-human animals, and the tensions and inconsistencies in how

animals are viewed and treated within Western traditions, contends:

The animal image as imparted by the biological sciences is de-animalized for the sake of objectivity and controllability…Positivist biology tends to devaluate, neglect or even dismiss those aspects of living beings…Inwardness, mental states, ideas, values and meanings…are either ignored or distorted and reduced to the manageable level of genetics, physiology, and behaviour (p. 84).

As in human communities, many animal communities also have complex

customary systems that are passed down intergenerationally and socialized within their

family or larger societal groups. Every non-human animal also has its role to play both

in its community, and within the broader ecological system they inhabit. Indigenous

people in the North Rupununi and throughout the Americas (Cajete, 2000; CEW2, 2009;

Deloria, 2006; VE3, 6, 14-16, 2009) believe that animals also have rituals and it is

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through ceremony and ritual that people can communicate with animals and animal

spirits at a deeper level –– connecting with the inner knowledge, special powers and

ontological consciousness that animals teach humans when they are ready to receive

such learning. People of the North Rupununi use cultural practices such as ceremonies,

rituals, songs and dances to embed and celebrate the reciprocal relationships and

corresponding responsibilities that people hold with respect to all local animals, plants

and environments. Two elders from Wowetta Village joyfully relate (VE9 & 10, 2009):

I feel that the animals…they communicate with we and give us signs to let we know what will come. The animals are very nice because they play a very important part in the nature and also in helping people to understand the world around we. I still communicate with animals, especially birds and acouri [red-rumped agouti] through songs and my wife used to dance the animal dances.

Animals are often associated by community members with local cultural and

cosmological concepts such as spiritual power, dreams/visions, intermediary spirits such

as animal masters or guardians, kinship and companionship, and inner knowledge. From

young, community members “are taught the process of and participation in the

ceremonial rituals that renew the relationships with their ecology” (Cajete, 2002, p.184)

such as rituals of parishara, animal and harvest dances; mashramani celebrations;

“feedin’ up” feasts; bina and hunting rituals; and prayer. Community elders and hunters

described ritual and cultural productions involving animals, such as parishara

celebrations for cassava harvesting and the hummingbird dance, diverse animal-themed

dances and songs, hunting and bina rituals, dreaming, shamanic rituals and

relationships with animal intermediary and master spirits, mythology and just-so/Ananci

stories about animals, and modern-day wildlife festivals (VE1-16, 2009; VH1-12, 2009).

Such rituals and ceremonies are powerful ways to reconnect and ground human

relationships with animals, and they dissolve some of the boundaries between animal

and human worlds.

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Cheney and Weston (1999, p.124) elaborate on the power of songs modeled on

animal communications, “The more-than-human workd bursts forth in multiple songs of

the world – human songs in a more-than-human world, songs rooted in, and expressive

of that world.” Vine Deloria Jr. (2006) delineates three types of inter-species

communications between people and local animals that can be interpreted through a

North Rupununi Indigenous worldview. The first entails a shaman or animal master/spirit

who “encounters the sacred and plays a vital role in the unfolding scenario…a vehicle for

the sacred to manifest itself through the medium of different beings” (p. 108). The

second involves an intermediary animal-spirit guide who “appears in circumstance in

which the information or powers that will resolve a particular situation such as providing

direction for someone who is lost.” The third relates to myths and just-so stories: where

“objective knowledge possessed by humans of animals speaking the tribal language and

often acting simply as a commentator” (p. 108).

In my conservations and interviews with many community members, as well as in

local myths and just-so stories, I observed that people continue to refer to animals as

persons or beings similar to that of human beings. Thus, animals are perceived by many

as subjects with agency, intention and intellect, rather than as objects with little more

than instrumental value. A wildlife researcher and hunter from Wowetta remarks, “I can

easily watch them [monkeys]. They have their own attitude and ways to show we, how

they are behaving, they make us laugh a lot…I love to see them and feel close to them”

(VH10, 2009). As such, my research revealed that inter-species communications and

relationships amongst Indigenous communities of the North Rupununi comprise a fairly

organic and fluid process that develops within most people from an early age. Of course,

there are some people who either admitted to not being interested in animals or

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observed disinterest in others –– except for the exclusive purposes of food or removing

them from interference with farm crops.

Children and youth within the communities are perhaps the ones who most

organically communicate with and learn from animals in their everyday forms of play and

socialization with their surrounding animals, plants and natural landscapes.The

perceived distinctions between animal, human and spirit worlds are less rigid and more

fluid than in most Western or modern societal contexts; whereby the realities of human

and animal beings are believed by elders and many community members to

interpenetrate one another. Due to their spiritual and mediatory powers and deep

consciousness of the interconnection between humans, animals and the natural world,

peaimen (shamans) and elders have customarily been those who most conspicuously

communicate with animals and animal spirits through ceremony. With respect to

developing natural history knowledge; tracking, hunting and fishing skills; and respect for

human–animal relationships of reciprocity and interconnection, hunters also learn

immensely from their ritualized communications and proximity with animals.

In her study of children’s wild animal narratives and their illumination of ideas

about anthropomorphism and interspecies bonds, Leesa Fawcett (2002) discusses the

friendship bonds and inter-subjective, reciprocal understandings that younger children

hold toward local animals –– before such children have been critically separated from

the “animalness” in their lives (p. 133). Within the North Rupununi communities, children

and youth are exposed daily to not only cultural productions and rituals related to

animals, but also to the life and death cycle of local animals through their hunting and

fishing activities and daily interactions. Unlike their urban or Western counterparts,

children growing up within their communities never cease to interact with and learn from

local animals, nor are they ever culturally disconnected from them. Although numerous

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cultural and customary forms have faded from daily practice within the communities,

there are enough stories, metaphors, rituals and social norms related human–animal

interactions that continue to nourish the interspecies communicative and relational

bonds between both younger and older generations. The recent development of

collaborative and community conservation ethos and initiatives within the communities,

especially initiatives such the village wildlife clubs, have further deepened community

members’ interest and multi-faceted interactions with animals.

Intrinsically connected with interspecies relationships and communications are

cultural perceptions and articulations of anthropomorphism and animality. Leesa Fawcett

(2002) describes “anthropomorphism as a metaphorical process where one compares

humans to animals, a typical, ordinary occurrence (p. 135).” Indigenous worldviews in

Guyana not only regularly anthropomorphize local animals by recognizing or ascribing

human characteristics to them (Evernden, 1992), but moreover, they view animals as

persons with both similar and different subjectivities and agencies as humans. Fawcett

goes on to state that, “Anthropomorphism should not be a closed or fixed thing but rather

an alive and open process of comparing living beings (p. 135).” Indigenous ancestor

legends, just-so stories, jokes and elder teachings highlight anthropomorphism of human

characteristics and personhood and their importance to local people’s ability to relate to,

and morally consider animals at deeper levels.

Also of interest are the multi-sensory and cultural ways that Indigenous people in

the North Rupununi engage with the ecological and social worlds of animals as a means

of “becoming animal” (Whatmore, 2002, p. 33). Medina’s (2003) study explores cultural

forms of animality amongst Indigenous societies in Guyana and Suriname that “mimic

characteristics of animals to communicate and influence the spirit world” (p. 26). Hence,

for purposes such as children’s play, cultural performances, tracking and hunting,

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companionship, spiritual guidance, shamanism and teachings and education, assuming

animality solidifies a synergy and interface between human and animal experiences

(Whatmore, 2002). A customary form of becoming animal and corporeally embodying

human–animal relationships still practiced within specific festive and ceremonial settings

in the North Rupununi are animal-themed dances.

There exist a mixture of Makushi, Wapishana and Arawak dances from the

North Rupununi, such as the hummingbird dance (tukui in Makushi; bininti in Arawak),

peccary (acouri) dance, white heron dance, mata-mata dance, cockroach dance,

anteater dance, jaguar dance, spider dance, red howler monkey dance, jabiru stork

dance, and opossum (yaware) dance, and land turtle dance. These dances are based

on local natural history knowledge of themed animals, as well as interspecies

relationships. For example, the land turtle dance mimics its socio-ecological behaviours,

and “land turtle would have to be alert while dancing because jaguar is watching” (VE16,

2009). They give meaning and sustenance to Indigenous people’s way of life. Most of

the animals depicted are of nutritional, cultural and/or ritual significance to people (see

Figure 6.3), or they represent unfavourable qualities in animal and human nature.

Similar to myths and just-so stories, animal-themed dances, convey moral

considerations, as well as advantageous qualities for being and living within the social

and natural worlds.

How the North Rupununi communities choose to define and actuate their

relationships with animals depends on broader philosophical and functional interactions

with the natural world (Croft, 1991) (See Figure 6.3). Indigenous peoples of the North

Rupununi interact with animals important for their nutritional and material survival, as

well as embodying a spiritual quality, character, and way of life that are commensurate

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with their cultural worlds. They engage with local animal species based on certain

criteria (Croft, p. 97):

i) the species of animal; ii) cosmological myths or beliefs people have about themselves, and the

animals around them;

iii) community’s ethical views and social sanctions about permissible and impermissible human behaviours toward animals; and

iv) the costs and benefits of animal harvesting, use and protection.

Figure 6.3 illustrates different animal species that people of the North Rupununi interact

with according to their nutritional, cultural, spiritual and/or material significance. The list

is not by any means exhaustive, but includes the mammal, bird and reptile species that

featured prominently in the interview, map biography and observation data collected

throughout my study, as well as extension activities I engaged in with community

members and NRDDB/BHI staff. Although I have included the arapaima fish in the table,

I have not included other fish species for the sake of space.

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Figure 6.1 Regional Animals and their Significance to Local Communities

Animal Species Significance to Community Members (nutritional, cultural, spiritual, material)

Red-footed Tortoise – Chelonoidis carbonaria Wayamiki

Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

Yellow-footed Tortoise – Geochelone denticulate – Tupipiraimî

Nutritional

Giant River Turtle – Podocnemis expansa –Tarekaya

Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

Capybara – Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris Pîranwi

Nutritional, Cultural (pet, stories)

Yellow-knobbed Curassow – Crax daubentoni - Pawi

Nutritional, Cultural (stories, pet), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Blue-throated Piping Guan – Pipile pipile Kuyu

Nutritional, Cultural (stories, pet)

Spix Guan – Penelope jacquaca – Wora Nutritional

Grey-winged Trumpeter – Psophia crepitans Akami

Nutritional, Cultural (dance, stories)

Collared Peccary – Pecari tajacu – Praka Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

White-lipped peccary – Tayassu pecari Pinkîî

Nutritional, Cultural (stories, legends, dance), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Red brocket deer – Mazama Americana – Sarii

Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

Grey Brocket Deer – Mazama gouazoubira – Kariyaki

Nutritional, Cultural (stories, craft)

White-tailed Deer – Odocoileus virginianus Empîma / Wykin

Nutritional, Cultural (stories), Spiritual (jumbie (bad spirit) deer - taboo animal)

Red-Rumped Agouti – Dasyprocta agouti Akuri

Nutritional, Cultural (stories, dance)

Brazilian Tapir – Tapirus terrestris – Wayra Nutritional, Cultural (stories), Spiritual (taboo animal)

Paca – Agouti paca – Wîrana Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

Bush Dog – Speothos venaticus – Îîe Nutritional

Great Long-nosed Armadillo – Dasypus Kappleri – Ewaropaimî

Nutritional

9-Banded Armadillo - Dasypus novemcinctus - Kaigan

Spiritual (taboo)

Giant Armadillo - Priodontes maximus Mauremî

Nutritional, Cultural (stories), Spiritual (taboo animal)

Red Howler Monkey – Alouatta seniculus Arauta

Nutritional, Cultural (stories)

Guianan Saki – Pithecia pithecia Ariki

Nutritional, Cultural (craft, stories)

Black Spider Monkey – Ateles panisus Kuwata

Cultural (legends, stories), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Jaguar – Panther onca – Wayamaikî Cultural (stories, legends, dance), Spiritual (strong master spirit), Material (eco-tourism)

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Puma – Puma concolor – Sariwara Cultural (stories, legends)

Ocelot – Leopardus pardalis – Woronaî Cultural (stories)

Margay – Leopardus wiedii – Masikiru Cultural

Oncilla – Felix tigrina – Kawiîyenpu Cultural

Jaguarundi – Herpailurus yaguarondi – Waron

Cultural

Black Caiman – Melanosuchus niger – Kradu

Cultural (stories, legends), Spiritual (strong master spirit), Material (eco-tourism)

Giant Anteater Myrmecophaga tridactyla –Tîmanuwa

Cultural (stories, dance)

Tamandua – Tamandua tetradactyla Waiwo

Cultural (stories)

Wedge-Capped Capuchin Monkey Cebus olivaceus – Iwaraka

Cultural (pet, stories)

Brown Capuchin Monkey – Cebus apella Kuwatî

Cultural (stories)

Squirrel Monkey – Saimiri sciureus sciureus - karima

Cultural (pet, stories)

Golden-Handed Tamarin Saguinus midas – Itaru

Cultural (stories)

Dusky Titi Monkey – Callicebus moloch moloch – kusu

Cultural

Kinkajou – Potos flavus – Kuikui Cultural, Spiritual (jumbie (bad spirit) monkey because it is nocturnal and arboreal)

Pale-Throated Three-Toed Sloth – Bradypus Tridactylus – kuwaran

Cultural (beliefs regarding young babies)

Tayra – Eira Barbara – Araiwa Cultural

Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock – Rupicola rupicola – kawanuru

Cultural (stories, dance), Material (eco-tourism)

Harpy Eagle – Harpia harpyja – kuwananau Cultural (stories, mythology), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Turkey Vulture – Cathartes aura – kurun Cultural (“Johnny Crow” of Ananci stories), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Amazon Parrot – Amazona amazonica karika

Cultural (pet), Material (eco-tourism, commercial trade**)

Blue-Yellow Macaw – Ara ararauna kararawa

Cultural (stories), Material (eco-tourism, commercial trade**)

Scarlet Macaw – Ara macao – Arokei Cultural (stories), Material (eco-tourism, comm. trade**), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Red-Green Macaw – Ara chloroptera – Kîyari

Cultural, Material (eco-tourism, commercial trade)

Jabiru Stork – Jabiru mycteria – Tararamu

Cultural (stories, legends, dance), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Hummingbird – Chrysolampis mosquitus Tukui

Cultural (dance, stories)

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Lesser-Seed Finch – Oryzoborus angolensis Tawa tawa

Cultural (stories, pet), Material (commercial trade)

Opossum - Didelphis marsupialis - Yaware Cultural (stories, dance, stink animal)

Crab-Eating Raccoon – Procyon cancrivorus Saro

Crab-Eating Fox – Cerdocyon thous Okai Pira

Red Fox – Dusicyon culpaeus – Kîrenan Pira

Cultural (stories)

Giant Otter – Pteronura brasiliensis –Tîrara Cultural (legends, stories, pet), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

Bats – (River Bat - Rhynchonycteris naso) (Greater White-lined Sac-winged Bat - Saccopteryx bilineata) (Chestnut Sac-winged Bat - Cormura brevirostri) (Common Vampire Bat - Desmodus rotundus Mîrapa

Cultural (stories, legends)

Labaria Snake - Bothrops atrox Sororaimî

Threat

Bushmaster Snake - Lachesis muta muta Payaraimî

Cultural (stories), Threat

Green Anaconda (water comudi) Eunectes murinus - Wîi

Cultural (stories, legends, dance), Spiritual (strong master spirit, taboo animal)

Boa Constrictor (land comudi) Aman

Cultural (belief related to omen), Spiritual (strong master spirit, taboo animal)

Rattle Snake - Crotalus durissus - Pîtago´ Threat

Arapaima - Arapaima gigas - Warapai Nutritional, Cultural (stories, legends), Spiritual (strong master spirit)

* Species Names: Common, Latin and Makushi ** Commercial trade in these animals is no longer practiced within the region

Most Makushi and other Indigenous cosmological and ontological beliefs, myths,

ancestor legends and just-so stories, ceremonies and rituals feature animal “persons”

and their interrelationships with the human and spirit worlds. Many Indigenous

Guyanese people have the custom of taking on certain species of animals as pets ––

grey trumpeter bird, diverse macaws and parrot species, powis, songbirds, capybara,

collared peccaries, brown capuchin and squirrel monkeys. Community members said

that ancestors had a strong relationship with the animals and that they kept many

different animals as pets around the village and even around their houses. Guyanese

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conservationist and photographer of Amerindian descent, Annette Arjoon (2009) affirms,

“Reliance upon and affection for animals is a key aspect of Amerindian

culture…Amerindians are fond of keeping wild animals as pets and invariably you will

see domesticated deer, peccaries and sometimes even jaguars in Amerindian villages”

(unpaginated). As previously examined, community members’ ethical practices and

responsibilities toward animals allow them to enter into multi-faceted relationships of

mutual responsibility and participation with animals, enabling people to relinquish

feelings of dominance and power –– even when they are harvesting animals for

consumption or protecting their farmlands.

In terms of the nutritional and practical significance of local game animals and

catch fish to Indigenous communities, conservation initiatives must enable people to

continue in their cultural relationships and harvesting activities with animals in ways that

contribute meaningfully to people’s welfare. Child (Murphree, 1996, p. 177) astutely

observes that, “If wildlife does not contribute significantly to their well-being, people will

not be able to afford to preserve it except as a tourist curiosity on a few protected areas.”

Thus, for the North Rupununi communities, protecting their way of life and the customary

hunting and harvesting practices that have proven to be sustainable and culturally

significant have been pivotal nodes in both their collaborative management partnership

with IIC, CI and other conservation partners, as well as their community-led initiatives.

Many community members consider their relationships with local animals, especially

those that are valued as game animals and/or have cultural significance, as

interdependent partnerships. Human–animal partnerships are conceived as mutually

participatory and reciprocal –– although it is recognized that humans benefit much more

from the partnership than do animals (IR2-5, 8, 2009; WC2, 2009).

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Community members stated that local people benefit from animal partners in

terms of the ecologically specialized roles that different species play within ecosystems,

providing food, companionship and cultural enhancement, spiritual guidance. Also,

animal behavioural ecology provides important insights that people use for their hunting,

cultivation and cultural practices (IR1-8, 2009; VE1-16, 2009). The partnership helps

animals in the ways that anthropogenic modifications to landscapes have provided some

habitat enhancements for animals, and for some animal species such as tapirs, white-

lipped peccaries and labba/paca — they benefit nutritionally from people’s farms. A

wildlife researcher and former IIC ranger recalls, “my grandfather always say that when

you’re planting, plant enough for yourself and for the wild animals who come…so that

you cater for the dietary needs of both you and the animals” (IR8, 2009).

Makushi and other Indigenous names for animal species reflect ecological

relationships and behaviours; human–animal partnerships and values. Similar to names

attributed to places and ecological sites, animal names explain specific socio-ecological

linkages and ancestral, historical and spiritual meanings that species symbolize for

people. For example, the Makushi have identified and named twenty-four different

species of large cats (referred to locally as ‘tigers’) that exist in the North Rupununi ––

and each name explains specific ecological and cultural attributes of the animal (MRU &

Forte, 1996). Included within this count are the six large wild cats officially listed in

scientific taxonomies on the region (jaguar, puma, ocelot, oncilla, jaguarundi, margay;

see Figure 6.1) (Emmons, 1997) –– and also eighteen species that have not been

identified by scientists. However, although these other cat species are more elusive,

many community members are familiar with them and have legends and stories that

connect people to these large cats. The rakonaimî (frothing-water tiger) is a cat believed

to live underwater in water sources designated as sacred areas (MRU & Forte, 1996).

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The ‘tiger’s’ name describes the phenomenon of water frothing up in ponds or lakes

when a person who enters into and/or harvests in the water source angers the tiger and

the spirits protecting the area and fish (VE10 & 16, 2009; VH3 & 6, 2009).

In the contemporary period of wildlife and environmental conservation and

research initiatives, community members recognize a more direct way that their

partnership reciprocates animals. Drawing on contemporary and modern management

systems Indigenous knowledge, and new research data, communities are engaging in

more sustainable harvesting and use activities, and protecting important and vulnerable

species and habitats. There is a sense of continuity in terms of younger villagers

recognizing and appreciating the importance of cultivating kinship bonds, respect,

responsibility and reciprocal relationships with animals that they attribute more to the

older and past generations. A wildlife researcher and former community environmental

worker from Rewa makes this connection, “the elders had relationships with the animals,

and now, again, we have relationships with animals…we are aware again” (CEW1,

2009). Such recognition by younger generations of human–animal relationships is also

deeply connected to the sense of continuity between the older and younger generations

in terms of recognizing and strengthening knowledge and cultural practices related to

responsible wildlife harvesting, use and conservation.

The majority of community members acknowledged their multi-faceted

relationships with local animals, including: recognizing animals as an ecological resource

for the functioning of ecosystems and the sustenance of human life; the cultural and

spiritual significance of animals both within the cosmos and Amerindian cultural worlds;

their direct and indirect forms of companionship to people within the communities; and

as important and fascinating subjects of research (CEW1-4; IR1-9, 2009; VE1-16, 2009;

WC1-4, 2009). In coincidence with a more intuitive and holistic worldview, community

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members tend to understand and appreciate animals and human–animal relationships in

ways that are at once emotional and cognitive; intimate and pragmatic. A wildlife club

leader and community educator and youth mentor elaborates: “I like the agouti and I like

to be in the jungle with the big, big trees –– the Mora, Greenheart, Purpleheart trees.

The reason why agoutis are important is that they do reforestation and plant them

back…so they try to keep the forest regenerated and they are gentle and good

companions” (WC2, 2009). IIC and CI rangers, former community environmental

workers now working as community wildlife researchers, and wildlife club leaders

discussed their expanding interest in understanding the lives and behaviours of local

animals, as well as the vital ecological roles that play within ecosystems. Their intimate

connectivity with, and consciousness of local animals has flowed into: active interest to

research and conserve specific species, forging deeper kinship and spiritual bonds,

conservation leadership, and encouraging younger generations to love and respect

animals and the environment. A former IIC ranger and wildlife researcher

enthusiastically states (IR8, 2009):

I will always be dedicated to caring for our animals, environment and resources that we have been so blessed with, and also educating my community, family – especially my two boys here. I want them to follow in my footsteps with respect to the environment, just as I am involved, my cousins, father, uncles and grandfather are all involved…it’s a family affair!

Elders poignantly shared their care and respect for animals and their awareness

of the reciprocal and interdependent relationships that bond them to their lands and to

the animals with whom they share their territories. An elder and peaiman from Surama

Village captures their shared feelings, “I does feel sad for the animals when the people

hunt them recklessly and leave animals injured…the animals are an important part of my

life and I feel that the landscape would be lonely and empty without them…I cannot

imagine my world without animals” (VE16, 2009).

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As mentioned, some community members admitted to not feeling much personal

interest, nor of possessing deeper connections with local animals, other than animals’

nutritional or material value for people. Village leaders and former community

environmental workers lament about the “lapse” in people’s care for, and sense of

responsibility toward animals during the decades between the late 1960s and 1994-6

when IIC and the NRDDB were established and the communities embarked on the

NRDDB-IIC collaborative conservation partnership. They spoke of many people

becoming disconnected from their deeper relationships and customary practices with

animals and instead, valuing animals as an instrumental resource for subsistence and

commercial endeavours (VC1-12, 2009; CEW1-4, 2009). A Surama elder laments, “You

see, that spiritual belief, or the belief that this animal could protect you or look at certain

places and try to protect certain species is dying out…many have lost interest and think

that the animals and plants are all there to be harvested” (VE3, 2009). The sources of

such disconnect within the North Rupununi communities and their customary systems,

and how it manifested as unsustainable wildlife practice for a period of time, will be

addressed later in the chapter.

Many people also referenced the lack of moral consideration, respect and care

for animals or the natural world by people from other societies and worldviews who

arrive in their communities or in the Iwokrama Forest reserve to hunt animals or extract

resources without permission. According to former IIC ranger from Surama Village:

“Some from outside do not see these animals as something from nature that is valuable

for themselves and they’re the ones in the military, the ones in the police force…they’re

often the illegal hunters’ (IR8, 2009). A goal within conservation leadership and

educational initiatives at the community level is to reconnect the sense of wonder and

relationship that people have with animals and the natural world, as well as revitalize

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some of the more progressive customary institutions and cultural beliefs related to local

animals. A former CEW observes (CEW3, 2009):

We want to keep these animals there all the time so we must know how to use them responsibly and conserve them…there is more respect now like how we elders teach us. For a time, we lapse and would just kill without thinking too much about the animals or our culture as Amerindians …not now, anymore…we realize that we must live with them (animals) in a way that is kind and respectful to them because someone who is harming wildlife, it is not good…every day you coming and taking an animal, it’s not sustainable…we don’t want anything like that happening in the community again.

Animal Masters

As mentioned above, a type of spirit entity inhabiting sacred areas is the animal or

habitat master (esak in Makushi and Patamona), also known as a guardian spirit.

People in the North Rupununi believe that all landscapes and animal and plant species

have master or guardian spirits that act as the sacred protectors of animals, plants,

habitats and even complete ecosystems (VE14-16, 2009). All of a specific animal

species is considered to be that animal master’s “pets” and the master will guard his

pets from human harvesting activities and intervention unless he is assured that

community members will harvest and use the master’s pets responsibly and not over-

harvest or unnecessarily harm and waste the animals.

While all animal species are believed to have their own protectors, certain sacred

species (i.e. arapaima, anacondas and jaguars) or valuable game species (peccary

herds, powis and lukinani fish) are particularly accorded masters that must be respected

and negotiated with if community members wish to harvest those animals. Masters of

habitats are often protectors of valuable (and sometimes heavily predated) areas such

as fresh water sources, diverse and plentiful fishing grounds, mineral sources and

sacred mountains. Additional to master spirits are lesser bush spirits (atai-tai in Makushi

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and Patamona) that are perceived to be dangerous to people who traverse too far into

the forest. Spiritual beliefs and customary norms regarding animal and habitat masters

are also an important culturally embedded method to regulate harvesting of game and

plant species, and promoting relationships of responsibility and reciprocity between

people and landscapes, animals and plants.

Animal and habitat masters are usually very protective and often jealous of their

pet species or habitat area and make it very difficult for hunters to access and harvest

animals and fish — especially if the animals or landscapes are perceived to be under

threat by intervening people. Often, access by hunters to a master’s ‘pet’ species is only

granted if a hunter can prove that he will conduct hunting and fishing in a responsible

manner. The peaiman is often required to intervene on behalf of hunters or an entire

community to negotiate with the animal and/or habitat master and gain permission for

harvesting and use of the resources. As such, the protection by master spirits of key

animal species and habitats, in conjunction with peaiman interventions, are customary

beliefs and norms to control access to and use of those species and habitat areas.

Furthermore, they are an effective form of culturally embedded wildlife and

environmental conservation. In communicating with master spirits, the peaiman must go

on a dream quest, or invite the master into ritual, to meet the master and negotiate the

terms of access and harvest rights for his community (VE6, 14 & 15, 2009).

Whitehead’s writings on Guyana’s Patamona and other Indigenous people’s historical

and cultural relationships with spirit and natural beings clarifies about masters: “The

presence of these spirits and their willingness to engage in dialogue with peaiman is

taken as diagnostic of the correctness/sustainability and social/sacred sanctioning of

Makushi/Patamuna exploitation” (Whitehead, 2003, p. 70).

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Since there are as many stories of animal and habitat masters amongst the North

Rupununi communities as there are different masters representing diverse animal

species and habitats, I include here a couple of examples. A peaiman from Kwatamang

describes the arapaima master as protector (VE16, 2009):

The master of the arapaima resides there…people believe that the Master has a window in the pond and can see when someone is trying to catch an arapaima…the Master will pull the seine/net and even the fisherman down into the water to prevent him from catching his arapaima pet.

A peaiman from Surama Village describes Scarlet Mountain’s and Macaw Mountain’s

master who protects macaws and prevented further commercial harvesting of macaws

by local and outside trappers (VH11, 2009):

A time my father used to tell me that in this same mountain range, they used to trap these macaws…one morning they went to trap and they catch few macaws and the same afternoon, they hear a person shouting upon the mountain and they didn’t know is who…it get to be the master of these macaws...the trappers they never went back to trap macaws in that mountain, they were scared of the master.

Shamanism and Intermediation between Spirit and Natural Worlds

The peaiman or shaman is an archetypal figure within customary community life in the

North Rupununi because s/he represents multi-faceted and dynamic roles. The

peaiman’s ritual, mediatory, medicinal and spiritual practices are regarded by community

members as his tools for communication whereby they express the non-verbal, intuitive

and tacit knowledge that the peaiman has been imparted by ancestors and conferred by

intermediary spirits. He is a guardian of customary beliefs and traditions and advises on

customary norms and rules, as well as warning villagers of the repercussions and social

sanctions that will befall them if they do not abide the customary rules (VE3, 6, 10, 14-

16, 2009). In terms of wildlife conservation, the peaiman has an important role as

protector of animals, plants and landscapes, and moreover, guiding people on ethically

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responsible wildlife harvesting and use practices. As a healer, the peaiman cures people

of ailments with his vast knowledge of medicinal plants and their protocols. A peaiman

from the region states (VE16, 2009):

I can communicate with the master of different animals and the masters will guide me in knowing what animals are good to eat and how to prepare them and which ones should not be killed…esp. for feeding children and nutritional value for people, such as health and how to make the mind and body strong…how to hunt animals and use them wisely.

Aside from the village leader or toshao, he is perceived as the most powerful

person in the community as having many roles: doctor of natural medicines, priest,

teacher, cultural guardian, and counselor of relational interactions. The peaiman

interprets and provides a cosmological and cultural framework for community members

to create viable relationships with the natural world and spirit world. Colonial texts even

suggest that, “ecologies governed by shamans are an ancient feature of Indigenous

Amazonian societies” (Whitehead, 2002, p. 70). Keymis (1596), who was lieutenant to

Sir Walter Raleigh in his 16th century voyage to Guyana in search of the mythic ‘El

Dorado’ noted of the Indigenous shamans in Guyana and other parts of Amazonia:

The aged sort, to keep this common knowledge, have devised a fable of a dangerous Dragon that haunteth this place and devoureth all that come near it. But our Indian, if when we return, we do bring store of strong wine (which they love beyond measure) with it will undertake so to charm this Dragon that shall do us no harm. (p.17)

For the Makushis and many other Indigenous groups in Guyana, the peaiman

acts as a communicator and mediator between the communities and the spirit world, as

well as an advisor on human health and ethical wildlife and natural resource

consumption and use. Through dreaming and rituals such as blowing tobacco smoke

and prayer, the peaiman communicates with intermediary master spirits and is able to

persuade the master to allow some of his “pet” animals free for subsistence hunting, or

to not scare away or harm hunters and their families when they enter into an area to fish.

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If a hunter has killed a taboo animal or enters a sacred area, or a menstruating or

lactating woman enters a sacred area, only the peaiman can blow tobacco smoke and

pray to sanctify the meat or the habitat area. Vine Deloria Jr.’s revelatory book, The

World We Used to Live In (2006), is devoted to the sacred and intimate interspecies

relationships that many Indigenous peoples customarily have with animals and the

natural world, especially through shamanism. He specifically navigates the shaman’s

and elder’s ability to communicate with animals during dreamtime, and moreover to

expand his knowledge of the cosmos and material world, and to be gifted special powers

from animals (and attendant responsibilities). The peaiman also counsels hunters on

what bina to use for their hunting, fishing or romantic activities, and prayers to say for

lucky hunting practice. A peaiman’s son from Rewa Village relates (VE6, 2009):

So, as peaiman he could communicate with the master through his dreams and then he would come back to the hunters and explain to them what the master said and explain to them the agreement and then allow them to hunt the peccaries what they need to nourish their families…the peaimen thanked the master and promised to use their pets wisely.

Wildlife Harvesting Practices

Although integrated at some level within a cash economy influenced by increasingly

globalized economic and socio-cultural shifts, the North Rupununi communities continue

to follow many of their customary lifestyle and livelihood patterns based on hunting,

fishing, cultivation, craft-making, and local production of their natural resources. In

comparison to hunting societies in other parts of Amazonia and in Africa, Makushi

people of the North Rupununi have never been avid hunters, since their main nutritional

staples are fish and cassava products. People’s dependence on fish and wildlife for

food, a myriad of ecological services, and companionship, have led Indigenous

communities to transform the North Rupununi landscape in ways that have directly

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favoured their hunting and fishing practices, while indirectly favouring the flourishing of

local wildlife populations (Igoe, 2004). There are some exceptions, with community

hunters predating more heavily on specific species during particular historical and

contemporary periods and thus hampering the flourishing and regeneration of species,

such as collared peccaries, gray brocket deer, arapaima and river turtles and eggs.

Similarly, local people’s dependence on timber, pasture and cultivable lands, plant

crops, medicinal plants, and NTFPs have inspired communities to transform forest and

savannah landscapes to directly favour their cultivation and livelihood practices.

Commensurate with such physical transformations, the communities’ natural history

knowledge and customary institutions have also had to adapt and evolve to inspire and

sustain such ecologically transformative processes.

In addition to providing sustenance and some income for local communities,

traditional hunting, fishing, farming and harvesting grounds are important cultural spaces

for the continuity of ancestral ecological and cultural knowledge. Griffiths and Anselmo’s

(2010) study on sustainable livelihood experiences and possibilities amongst Indigenous

peoples in Guyana clarifies, “Subsistence farming, hunting, fishing and gathering

activities in the hinterland are often underpinned by extensive tenure and customary land

use systems along with traditions of sharing, reciprocity and self-help work parties that

support indigenous food and livelihood security” (p. 3). Hunting and fishing thus create

both a material and relational interface between individual hunters and communities, and

the ecological and social lives of regional animals. People in the communities say that in

the past, the wild animals used to live and move quite peacefully around the village

compounds, but due to alterations to the animals’ and birds’ habitat – particularly the

felling of kokerite (Attalea maripa), lu and other fruiting palm tree species…many

animals are now dependent on people’s farms for their food source and they compete

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with the villagers for farm-grown crops. An elder and former IIC manager discusses the

relational interface of reciprocity between people and the animals with whom they share

their ecologies (VE3, 2009):

When you plant a farm, ensure that you plant enough for yourself and for the wild animals who will need to come and eat…if a person cuts forest to make a farm, he is depriving the animals of some of their habitat and feeding grounds…this is what relationships of symbiosis are about.

My research conducted with village hunters and fishers showed detailed

customary hunting and fishing practices and patterns (areas, seasons and duration) that

were practiced both in past times, and are mostly still practiced today. They also

discussed weapons and strategies used in past times and indicated that most are still

currently in use. Cultural practices and beliefs related to hunting and fishing, such as

ceremonies, prayers, bina charms, dreams and signs, were also identified in terms of

assisting in hunting or fishing success, as well as bringing hunters into relationship with

game animals and fish. Far from being completely idyllic, several unsustainable local

wildlife harvesting practices were identified by a cross-section of community members as

being challenges that they have had to overcome and transform into more ecologically

viable practices. These unsustainable practices stem from both customary systems and,

particularly, integration within externally oriented employment and market activities.

Economic ventures that ecologically and culturally transformed the region include: the

Rupununi Cattle Trail forged throughout the North and South Rupununi, the Balata

Company, wildlife trade in birds (psittacines and passerines) and extractive companies

such as logging, mining and petroleum exploration. As will be discussed later on, many

local people during these times went through periods of not respecting the relational

reciprocity and ecological balance of their customary institutions in their wildlife and

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environmental practices, focusing instead on personal consumption and commercial

gain.

What is significant here, however, is that understandings of customary norms for

hunting –– based on material and cultural value, and ethical relationships of reciprocity

and responsibility toward animals –– were identified by all elder hunters and

reverberated in most narratives by younger hunters. From their own practices or

memories of the strategies and beliefs of parents and grandparents, the majority of

community elders, hunters and leaders attest to awareness by hunters in past times of

the necessity to harvest and use animals in responsible ways. They also spoke of

learning such valuable knowledge from their families by both accompanying them

through their teachings and stories. An elder from Fairview Village describes the hunting

and fishing ethic of her father and that which she abides by in her own life today VE5,

2009):

Me father never never went for long periods hunting, he would just see if he could get animal or fish nearby. Like right now, I not really interested in taking my family to go hunting animals. I prefer to get a little fish…that is how we mother and father grow we, not to destroy the animals, fish or forest… all this fishing and hunting or catching animal in big quantities to sell and make some money…we didn’t know nothing about them things. And today, I still stand by my word…

Two elders from Wowetta Village further note (VE14 & 15, 2009):

Even though people of long ago hunt animals, they still would know how to use animals wisely…before this Iwokrama and conservation education came into the communities…we choose which ones to shoot, not the young or pregnant animals…we have enough knowledge that we could still manage our wildlife and other resources of the forest in a responsible way…before these concepts of conservation and sustainability. Long ago, the elders used to tell hunters not to injure the animals and leave them behind, to only hunt what the family or village needs.

A clear testament to the positive influence of both modern conservation ethos

and attempts to value and revitalize customary systems and relationships with animals is

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that many village hunters are actively involved with community-led, NRDDB and IIC

wildlife conservation and management initiatives, and wildlife research projects led by

other organizations and university researchers. Also, many hunters are involved with

community eco-tourism in their villages, particularly as wildlife guides and interpreters.

Many older hunters and elders, particularly from Surama and Rewa Villages, have been

active in providing knowledge expertise and leadership on many collaborative wildlife

conservation initiatives and projects with IIC and other institutions and researchers, as

well as developing village resource management plans, the current PRMU, guidelines

and wildlife management projects within the villages. While they enjoy aspects of

hunting and wild meat, and consider hunting a vital component of their Indigenous way

of life, the majority of hunters acknowledged that they hunt as seldom as possible.

Elders and older hunters said that their respect for and close connection with local

animals discourages them from hunting more aggressively.

Many younger hunters also attest to feeling a close connection with game

animals and said that their increasing awareness of the importance of conservation has

discouraged their interest in hunting except when there are no other meat or fish options

(VH4-6; 10 & 11, 2009). Since all hunters practice fishing as well, most said they much

prefer to fish and to purchase meat from domesticated animals because they believe it is

unethical to put unnecessary pressure on local animals. Several hunters involved with

wildlife management, research or tourism in their villages also discussed feeling

conflicting emotions about hunting local animals that they are now monitoring,

researching or guiding tourists to observe. A leader for wildlife research projects and

former community environmental worker from Rewa notes (CEW1, 2009):

Even before, people normally didn’t go and willfully hunt…when I was doing household surveys, I found out that most households were practicing opportunistic hunting…like only three households said that they willfully go and hunt…people would more use fish than wild meat, but even for fish, they don’t ever overdo it.

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Customary Hunting Knowledge and Practice

All village hunters, whether elder or of a younger generation, recognized the significant

amount and quality of knowledge which they have accumulated both from their long

apprenticeship with parents and older relatives, and subsequent experience hunting

independently. Learning about local animals, whether conscious or tacit, is a lifelong

task integrated into every aspect of Indigenous life. Hunters in the North Rupununi have

acquired vast experiential knowledge through their varied interactions with animals:

behavioural ecology of game animals; animal habitats; other animals who reside in those

habitats; anatomy; breeding, mating, abundance and ranging patterns; preferable

hunting areas; land topography; animal feeding areas and water sources; and animal

and plant phenology. A Wowetta hunter and wildlife researcher recalls (VH10, 2009):

When I was small, right, I know about animals. I used to hunt with my parents…I learned the most about the small animals. I started from about eight years of age going with them and learning about hunting and how the animals behave, when they mate, where they go. We learned the animals’ habitats, the signs where they are how to track them.

Hunting and fishing techniques range from simple to complex and also require long

periods of teaching and learning in context of the natural ecology and customary practice

within communities. The preferred weapon used by hunters in the North Rupununi for

harvesting animals and fish continues to be the bow and arrow. Indigenous boys and

men from the North and South Rupununi are well-known for their prowess with the bow

and arrow and many hunters are evidently proud to maintain the same hunting practice

and techniques of their ancestors. Boys are given, or taught to make their own bows and

arrows at a very young age and they learn how to effectively shoot animals in a humane

way so that they do not leave injured animals behind to suffer. Other popular hunting

and fishing practices are use of hunting dogs, constructing a wabani (simple hunting

platform), hook and line, blow pipes and poison darts, fish traps, fish poison, cast nets

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and seine nets. Many hunters also engage their natural history knowledge and intimate

sense of relationship with game animals by tracking them in their habitats. An elder from

Surama speaks of his son’s ability to discern a detailed understanding of an animal

through his tracking abilities (VE3, 2009):

I have a son and he would be able to tell you about the ecology of different animals. If he sees a bush cow’s (tapir) tracks, he could tell you that it is traversing from where to where and if it’s a male…and the red brocket deer, he can tell if it’s red or grey; whether it’s male or female…when animals are heavy with young, all of that.

Also of interest was that elder hunters who had worked for the Balata Company

(often referred to as “the Company”) between the 1920’s and 1970’s were given

possession of firearms to protect themselves and for hunting purposes. While numerous

firearms still exist in the communities, no one has any intention of using them for hunting

animals because they are so violent and are perceived to be contrary to ethical hunting

practice at the community level. Elders also recall that during the Company days, most

local people did not ever abuse their use of firearms by gratuitously shooting animals.

Village elders and younger hunters identified hunting and fishing areas around

the village compound and farther away (see Map 5.1) that were used both in past times

and present-day. For the most part, the areas have remained the same. As indicated for

Fairview Village on the map, hunting grounds were located in every village in similar

habitat: forest areas at the mountain foot, deep bush (forest), bush mouth, bush islands

(rainy season), savannah areas and alongside creeks and rivers. Although hunting was

not customarily done very close to the village compound, all elders, village leaders and

hunters recalled that in past times, hunters and fisherman did not have to establishing

hunting areas and lines very far from the village because most animal and species

traversed or existed close by. However, they all expressed concern that many game

animals and catch fish have migrated to forest and watershed areas increasingly farther

from the village. They listed numerous reasons for such migration:

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i) the Lethem-Georgetown road and the resultant noise pollution and indiscriminate commercial or sport hunting done by Coastlanders and Brazilians driving through;

ii) logging sites close to the road and villages like the Makushi Yemekun

Cooperative (MYC) and Iwokrama sustainable logging sites;

iii) uncontrolled savanna burning; and

iv) cutting down of palms and other fruiting trees close to the village.

All fish and wild animals (kamo in Makushi) that were hunted long ago, are still

hunted today (Figure 6.2), with the exception of animals like monkeys and snakes that

were hunted and eaten mostly during the Balata Company days when food was scarcer.

Also, some animals that are now eaten, such as tapir (Tapirus terrestris) and small bush

deer (white-tailed deer or Odocoileus virginianus), were not eaten much in long-ago

days due to cultural taboos that were observed and enforced in that period, but are

rarely observed today.

Figure 6.2 Favoured Game Animals of North Rupununi Communities Favoured Game Animals – English and Latin Names in Creole and Makushi

Red-footed Tortoise - Chelonoidis carbonaria Land Turtle – Wayamiki

Yellow-footed Tortoise - Geochelone denticulata Land Turtle – Tupipiraimî

Giant River Turtle - Podocnemis expansa Water Turtle - Tarekaya

Capybara - Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris Watrass - Pîranwi

Yellow-knobbed Curassow - Crax daubentoni Powis - Pawi

Blue-throated Piping Guan - Pipile pipile Marudi - Kuyu

Spix Guan - Penelope jacquaca Marudi - Wora

Grey-winged Trumpeter - Psophia crepitans Waracabra - Akami

Collared Peccary - Pecari tajacu Small Bush Hog - Praka

White-lipped Peccary - Tayassu pecari Large Bush Hog - Pinkîî

Red brocket Deer - Mazama Americana Bush Deer - Sarii

Grey Brocket Deer - Mazama gouazoubira Savannah Deer - Kariyaki

White-tailed Deer - Odocoileus virginianus Little Bush Deer - Empîma / Wykin

Red-rumped Agouti – Dasyprocta agouti Agouti - Akuri

Tapir - Tapirus terrestris Bush Cow - Wayra

Paca - Agouti paca Labba - Wîrana

Bush Dog - Speothos venaticus Bush Dog - Îîe

Giant Armadillo* - Priodontes maximus Armadillo - Mauremî

Great Long-nosed Armadillo – Dasypus Kappleri Armadillo - Ewaropaimî

Red Howler Monkey* - Alouatta seniculus Baboon - Arauta

Brown-bearded Saki - Chiropotes satanus River Monkey - Kusiwî

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Black Spider Monkey* - Ateles panisus Spider Monkey - Kuwata

* Not eaten by all Makushi or Wapishana people and not commonly eaten in present-day

Fishing is practiced in both rainy and dry seasons and depending on the season,

different species are found to be more plentiful (as detailed in Figure 6.3). During the

rainy season when fishing becomes quite challenging for community members, they

engage in hunting beyond their preference for occasional or opportunistic hunting.

Game animals are found more easily by edge areas of watersheds and forests, and

trapped on islands created by seasonal flooding. Although most young hunters now

prefer to hunt alone, especially on shorter day trips closer to the village, the custom long

ago was for hunters to go in groups. On longer hunting and fishing trips, families would

make the trips together, setting up a campsite to pass one or more nights. An elder from

Surama recalls (VE3, 2009):

Very seldom would individuals go off and hunt because of the kanaima [revenge sorcerer], they were afraid of it in certain places so they couldn’t go…toshao would ask some of us to do the fishing and some to do the hunting in groups of four or five so you kinda safe, especially if there is a big animal like a tapir or a jaguar…and you’d take the meat to the toshao and he would see that everybody got some.

The last line of the elder’s description refers to the custom in most Indigenous societies

to share hunting and fishing bounty amongst families and even the entire village. This

customary institution of sharing hunting and food surplus amongst the community is

called ‘feasting’ and its decline within the communities has emerged as a central

concern and indication of the decline in customary practice and community integrity

resulting from the increasing modern influences of the cash economy and individualism.

Sharing hunting surplus and feasting is still practiced but restricted to festivities

during Christmas, Amerindian Heritage Month, weddings and other celebrations

affecting multiple households or the village. Elders and older community members

particularly regard the customs of group hunting and sharing hunting bounty as

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important symbols of togetherness or community cohesion that reinforce relationships of

reciprocity between social groups, and between people, animals, and the environment

(VE3, 2009).

Figure 6.3 Favoured Catch Fish of North Rupununi Communities

Favoured Catch Fish (dry season) Common name and Makushi name

Catch Fish (wet season) Common name and Makushi name

Hassa – Kiriwo Houri – Patakai

Lukunani – Kamakara Haimara – Aima

Catfish – Kurudu Larima

Arapaima – Warapai Amuri

Paku – Pakuyun Paku – Pakuyun

Piranha/ Perai - Anutîpi / Kariyai Policeman boots – Kîrikîrimî

Kurumai Pineskin

Basha – Pakupa Tiger fish – Kurutu

Arawana – Arawana Banana fish – Paruimî

Sword fish – Moruwi Congolau/ Bitter head - Maipupai

Baiara – Paya Baiara – Paya

Cartabac - Kupita / Kamana Imehri – Amîri / Anuiya

Lau lau – Pasisi Lau lau – Pasisi

Red tail Waradiro

Fox fish – Maikan Yukoniri

Yarrow – Karasai Sun fish – Kosopa

As mentioned previously, hunters of the North Rupununi do not have the custom

of practicing aggressive hunting and most hunters discussed their preference for

opportunistic hunting whereby game animals are occasionally hunted if they are

encountered in human–animal overlap areas (see Map 5.1) i.e. farm areas, rivers and

ponds, around the village compound, on hunting lines, on transect lines, or when they

are visible in the savannah. A village elder and peaiman from Kwatamang Village

explains, “Villagers do not want to disturb around their village and stay closer to the

Mauri Creek and do opportunistic hunting around the farms or if peccaries come out into

the savanna” (VE16, 2009). Elders and hunters said that the practice of opportunistic

hunting is more sustainable and puts very little pressure on local game-animal

populations that are under far more pressure in other Indigenous and rural societies

throughout the Amazonic region (Silvius et al., 2004). Moreover, by engaging in fishing

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and mostly opportunistic hunting, they feel that they are not actively infringing on the

animals’ lives and habitats, or abusing their relationship with the animals (VE5, 2009;

VH3, 2009).

Also contributing greatly to a decline in hunting practice and its impact on game-

animal populations are the conservation and eco-tourism initiatives and impacts from

changing lifestyles and employment patterns. Most hunters, especially those who are

actively working with IIC and other conservation, wildlife research or tourism initiatives,

emphasized their increasing integration within the regional wage economy and

subsequent reliance on purchasing either wild meat and fish from hunters selling

surplus, or domesticated meat from shops (VE6 & VH10, 2009). They also discussed

that with their developing ecological consciousness from interacting with elders, and

especially with the community-led and collaborative conservation initiatives, they feel

uncomfortable engaging in active and willful hunting around their villages. Large-scale

commercial hunting and fishing, especially on village territories, are not tolerated in

either customary or contemporary community management systems. The PHRIA report

(Forte, 2000) and recent community wildlife research data (CEW2, 2009; VH10, 2009)

indicate that approximately seventy-five percent of all wild meat and fish are used for

subsistence-based home use, or shared amongst family and other villagers. However, it

is customary that if a family catches a small amount of surplus meat (mostly fish), than it

is sold within the village to buy small necessities for their family (IR6, 2000; VH10, 2009).

As alluded to previously, it is widely recognized that some customary and

contemporary hunting and fishing practices are unsustainable and threaten both the

ecological integrity of the species population and ecosystem, as well as the cultural

integrity of the communities’ customary system. The unsustainable and harmful

customary hunting practices that are identified by many community members are:

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i) poisoning fishes with plant extracts such as haiare (a‘ya in Makushi) and kurare, and

ii) engaging in shooting frenzies of white-lipped peccary herds that annually expose

themselves in the savannah. Village leaders and IIC and CI rangers also mentioned that

it has been certain individuals, rather than the majority of community members, who are

engaged in the aforementioned activities – as well as there have been many people

outside the North Rupununi communities and Coastlanders who illegally hunt local

wildlife (IR1-8, 2009; VC1-12, 2009).

Under careful protocol and supervision by a village elder or peaiman, poisoning

fish is an exact science that is now discouraged under the contemporary community

management system (see Figure 5.2). Two village leaders from Surama discuss that the

customary practice of fish poisoning is contrary to their ethic for sustainable harvesting

of fish and animals and they have been educating villagers to cease this practice and

use more sustainable alternatives such as bow and arrow, or hook and line: “the

traditional practice of poisoning the fish, we came to advise people that this is wrong,

you are killing all the fish and any animals who come to drink from this water…we give

them alternatives for their fishing practice that are more sustainable” (VC1 & 2, 2009). In

both the customary and contemporary village management systems, community

members are encouraged to not beset themselves on a sudden herd of peccaries in the

savannah. Responsible harvesting quotas and techniques continue to be encouraged

such as: not shooting more animals than is necessary for the hunter and his family, and

not injuring animals and leaving them to die (see Figure 5.2).

In more recent times, community members described several unsustainable

practices that have had quite a devastating impact on wildlife populations and the

integrity of customary systems in the communities. Brazilian and other foreign markets

for exotic and rare animals compelled Indigenous hunters to harvest arapaima

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(Arapaima gigas), giant river turtles (Podocnemis expansa), giant otters (Pteronura

brasiliensis) and black caiman (Melanosuchus niger) in the decades between 1960 and

1970 (Watkins et al., 1999). Although those industries and the local economy

underpinning them have significantly declined over the past almost forty years, many

local hunters and their families learned to develop a taste for arapaima and continued to

predate upon the large fish for subsistence and commercial reasons. There is an

relatively successful NRDDB-led Arapaima Management Project facilitated by IIC and

the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute in Brazil, to restore arapaima

populations to healthy levels and to establish harvesting and conservation regulations at

the community level.

Another recent unsustainable practice related to harvesting animals for the

international wildlife trade, and for local commercial sale has been the trapping of

psittacines –– macaws, parrots and parakeets, and song birds (tawa tawa in Makushi).

However, village leaders, community environmental workers, rangers, local wildlife

researchers educate community members on the unsustainability of such practices, as

well as attempting to discourage and regulate against such practices through village

management plans and the new PRMU guidelines. Seine and large cast nets are also

an unsustainable modern hunting practice widely criticized by most community members

for its larger-scale and indiscriminate method of catching all sizes and species of fish,

most of which are not consumed by local people. A village elder details the negative

impacts on local fish stocks, and her relentless efforts to regulate and control use of

seine nets within Fairview Village (VE12, 2009):

I been long on people about this seine setting and how bad it is for our fish and river…the village rules say that each household can have one length of seine to fish with and no more…long I been fighting about this system they are doing…especially when the river low and they setting seine, it is very destructive to the fish…if people

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from here and outside continue to do this to our river, we will kill the river…and all the pools dry out and then we have nothing left.

Community leaders’ and villagers’ reflexivity and recognition of unsustainable

customary and contemporary wildlife practices is attributed to an expanding

conservation awareness and ethic that are credited to both IIC’s educational and

outreach programs, and to a reconnection with the customary knowledge and attendant

environmental responsibilities that are imparted by elders. The IIC and other

conservation partners have asserted stringent campaigns against the poisoning of fish

species and watersheds, the use of seine and catch nets, and uncontrolled savanna

burning for farms and pest control. Thus, IIC’s campaigns to raise awareness amongst

community partners appear to have directly influenced people’s practices, as well as the

development of guidelines and regulations at the village level to mitigate unsustainable

wildlife harvesting and usage. Simultaneously influential, however, is the persistence of

experiential knowledge and advice on culturally and ecologically informed and

responsible hunting, fishing and farming practices.

Bina and Cultural Taboos Regarding Animal Use

Although called by different names, ‘bina’ (in Makushi, marang, and Wapishana, pasãnk)

is widely used amongst Indigenous peoples throughout Amazonia and South America

and refers to charms comprised mainly of plants, but also other living beings, that are

believed to contain special medicinal properties and spirits that can be harnessed by

humans if treated with respect and understanding (VE11 & 12, 2009; MRU, p.c., 2009).

Bina are used ritually for hunting, fishing and other specific practices and administered

on humans, animals or weapons in formulaic ways and accompanied by prayers ––

particularly under the counsel of a peaiman or elders who have specialized knowledge of

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bina and other medicinal plants. A hunter and wildlife researcher from Wowetta Village

explains (VE10, 2009):

My grandparents and father said that they used to use the bina to do their hunting…they use specific plants for each type of animal and they would get some prayers to put on their arrow point so that the animal would get dead right away…not suffer, yuh see?...and in this way they connect to the animal spirit…

Peaimen, elders and hunters who use bina will carefully protect their knowledge, as well

as cultivate and nourish their bina plants with offerings of tobacco, water and cassava

bread (MRU & Forte, 1996). Indigenous people of the North Rupununi believe that each

game animal or intended harvest practice has its own designated bina. An elder and

hunter from Wowetta Village details (VE1, 2009):

If you ain’t got bina, the agouti can’t come to you…you can’t get luck…you go in the forest and if you get bina, you see peccary coming, marudi, powis, bush deer, agouti, all them kind of things…they used to also use giant ants and scorpions for bina…the stings would make huntmen willing and ready to move.

Most types of bina are used for hunting purposes, but some are used in a

prophylactic manner to ward off evil spirits, kanaima (assault sorcery – Whitehead, 2002;

Whitehead & Wright, 2004) or sickness; or to attract a romantic partner (VE7 & 8, 2009).

The spirits of some bina are very powerful, such as the pana pana or kumi morani, which

will alert a person by whistling if a kanaima is nearby. As further detailed by the research

of the Makushi Research Unit (1996) in their compendium of Makushi natural history

knowledge and environmental and customary practices (p. 149), “The recognition of

many subtle parallels and associations between a bina and the end it seeks to ensure or

influence reinforces the poetic, deeply spiritual association that the Makushi experience

with the natural world. Nature and the unknown are socialized through bina, the

intervention of man in association with benign, but powerful, plant and animal spirits (p.

149).”

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Other cultural practices identified by hunters included dreams, prayers and signs

that related to hunting and fishing success, and entering into closer relationships with

local animals. A wildlife researcher and former CEW from Wowetta recalls, “People used

to pray, the traditional prayer, and then they used to go in the forest to hunt or gather

products…it was their way of respecting the forest and animals them” (CEW2, 2009).

Younger hunters who pray, do so more to bless the hunt and for hunting success, rather

than thinking specifically of the reciprocity between hunter and animal. However, both

older and younger hunters spoke specifically to the deeper connection that was fostered

through such rituals. Some hunters said that they feel as though they are communicating

with the spirits of animals through rituals, while others said that they realized how

dependent they are on both game animals and other animals that assist ecological

processes such as seed transplantation (VE3, 6, 10, 12-16, 2009; VH1-11, 2009).

Dreams were referenced as a sign of luck before hunting or fishing. Signs refer to other

animals, or animal markings that the hunter would seek out on his hunting trips,

signifying that the hunter would soon encounter his game animal. Rituals also transmit

the hunter’s respect for game animals’ lives, and the important roles they have within the

ecosystems they inhabit.

An integral aspect of the historical and extant customary norms and moral codes

regulating the use of animals are cultural taboos and their associated beliefs related to

specific local animal species. Cultural taboos pertain mostly to dietary consumption of

animals, but there are also taboos restricting harmful interaction with specific animal

species, and menstrual women’s activities. There are varied beliefs and myths

associated with what befalls a community member who transgresses taboo restrictions,

but most centre on illness of the transgressor and/or her child.

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Elders believe that taboos and dietary restrictions were developed by the ancestors

to help protect certain species of game animals from over-predation and over-

consumption. A village leader from Surama reflects (VC9, 2009):

Long ago, you had people who never used to eat certain animals. That allowed all animal types to be plentiful. But now, people are learning to eat different wild animals and people coming in from different places and saying that we should eat certain things that people here never eat before like arapaima.

They also believe that while all animals have spirits and are protected by a master spirit,

certain animals have powerful spirit properties that must not be consumed or interfered

with by humans for they would sicken the person and his young children (VE3; 6; 12,

2009). Such powerful properties are often based on the specific phenotypical and

behavioural characteristics of an animal species and if the transgressor consumes the

meat, s/he and any young children are believed to suffer from illness. For example, most

fish taboos are directed at pregnant or lactating women and to small children whereby

the spirit of certain fish are believed to be stronger than the new spirit of the baby or

child (MRU & Forte, 1996; VE12, 2009).

Hence, the deep reciprocal bond between local animals and humans is manifested

as either respect for the animal and its spirit properties through observance of the taboo,

or as direct integration with the animal’s spirit properties through consumption of or

interaction with the animal. If a hunter and his family wish to eat a taboo meat that he

has caught, they would have to request a peaiman or elder to blow tobacco smoke and

bless the meat with prayer (VE2, 2009). Many villagers described personal experiences

of family members, or themselves having been afflicted by illness due to contravening a

taboo. They were able to overcome the illness through the assistance and care of a

peaiman or elder and prescribed medicinal plants. Some younger and middle-aged

community members said that since they know of people who have already eaten a

taboo meat, or interacted with a taboo animal and survived, they no longer believe in

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cultural taboos and eat whatever they like (VH1-3, 2009). However, since cultural

taboos, like many other cultural beliefs and customary norms, are inculcated in

community members from childhood and integrated within many aspects of their daily

lives, many people continue to believe in some of these customs and try to abstain from

particular game animals. I include here several of the most common taboos and their

related beliefs within the North Rupununi communities. Taboo restricting consumption of

small bush deer (white-tailed deer) (VE3, 2009):

There is the small deer in the forest that they call oma or jumbie deer, that’s what people believed…a very small one. You couldn’t eat it and for the animal’s protection and for the people’s protection…many people are allergic to its meat…my daughter is one, anytime she eats it, her lips swell up. And if a woman has a baby and even comes in the house where that deer meat is, the baby gets affected, just bringing the meat inside…I don’t know if it psychologically affected them, but it is well-known throughout Guyana and Brazil.

Taboo restricting consumption of tapir meat (VE6, 2009):

The tapir’s spirit will mash up the baby like it mash up cassava crops if a pregnant woman or her husband eats tapir meat (VE14 & 15, 2009).

Taboo restricting interference with large snakes (VC1 & 2, 2009):

If a woman is pregnant, we have this big snake…actually both the land and water comoudis, the anaconda and the boa constrictor…but if the woman is pregnant, the boa constrictor is more effective on her…if I go and I kill that snake, then my wife would lose her baby…up till now, people believe this.

Hence, whether devised by the ancestors as overt cultural mechanisms to protect

certain animal species from over-predation and over-consumption, and/or as social

norms to protect people from strong spiritual properties, cultural taboos have had the

result of controlling predation rates on focal animals. Although not specifically included in

community conservation or wildlife management plans and guidelines, cultural taboos

are recognized in both the North and South Rupununi as a customary practice related to

sustainable local wildlife and natural resource management (Allicock, 2008; David et al.,

2006).

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CHAPTER SEVEN: CONSERVATION TRANSFORMATIONS AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL

This chapter signifies a culmination of the collaborative and community-initiated

conservation and management processes that have been strengthening and

reconfiguring the local ecological, institutional and socio-cultural contexts of the North

Rupununi communities and territories. As such, particular transformations and conditions

have been developing and re-shaping the landscape of community conservation

leadership and socio-ecological governance at the community level –– and provide

interesting possibilities for collaborative and community-led conservation within global

contexts. Specific initiatives and projects developed by local communities and

institutions are analyzed: wildlife management and research projects; a comprehensive

set of guidelines and regulations on sustainable wildlife and natural resource

management at the village level; culture, language, and knowledge revitalization

projects; community development projects; building environmental consciousness and

education; and community-designated conservation areas (CCAs). The development of

community-designated conservation areas and the potential benefits of protected areas,

such as the Iwokrama Forest, are an important feature of community-led management.

Devolution of Rights, Responsibilities and Powers to Communities

Due to the inequitable terrain of legal and management powers that underpin most state

and institutional conservation policies, even the more community-centered collaborative

arrangements such as the NRDDB-IIC partnership, there is a conservation imperative for

transitioning Indigenous communities to effective and more autonomous conservation

leadership at the community level within the context of genuine forms of devolution and

decentralization. A genuine devolution of rights, responsibilities and powers related to

wildlife and environmental management, and even to protected areas to communities,

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entails conservation organizations and state agencies transferring some, or all, of their

control and authority to the local communities who are the primary users of and rights-

holders to lands and resources under protection.

A tandem process is that of decentralization –– transferring the decision-making

responsibilities associated with wildlife and environmental management to Indigenous or

local communities. Decentralized decision-making is constructive within local

conservation practice and adaptive management strategies since it incorporates both

local customary and contemporary institutions (which are grounded in the community’s

worldview), as well as their customary knowledge in adapting to ecological and social

change. Many international conservation and development bodies and policy and

regulatory frameworks –– such as Principles 2 and 7 of the UN Convention on

Biodiversity’s Ecosystem Approach (UNEP, 2000) –– often do not speak to devolution of

rights and powers to local communities, but they do endorse decentralized decision-

making and management authorities to the local level.

Since the transfer of rights and control inherently requires conservation and state

institutions to relinquish control and decision-making and management power over lands

and resources, democratic and complete processes of devolution are extremely rare

within collaborative arrangements. As such, for organizations such as IIC, which are

seemingly committed to preserving Indigenous rights and working collaboratively

through Indigenous institutions, the concept of devolving control over any part of the

Iwokrama Forest reserve or conservation program never enters into their formal

discourse. However, IIC has been very supportive of NRDDB-BHI’s increasing local

authority over community-led conservation and development projects, as well as

autonomous conservation management at the village level.

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While rare, if devolution processes are done democratically, and not as a means

of coopting and/or placating local communities, there is great potential for impactful

environmental governance and conservation leadership within communities. Ribot’s

(2004, 2006) analysis of devolution in global forest contexts affirms that devolution “can

promote equitable distributions of benefits from resource use, because allocation of

benefits is determined by local democratic decision-making…It can bring more local

knowledge to bear on management decisions.” When addressing devolution and

decentralized decision-making within conservation contexts such as the NRDDB-IIC

partnership and the development of community-led management initiatives, it is

important that such processes are transformative for communities in terms of embodying

rights and inclusivity, and strengthening their socio-ecological institutions and practices.

Additionally, devolving management powers to Indigenous communities loses meaning if

it is “already oriented to specific types of outcomes and assumes that existing resource

management practices are irrelevant to conservation goals (Brockington et al., 2008, p.

99).”

Witrh regard to the formal processes that enable local agency of the North

Rupununi communities within collaborative and community-led regimes of environmental

decision-making and management, the concept of decentralization can be expanded to

describe it as a process of environmentality (Agrawal, 2005), or acknowledging

community actors as environmental subjects: “Environmental subjects are those for

whom the environment constitutes a critical domain of thought and action” p. 16).

Historically and philosophically speaking, the North Rupununi communities have, out of

practical and cultural necessity, created systems of customary knowledge and practice

that have informed their understandings of, and relations with the lands, waters and

animals around them.

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However, as explored through processes of transculturation, creolization and

syncretism, local environmental subjectivities are also influenced and transformed over

time by the emergence of new cultural norms and governance institutions such as

conservation organizations, protected area schemes and collaborative management

arrangements. These are what Agrawal describes as “institutional matrices of power”

(ibid.) that can manifest within both internal community institutions and practices, and

external institutions and regimes. Within a more contemporary and syncretic

understanding of decentralized environmentality, the North Rupununi communities ––

particularly specific actors who are strategically positioned within collaborative and

community conservation actions –– are active environmental subjects both by their own

determination, and through the interventions of conservation organizations such as the

IIC.

The ideal outcome of collaborative conservation partnerships would be for

Indigenous and local community partners to strengthen their capacities to a level

whereby a substantive amount of decision-making and management powers for

conservation are eventually transferred from conservation organizations to community

actors. Or, at the very least, such powers are equitably shared. However, it is extremely

rare for state and/or conservation organizations to relinquish the majority of powers to

Indigenous actors. In fact, decision-making and management powers regarding the

environment and conservation continues to be a mostly “top down” approach in Guyana,

whether from state agencies or conservation organizations. Devolved environmental

management powers have not as yet been provided to the North Rupununi (Region 9) or

any other Administrative Regions.

Although Indigenous partners have recognized collaborative management and

user rights, neither IIC nor Conservation International have offered the possibility for

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Indigenous communities to absorb full rights and powers to control and manage the

Iwokrama Forest reserve or the Upper Essequibo Conservation Concession area.

However, with regard to the Conservation Concession, there have apparently been

some vague and unverified promises by CI and Guyana Forestry Commission (GFC) to

the partner villages of Rewa, Crashwater and Apoteri that ownership and management

powers (currently retained by the GFC) will be devolved to them after a ten-year period

(IR6, 2009; p.c., 2009). However, neither NRDDB, community leaders, nor Conservation

International rangers have a clear understanding or formal commitment by either CI or

GFC on such a transfer of powers. As such, community members are quite wary of the

promises made by both institutions.

While formal land rights and customary systems may not in and of themselves

guarantee viable and sustainable forms of wildlife conservation and management at the

community level, their accompaniment by strong local governance institutions,

alternative economic alternatives and institutional support from conservation partners

make them immensely influential to the long-term interest and capacity of the North

Rupununi communities to responsibly manage their lands and wildlife. Furthermore, IIC

has played an active role (one that is unfortunately diminishing) in facilitating NRDDB

and constituent communities in the development of leadership and autonomous

management capacities at the village level. As expressed by a CI ranger, “We working

with IIC and CI, is about we as a community taking control in terms of creating a system

of managing our resources along the lines of our way of life here” (IR6, 2009). Hence,

there is an interesting and complex interplay of, on the one hand, partially devolved

conservation and management responsibilities and on the other, rights to communities

within the rubric of the NRDDB-IIC partnership, and Indigenous people’s proactive

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agency to develop contemporary and syncretic community conservation systems defined

according to their priorities and values.

Institutional Constraints and Support for Community-Led Conservation

It is significant at this concluding stage of the dissertation to highlight and synthesize the

implications of the NRDDB-IIC collaborative partnership for local community leadership

and transformation. In particular, have the IIC and other conservation partners

supported the North Rupununi communities to become more self-sufficient and

autonomous in developing and implementing community-level conservation and

development initiatives? How have the communities been able to channel the

conservation and managerial capacities they have adopted and syncretized from their

partnership with IIC, into viable and democratic forms of conservation leadership and

environmental governance at the community level? Also significant is whether the

present frameworks of collaborative conservation partnerships and community-led

conservation and environmental management are contributing substantively toward the

strengthening of ecological and cultural integrity within the North Rupununi.

Furthermore, are such frameworks contributing toward the protection of Indigenous

rights and interests vis-à-vis broader conservation and development goals?

Ultimately, the North Rupununi communities are not interested in perpetuating

exclusively Western models of managing wildlife and environments but rather, as

Hildyard describes: “For them, the question is not how their environment should be

managed –– they have the experience of the past as their guide –– but who will manage

their environment and in whose interest” (1993, p. 23-4). This is succinctly encapsulated

by two village leaders from Surama (VC1 & 2, 2009):

The important thing that we need to get across to people is that this is our home and our resources and only we can control the way we use it and how we act in relation

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to it. We have to put in place both systems that preserve our culture and preserve our environment. So it has to be a balance between the old ways and the new ways.

Much of the existing literature on community-led and community conserved areas

(CCAs) has been written in a tone highly supportive of, and even from the perspective

of, Indigenous and local communities. However, since many of the publications have

been produced by international institutions such as IUCN, there is little fine-grained and

critical analysis of the cultural, epistemological and political complexities and implications

framing such experiences for Indigenous and local populations. Theoretical and

empirical evidence (document analysis and interviews and observations with community

members) indicate that there are intrinsic strengths within community-led initiatives that

are also commensurate with some of the social justice, sustainability and place-based

imperatives that have been highlighted for building collaborative conservation

partnerships.

Throughout this study I have emphasized the importance of understanding the

place-based nature of customary systems and contemporary conservation strategies.

These systems and strategies are conditioned by, and responsive to, the specific

contexts and relational entanglements of a specific community. Thus, the particular

combination of transformative change and resiliency within the North Rupununi

communities’ customary systems, livelihood and environmental practices is reflective of

their evolving relationships to the landscapes, animal and plant species of the region,

and to the modern conservation interventions initiated by IIC. It is also important to

reiterate that the effectiveness and sustainability of both customary and contemporary

conservation systems depends on community members having adaptive and situated

knowledge of, and relationships with their environments and regional animals.

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Empowering Community Conservation Leadership

The trajectories of ideological, politico-ecological and cultural change for Indigenous

communities in the North Rupununi has been manifold, particularly with respect to their

collaborative relationship and management partnership with IIC. It must be noted that

despite the breadth and significance of such change, many community members state

that important aspects of their way of life, including socio-ecological relationships,

cultural values related to the environment, and harvesting and livelihood practices have

remained strong and enduring (VE1-16; VC1-12). Moreover, they credit the values and

wisdom of their way of life as endowing them with the foundational knowledge and

experience to adapt to and negotiate contemporary conservation and wildlife

management strategies for development of their communities and the complex realities

facing them. For example, a combination of local natural history knowledge; customary

harvesting norms and hunting expertise; respect for sacred areas; and the ethical and

spiritual values imparted by elders and peaimen regarding relationships of

interconnectedness, reciprocity and responsibility toward animals, plants and habitats

(see Figure 5.2) have been foundational to the development of sustainable wildlife and

natural resource harvesting and use protocols at the village level and the proposed

Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit (PRMU) Guidelines.

In a national workshop on community natural resource management held by BHI

(PRMU Draft, 2005), the North Rupununi communities overwhelmingly agreed that the

four key areas of capacity development critical for community members to be able to

develop conservation leadership and sustainably use and manage their wildlife, forest

and wetland resources are:

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1) Good governance on social and environmental issues

2) Wildlife and natural resource management

3) Alternative livelihoods and community support

4) Community support and incentive-building

Although the NRDDB-BHI and communities are now engaged with different

conservation and development partners on diverse community-level and regional

projects, the most transformative source of change is definitely attributed to the

emergence of IIC and establishment of the Iwokrama Forest reserve and conservation

program. For the most part, community members have a positive view of their

relationship with IIC and identify the organization’s collaborative partnership and

community outreach initiatives as having a positive influence on the preexisting

ecological consciousness and sustainable harvesting and use ethic within communities.

Several village leaders from Surama describe the positive informative and action-

oriented influence that the NRDDB-IIC conservation partnership has had on the

community’s evolving conservation and environmental management program (VC1, 2 &

9, 2009):

Well, since Iwokrama came into being, we have a big change in our lives and there are lots of different reasons. A lot of young people now…because of all these NRDDB and Iwokrama story. They have seen life here quite differently. They are seeing how to protect their environment and resources and how to care for fauna. They now understand and respect certain things that people didn’t for some time. These children learn that they must respect the animals and plants and forest, that they must use them wisely so that they will always be here. The awareness that they are learning has been very very good…

A key element to IIC’s relatively high level of engagement with communities, and

the cultural relevance of its conservation program is that approximately 60% of IIC staff

are North Rupununi community members (IM1, 2009). In terms of community leadership,

the Elder Advisor, several former NRDDB executives, numerous village toshaos and

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counselors, and many former wildlife club leaders, mentors and members are, or were,

on staff with IIC. This large representation of Indigenous community members within IIC,

especially within its International Board of Trustees, Advisory Board and management

structure, has had a profound influence on the NRDDB-IIC collaborative relationship,

and the envisioning and implementation of conservation research, management and

business initiatives. It has also bolstered the level of leadership capacities and

opportunities for interested community members to become leaders in socio-ecological

governance and conservation within their villages.

NRDDB and BHI are particularly committed to educating, mentoring and training

youth from the North and South Rupununi in the customary knowledge, theoretical,

research and practical areas of an array of subjects related to the environment, wildlife,

culture, and sustainable livelihoods. Inspiring youth to be self-empowered, remain in

their communities and become community and/or conservation leaders are priorities for

community leaders. BHI particularly hires youth as staff and project leaders, especially

graduates from the Bina Hill Training Institute. An IIC director and a manager, both

engaged with the communities and highly supportive of autonomous community-led

initiatives, describe the “Ladder of Conservation Leadership” –– a tool that promotes

community conservation leadership by creating a bridge between youth participation in

educational, capacity development and conservation initiatives facilitated by IIC, and

environmental and socio-cultural leadership opportunities within their villages,

Indigenous institutions and locally based conservation organizations (M1 & 2, 2009).

They describe the particular advancement of wildlife club members into higher

educational and leadership roles (M1 & 2, 2009):

Over time, we have witnessed wildlife club members developing and maturing from club activities, and embracing positions as youth leaders in areas of social and cultural development like Makushi researchers, CEWs, and wildlife researchers; in environment and conservation as guides, rangers, wetlands researchers and youth

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leaders; and governance like the NRDDB executive. They have been moving on into secondary, tertiary and BHI training school.

However, due to funding constraints and shifts in institutional leadership and

global conservation priorities, IIC and other partner organizations have scaled back

many of their community outreach, capacity development and institutional support

initiatives with communities. Thus, it has become even more incumbent upon the North

Rupununi institutions and community leaders to inspire and support environmental and

socio-cultural leadership and governance within the communities. It is also incumbent

upon local institutions and leaders to design conservation leadership and governance

initiatives that strengthen and promote cultural revitalization and livelihood development.

Moreover, a sense of continuity and commitment to revitalizing customary

knowledge and institutions are central to substantive forms of local leadership and

governance. The environment and wildlife are not merely discrete entities for study or

enjoyment, but are rather integral to a way of life and formation of cultural identity for

Indigenous communities. As such, conservation at the community level is about “People

defend places from which they derive their livelihoods and identity” (Cheng et al. in Bray

& Velázquez, 2009, p.12).

An issue of critical importance to both the sustainability and viability of the

NRDDB-IIC collaborative partnership and to community-led conservation is the level of

interest, adoption and involvement of Indigenous community members within different

strategies. While the collaborative relationship with IIC and other partners has taken

time to develop and be widely accepted within the communities, community members

have been particularly enthusiastic and involved within village-level and the regional

PRMU conservation and governance frameworks. People of diverse social groupings

within the communities have volunteered an immense amount of their time and energy

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to both the collaborative and community-led processes in terms of: building their

knowledge and capacities through educational, training and research initiatives; adapting

to, and negotiating between different discourses and management styles; participating in

meetings and consultations to plan and make decisions; and engaging in conservation

and actions and projects.

Community leaders in conservation and socio-ecological governance, from

elders to youths, are highly enthusiastic about the work that they do and are particularly

passionate about inspiring involvement from the younger generations, and contributing

to the continuity of knowledge, cultural development and health environments. A wildlife

researcher and former CEW notes, “Since I get to know myself, especially with our lands

and resources, I get to be very aware and I really feel interested in conservation…to my

children, I have been talking about it and to all the youths that I been working with over

the years” (CEW1, 2009).

Unlike external partners who mostly get paid or earn credit for their conservation

work, the majority of community members volunteer their time without monetary or other

formal compensation. Members from further villages must leave their families and travel

arduous journeys by canoe, walking, bicycle, motorcycle or vehicle to reach meetings,

workshops and project activities (PRMU, 2005). Despite the considerable challenges of

conservation approaches, the intensity of people’s commitment is thus reflected in the

intense investment that most community members make toward protecting the

ecological and cultural integrity of their territories and communities.

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Characteristics of Difference between Community-Based and Community-Led Conservation

Within both mainstream and critical conservation literatures are designations of

conservation initiatives at the community level as either “community-based” or

“community-led.” As with most other terms used in global conservation parlance, and

those featured within this study, each term speaks to a specific conceptual terrain and

set of practices that converge on certain aspects, and diverge on others. Hence, the

difference between them is not merely semantic. Community-based conservation

overlaps with both collaborative and community-led approaches in these ways:

i) It typically involves collaborative and power/benefit-sharing processes and mechanisms between Indigenous or local communities and external actors;

ii) Community actors equitably share control and decision-making authority on

initiatives; iii) Initiatives and outcomes are responsive to community concerns and aspirations; iv) The initiatives are based within the community setting; and v) The process and results are beneficial to communities for contributing toward

progressive social change and human development.

However, most community-based approaches are institutionally implemented

(and often conceived) by external state and/or conservation organizations and as such,

the configuration of power is often skewed, at some level, against communities. Like

many of the weaknesses and inequities inherent within most collaborative and co-

management arrangements, community-based conservation does not often offer

community actors the same level of self-determined and leadership agency as does a

community-led approach. Furthermore, community-based approaches tend to co-opt the

human resource and knowledge capacities of Indigenous and local peoples through their

emphasis on externally conceived participatory modalities, rather than fostering local

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governance, self-determination and leadership. McMurphree (2001) describes the on-

the-ground reality of participatory or community-based conservation as “conservation

with the people” –– very different from the promised goal of “conservation by the

people”. In some contexts, such community-based approaches have been heavily

funded by external sources and have transferred enough power and resources to

community members to be successful (at least in the initial stages). However, the reality

in most community-based conservation contexts, especially those documented by

McMurhree, is that “where successes stand as islands in a sea of initiatives where

performance rarely matches promise and is sometimes abysmal” (p. 5).

As a point of departure and transition from a strictly collaborative management

arrangement, community-led configurations are premised more on Indigenous peoples’

agency and leadership throughout the whole project or management cycle, rather than

at selected entry points as is often the case within collaborative or community-based

approaches. Furthermore, the inherent and increasing precariousness of the globalized

economy and international funding climate, creating dependency on markets, state

agencies and funding institutions, can be very crippling to Indigenous communities,

community self-empowerment and self-reliance mechanisms.

With the confidence and enhanced capacities and awareness gained from their

partnership with NRDDB-BHI, IIC and other conservation partners, community members

have built on their customary systems to envision and implement contemporary

institutions and initiatives responsive to the present context of environmental and wildlife

issues. NRDDB and BHI have also forged their own partnerships with international

organizations and funders to get the extensive financial and institutional support needed

to realize their ambitious and multifaceted initiatives. However, NRDDB, BHI and

community leaders have the challenge of taking a more active role in mediating

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externally motivated research projects conducted in the region, as well as spearheading

and controlling their own research projects that are commensurate with communities’

needs and priorities. Thus, the evolution of community institutions such as NRDDB, BHI,

and village councils have provided the leadership and framework of legal and political

powers for the communities to take responsibility and ownership over their land and

resource use practices and relationships.

A syncretic mélange of customary normative and governance practices, cultural

institutions, Indigenous and modern scientific knowledges, and modern conservation

management and regulatory mechanisms have been brought together within the present

village management plans and regulations, and the regional Pîyakîîta Resource

Management Unit (PRMU) guidelines. Additionally, the contemporary reconfiguration of

local socio-ecological governance institutions such as NRDDB, BHI and village councils

and committees have become an important link between Indigenous communities and a

global network of conservation institutions and protected areas, research, ideologies and

markets.

Framework of Possibilities for Community Conservation Leadership

The “maturation of models” (Bray & Velázquez, 2009, p. 11) of community-led

conservation and protected areas in the North Rupununi indicates that contemporary

Indigenous systems that are simultaneously embedded in customary institutions and

influenced by modern collaborative and scientific models offer a more relevant

framework for complex local socio-ecological issues. Brockington et al., (2008, p. 98)

affirm that “community conservation strategies will not be effective if they do not account

for actually existing customary systems and environmental practices and how these

have changed over time.”

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The 1999 National Toshaos Conference in Guyana emphasized that protected

areas should not only be established with free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) by

affected Indigenous communities, but moreover, they should be owned or co-owned by

communities as a way of both recognizing their territorial and stewardship rights and

protecting biodiversity (LaRose, 2004). Indigenous activist and journalist LaRose argues

that Indigenous-owned protected areas as a substantive part of Guyana’s national

protected areas system are the only sensible solution since the peoples “have been

protecting and managing our territories for centuries and have developed elaborate

management systems that are dependent on the maintenance of our knowledges and

cultures” (2004). CCAs are comprised of and formally recognize long-existing and

contemporary areas of ecological and cultural value to Indigenous communities, such as

sacred areas, cultural and ancestral sites, areas of high biodiversity, and areas inhabited

by rare and/or vulnerable animal and plant species.

Although there are few community-led initiatives and community conserved areas

(CCAs) that are formally recognized under national or international legal frameworks,

many de facto cases exist throughout the world. CCAs comprise an estimated 3.7 million

km2 of forests and forested landscapes around the world (Molnar, 2004) — not to

mention sacred ponds, rivers and other water sources. This is almost equivalent to the

total global area of officially recognized PAs (Pathak et al., 2006). Often, the initiatives

and CCAs that are formally recognized are sponsored at some level by an internationally

recognized conservation organization, such as the CI-sponsored Wai Wai community

organized conservation area (COCA) at Konashen in Guyana. The North Rupununi

communities have developed their own conservation leadership and socio-ecological

governance initiatives, natural resource management plans and regulatory guidelines

(village and regional levels), and village conservation areas. However, they are not yet

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formally recognized as having such autonomous structures. Community-led

configurations for conservation and protected areas provide a framework for:

i) alternative environmental governance approaches and institutions; ii) recognizing and

integrating cultural landscapes and cultural integrity within wildlife conservation and

protected area management; and iii) rights-based conservation inclusive of Indigenous

land and resource rights, social justice and local human development priorities.

Transformations in Local Governance and Conservation Leadership

When early European explorers, and later the Dutch seafarers, arrived in the territories

of Guyana, they encountered diverse Indigenous populations with intact and highly

functioning social and political systems of organization (Bulkan & Bulkan, 2006) ––

contrary to colonial accounts of Amerindian peoples living in agrarian disorder,

ecological chaos and unproductive entities. Historically, Indigenous people in Guyana

have had highly decentralized decision-making systems. The colonially imposed system

of having Village Captains (with the powers of a rural constable) and Village Councils

has now been accepted by Indigenous peoples. Land titles are vested in the Councils.

These institutions offer Indigenous peoples an important degree of self-governance and

regional associations of captains or toshaos and senior and junior councilors have

emerged, linked to a strong national Amerindian movement. Indigenous peoples in the

North Rupununi and throughout Guyana consider themselves to be unconquered and

autonomous peoples with distinct cultures, knowledges and languages, and who are

entitled to own and control their ancestral territories according to their customary laws

and governance systems (Colchester, 2002; MRU & Forte, 1996).

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Contemporary Wildlife and Resource Management System

In envisioning contemporary conservation and wildlife management strategies,

community leaders, elders and conservation actors from the North Rupununi have been

committed to developing management plans, regulatory mechanisms, and initiatives that

are grounded within relevant customary systems, and influenced by more progressive

conservation discourses and methodologies. However, at least in the articulation and

negotiation of community-led institutions and initiatives, the pervasiveness of modern

legal and policy discourses have often outweighed the customary and cultural

orientations of the communities. The visioning, translation and implementation of such

institutions and initiatives has continued to remain grounded in local discourses and

contexts.

In the present system of community governance in the North Rupununi, Village

Councils have authority to manage natural resource access and use on their titled lands.

Village Councils may also agree to form a representative District Council (e.g. in Annai

District: Annai, Surama, Wowetta, Kwatamang, Rupertee) to facilitate cooperative and

joint management of land use and natural resource management of constituent titled

villages of the North Rupununi. However, the Village Councils retain their ultimate

decision-making authority over lands and resources in their respective territories and the

development of their respective NRM management plans. Each village can inter alia

prohibit or control: entry and access to its territory; use of customary knowledge and

cultural productions; mining and logging activities; land zonation; protection of sacred

sites; and regulate hunting, fishing, tourism and research activities (Janki, 2008).

According to the PRMU guidelines (2005), the District Council possess all legal powers

and responsibilities granted by the Amerindian Act to a) advise and coordinate activities

of the Village Councils, b) ensure Council regulations and protocols on NRM are

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concise, c) plan and develop programs for the District on conservation and wildlife and

environmental management, and d) build consensus between constituent Councils and

members, and assist with conflict resolution. Contemporary village management plans

and the PRMU guidelines comprise of both “customary laws on careful resource use

and…village rules and territorial management plans for the conservation and sustainable

use of wildlife” (Griffiths & Anselmo, 2010, p. 13).

Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit (PRMU)

The Pîyakîîta (people of the landings) Resource Management Unit (PRMU) Regulatory

Guidelines and constituent village management plans were developed after extensive

consultations and consensus-building processes between: North Rupununi Village and

District Councils, all community members, local institutions, local and national

representatives of the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs (MOAA), and legal counsel hired by

the MOAA. The PRMU Guidelines are modeled on the legal provisions related to

Indigenous rights, governance and management of lands and natural resources as

promulgated in the revised 2006 Amerindian Act. The mission of the PRMU Guidelines

is: “To enhance the quality of life, promote social and economic opportunities and carry

out the responsibility to protect and improve the rights and assets of the Indigenous

peoples of Guyana” (MOAA in PRMU, 2005).

Although implemented by the MOAA and UNDP under the auspices of the

Capacity Building for the Management of Natural Resources and the Environment

Project: Sub-Project promoting community participation in the management of natural

resources and the environment, the PRMU Guidelines have been conceived and

developed by the North Rupununi communities (PRMU, 2005). As such, the

communities retain exclusive ownership to the Guidelines and the process of their

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environmental conservation and development path. The Guidelines are meant to be a

replicable model for Indigenous societies throughout Guyana to develop a locally

grounded natural resource management protocol that integrates the communities’ long-

term social, cultural and ecological values and livelihood priorities as they relate to the

environment.

One of the central goals of the Guidelines is to develop strong local

environmental management structures and capacities, and to shift the customary ‘open

access’ communal property regime to a more contemporary ‘community management’

regime. The customary system of open access for land and resource access and use is

still widely considered a distinctive asset of Indigenous communities, and the

sustainability and communal spirit of their way of life. However, in light of the increasing

pressures of external interests and growing village populations on their lands and natural

resource base, community members have decided that they must develop more

stringent and formally entrenched regulatory mechanisms for mediating and governing

sustainable resource harvesting and use, while maintaining their communal ownership

system. Many community leaders and NRDDB staff stated that while they continue to

value their customary systems and their influence on contemporary governance and

management structures, present-day realities have brought many more internal

discontinuities and external threats into their communities and they now need formal

protocols and regulations to control and mitigate such threats. Many community

members concurred: “[we want] to have a legal document with clear rules and

responsibilities about how we must sustainably use and take care of our resources”

(VC3, 5-6 & 10, 2009). The PRMU Guidelines define the following NRM areas for

conformity by individual villages in the development and implementation of their

management plans and conservation initiatives (NRDDB, p.c., 2009; PRMU, 2005):

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Identification and zonation of sustainable use and conservation areas.

Identification of ecological status, challenges and prioritization of proposed actions and responsible parties.

Complete description of boundaries under jurisdiction of each village and district.

Rights of access, harvesting and use.

Regulations and responsibilities for the use and management of animal and plant species, including harvest methods, limits, seasons, and locations.

Enforcement of protected areas/ community conserved areas on their lands.

Regulatory guidance for granting/disallowing permits (access and resource harvesting or extraction), determining harvest quotas, eco-tourism management and prioritization of resource allocation and protection.

Waste disposal and management; water quality and quantity.

Capacity building programs, including public awareness, education, and training.

Inventories, monitoring and research on species populations, habitats, land and resource use patterns.

Protection of ecologically and culturally significant areas.

Research priorities.

Financial and budget matters.

The PRMU Guidelines harmonize village and district management plans, regulatory

mechanisms and initiatives throughout the region and act as a guiding template for

individual villages to research, develop and implement their NRM plans. The attendant

PRMU Bylaws have not yet been passed by Guyana’s Parliament, so the Regulatory

Guidelines have become the document by which respective villages will develop and

implement binding decisions regarding natural resource zones, community use permits,

commercial permits, use quotas, research agreements and wildlife and forest

management at the village level (p.c., 2010). The PRMU Guidelines reflect the practical

need for integrated and holistic wildlife and environmental management at an ecosystem

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level across many jurisdictions, while remaining firmly within legal boundaries. Two

community leaders from Wowetta Village emphasize the significance of the Guidelines

for more autonomous community socio-ecological governance (VC5 & 6, 2009):

These Guidelines are very important for us to protect our resources and way of life here...so now, people in the communities are more understanding and interested in taking part in this process because it is now our thing we developed. They are more aware of the meaning and value for them as Amerindians.

The consultation, planning, decision-making, educational and implementation

processes to actualize the PRMU Guidelines are relatively bottom-up and democratic,

engendering a cooperative and autonomous spirit for community leaders and members

to enact viable and enduring governance and leadership mechanisms for the sustainable

harvesting, use and protection of animals, plants and environments. However, the

architecture of the Guidelines is based on the legal provisions and language laid out in

the revised 2006 Amerindian Act; as such, there have been concerns by some

community members relating to the inaccessibility of legal and technical language use in

the documents. Also, the restrictive and patronizing tone of some sections are

interpreted by some community members as being inconsistent with the rights, roles and

responsibilities that Indigenous peoples in Guyana hold with respect to their ancestral

lands and customary systems (VC9-10, 12, 2009; VH1, 4-6, 2009). A former community

leader and hunter involved with much of the PRMU processes worries (VH1, 2009):

Most of the regulations I agree with, but not all, especially for we Amerindian people. We should have more rights than that. My personal observation is that the majority of villagers will not understand all of the regulations and some small rules somewhere, will be breached by someone…and I think more out of confusion and ignorance to what these rules are really saying, than mal intent.

As a way to resolve such concerns and discrepancies in understanding, many

outreach and educational workshops were conducted in 2009 within all constituent

villages to articulate the content and implications of the Guidelines in culturally relevant

ways, and to build understanding amongst community members as to their rights and

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responsibilities. MRU translators and other community consultants have worked

arduously to translate the 2006 Amerindian Act and Guidelines into Makushi and

Wapishana languages. People are now much more understanding and comfortable with

the PRMU Guidelines, and that they have collective ownership of the processes and

structures that are emerging from the PRMU.

NRDDB-BHI Imperatives for Community Leadership

The NRDDB and BHI have defined numerous environmental, socioeconomic and

cultural development imperatives at the community level that have inspired their projects

and initiatives (represented in Figure 7.1): i) wildlife and environmental management,

ii) village conservation campaigns, iii) community conservation areas (CCAs),

iv) knowledge and language revitalization and production, v) wildlife and agro-forestry

research, vi) capacity development and environmental leadership, vii) sustainable

community-based ecotourism, viii) women’s empowerment and gender rights language,

and ix) socioeconomic development and micro-credit opportunities. To fund and

institutionally support realization of the diverse and sustainable community programs

and initiatives listed in Figure 7.1, NRDDB and BHI have developed an impressive

network of partner Indigenous, national, governmental and non-governmental

organizations and funding agencies21. While the financial, institutional and technological

support of these institutions has been invaluable to the NRDDB and BHI in realizing their

environmental management and community development goals for the North Rupununi,

21

The list of partner agencies includes: Iwokrama International Centre, Conservation International, Ministry

of Amerindian Affairs, Amerindian People’s Association, Amerindian Research Unit – University of Guyana, Ghost River Rediscovery Program (Canadian First Nations Educational and Leadership Exchange), Global Environmental Facility, Guyana Environmental Protection Agency, Guyana Ministry of Education, Project Fauna, Canadian International Development Agency (Canadian-Caribbean Gender Equity Fund), International Development Research Centre, European Union, UNDP, UNICEF, UNEP, World Wildlife Fund, Brazilian Service of Support for Micro and Small Enterprises (SEBRAE), Guyana Forest Commission, Audobon Society, Institute of Private Enterprise Development Guyana, Youth Challenge International, and the Jacksonville and Philadelphia Zoos.

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the constant challenge has been for the local institutions and village leaders to

safeguard the rights of their communities, yet ensure that institutional and research

partners significantly contribute to the enhancement of the communities and

environment.

Thus, in light of the aforementioned challenges, teaching and training the

younger generations to become community and environmental leaders continues to be a

central goal and feature of all capacity development and leadership workshops and

activities developed by NRDDB and BHI. The BHI has established a number of certified

educational and training programs for engaging youth from the North and South regions

such as wildlife management, forestry, natural resource management, agriculture,

community-based tourism, community mapping, information technology, and leadership

skills. The youth at BHI are also actively engaged in a full program of cultural activities

that celebrate and revitalize regional Indigenous cultural traditions associated with

animals, environmental practice, agricultural practice, customary festivals and the

Amerindian way of life. Another NRDDB-BHI initiative supported by IIC that promotes

youth agency and leadership and acts as an integral part of collaborative and

community-led wildlife conservation within the region has been the junior wildlife clubs.

Figure 7.1 Socio-Ecological Imperatives and Community-led Initiatives

Imperatives Programs and Initiatives

Wildlife and environmental management

Arapaima Management Project Community territory demarcation Community resource mapping Village management plans Conservation training and workshops Conservation contracts (community conserved areas,

community conservation projects) PRMU guidelines Collaborative projects with IIC (Butterfly Farm, River Turtle

monitoring) Black Caiman and River Turtle monitoring North Rupununi Wetlands Monitoring Project

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Village Conservation Campaigns

Wildlife Club campaigns to keep environment safe and clean –– protect forest road and village water source from pollution and garbage.

Community Conservation Areas

Surama Village: Burro-Burro River conservation area between Amazon cassava/ self-help village farm project Nature trails Agro-forestry project (similar projects in Massara, Rupertee and

Annai villages) Wowetta Village: Cock of the Rock conservation areas Rewa Village: CI Conservation Concession Proposed protected area along Rewa River Arapaima conservation sites Fairview Village: Forest buffer zone –– Crabwood tree plots Mucru plant plots, palm tree groves Arapaima conservation sites Riparian Wildlife Corridor (400 m)

Knowledge and cultural revitalization and production

MRU research and revitalization: gender, language, ethnomedicine, knowledge and cultural forms

BHI Training Institute Makushi language classes, publication of dictionaries and

language education resources Production of local cultural crafts

Wildlife and agro-forestry research

Arapaima research Black caiman research River turtle research Giant otter research Collaborative Butterfly Project Wildlife Club Crabwood and Ité palm research

Capacity Development, Environmental Leadership and Education

Wildlife Clubs/ Environmental Clubs Backyard ecology/ nature interpretation walks BHI Training Institute: wildlife and natural resource

management, forestry, agricultural management, leadership, cultural and language classes, mapping

Training workshops, internship and educational opportunities: leadership, public speaking, conservation, wildlife management, monitoring, research, UNICEF sexual health initiative

Youth Forums on community social and environmental issues Community radio –– Paiwomak

Sustainable Community-based Ecotourism

NRDDB sustainable ecotourism

Surama Village eco-lodge and wildlife tours

Wowetta Village Cock of the Rock

Iwokrama Canopy Walkway

Rewa Village eco-lodge

Rupertee and Aranaputa mountain trails

Women’s Empowerment MRU: gender equity initiative, ethnomedicine project, sewing project

Socioeconomic development and microcredit

Microcredit for local entrepreneurship (eco-tourism products, handcrafts, carpentry)

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The wildlife clubs have become an important catalyst in revitalizing relationships

with regional animals; fostering environmental awareness and responsibility; integrating

local knowledge with conservation science; developing leadership and social skills;

wildlife research; and reconnecting youth with animals, natural landscapes and their

cultural traditions. An IIC manager from Wowetta Village and an IIC director synthesize

the immense value of the wildlife clubs, youth leadership and environmental education

for community-led wildlife conservation and local governance (IM1 & IM3, 2009):

Wildlife Clubs provide a foundation for environmental education and have developed into an integral part of the wildlife management programme of the North Rupununi. Wildlife clubs allow students to gain first hand experience of natural resource management and prepare children for the future. Obviously, the clubs could only be formed if there was a strong interest in the communities about wildlife.

The Indigenous youth leadership and exchange program facilitated by NRDDB-

BHI and Ghost River Rediscovery in Calgary, Canada was pivotal in providing local

youth with leadership and wildlife management training and the experience of sharing

cultural worldviews and knowledge with Aboriginal and Métis youth from Canada. Other

NRDDB-BHI youth initiatives include: ranger and guide training through IIC and NRDDB;

providing community-level training, educational, and job opportunities; traditional skills

workshops; volunteering in community radio with Radio Paiwomak; internship and

professional development opportunities with IIC, Guyana Forestry Commission, Ministry

of Lands and Surveys, University of Guyana and WWF (see Figure 7.1).

Local youth leaders actively engaged within NRDDB-BHI programs, community

wildlife research projects and IIC and other conservation projects are uniquely placed in

their communities as recipients and practitioners of intergenerational knowledge and

customary practice related to their environment and oral histories, while at the same time

learning modern conservation science and technology through their training and

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engagement with both NRDDB-BHI and IIC. Numerous young rangers, wildlife club

leaders and BHI staff expressed in the interviews that a combination of their traditional or

experiential knowledge regarding animals, plants and their habitats, and the in-situ

conservation and wildlife management training and practice they were receiving through

NRDDB-BHI and IIC, were invaluable to their knowledge, leadership and professional

development. They all concurred that such contextual and experience-based learning

should be required before going on to higher education, such as university.

These community-level youth initiatives –– in conservation, leadership,

environmental and cultural practice –– are the lifeblood of both community conservation

leadership initiatives and collaborative conservation partnerships. An IIC director affirms,

“This is evidence that education and leadership opportunities, especially that are tailored

to the environment that people rely on for life, are valuable and much needed” (IM1,

2009). They invest the significance and responsibility of environmental and cultural

conservation within the younger generation in ways that are culturally relevant and

sustainable. Moreover, such initiatives mediated by local institutions help the youth

adapt to and find relevance within their colliding worlds –– customary beliefs and

sustaining their Indigenous way of life versus modern science and technology and the

market economy. Coupled with a lack of activities and educational and job opportunities

within their villages, apathy and substance abuse become attractive means of escape for

them. As well, the brain drain that is affecting Guyana as a nation is particularly affecting

isolated regions such as the North Rupununi. Furthermore, the prospect of losing more

youths to wage opportunities on the Coast or in Brazil has become an increasing

concern and challenge for village leaders and the NRDDB-BHI. Two village leaders from

Surama and Rewa Villages speak to this challenge on behalf of the many staff and

leaders interviewed (VC4 & 9, 2009):

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Right now we trying to find a lot of different job opportunities for the youth so we trying to attract them to stay and help the communities and the environment…many times they get the training and experience but they want to see what for do next or they go with some other work outside of the community…that is if we don’t encourage them to conserve and manage the animals here and the importance of them staying here to do that. Customary knowledge and cultural institutions are foundational to engaged and

sustainable forms of local conservation and wildlife practice; their cultural articulation

and passage to younger generations and conservation partners by elders and other

community knowledge-holders is an intrinsic piece of collaborative and community-led

conservation processes. As such, an essential part of teaching and mentoring youth

leadership in environmental and cultural development within the communities has been

recognizing the importance of, and revitalizing, elder and intergenerational knowledge.

NRDDB and BHI have incorporated intergenerational knowledge within their

collaborative engagements with IIC and CI, as well as in youth-oriented training

initiatives. As expressed by the Makushi Research Unit, “We involve elders in the

research and documentation processes so as to ensure protection and transferral of

knowledge for future generations” (MRU1, 2009). A wildlife research manager and

former IIC ranger concurs (IR7, 2009):

The intergenerational knowledge is a strong component and the NRDDB plays an important role in that also, with bringing the senior and youth leaders of each community to discuss issues and strategies – important to involve the youth.

With respect to NRDDB’s collaboration with IIC, a pivotal component to shaping the

partnership, collaborative wildlife and forestry research and community-based

conservation projects has been the advisement by an elders’ council, and the invaluable

guidance and leadership of Fred Allicock, a Surama elder who has acted as both field

manager and elder advisor for IIC since its inception. IIC rangers from different villages

explain (IR2-5, 2009):

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You know a lot of us working in Iwokrama have a lot of our local knowledge and we try to gain knowledge not only by ourselves, but from the elder people in the communities. We go to the different communities and we do community outreach, then we work with the youth. Community members also recognized that intergenerational knowledge not only

flows from elders to younger generations, but also from the youth to their parents. Youth

involved with the wildlife clubs, the BHI training institute and other conservation and

leadership projects have been particularly instrumental in both educating and imparting

awareness to the wider community on broader and integrated environmental and wildlife

issues, as well as mentoring younger children to become environmentally responsible

and interested in developing relationships with local animals (IR7 & MRU1, 2009):

Wildlife Clubs [members] and they were conscious of what they were doing and educating their parents and the community…like what will be the outcomes of when they conserve and use resources sustainably, or if they don’t conserve and do things sustainably.

Indigenous Communities Defining Conservation on Their Own Terms

Amerindian Peoples’ Association (APA) activist James states in Wilson & Parker’s

documentary (2007), “For too long, Indigenous people in Guyana have been subjected

to what other people have wanted...what future they wanted to carve for us.” However,

Indigenous elders and leaders believe that it is now time for Indigenous peoples to

envision their own future and the type of environmental and cultural institutions and

initiatives that will nourish their communities and territories (VC3, 8, 10, 2009; VE3, 4, 9-

10, 12, 2009). An IIC director emphasizes, “The success of the Iwokrama program and

protection of the North Rupununi’s ecosystems relies on the ownership by local people

and the combined vision and skills of all partners in the process” (IM1, 2009).

Possessing a clear vision for the future in terms of community-led conservation,

institutional collaboration, good governance and alternative livelihood development is

identified by many amongst community leaders and members as an extremely important

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aspect of the community’s ability to develop their institutions and management

structures, protect their way of life, and inspire self-empowerment and leadership

amongst the younger generations (VC1-4, 9-10, 2009; VE3-4, 2009; CEW1-2, 2009).

Moreover, community-led conservation initiatives and CCAs are not just conservation

and management ‘projects’ for Indigenous people; they are contingent on protecting a

way of life for the communities (Kothari, 2006).

Cultural and Ecological Implications of Local Governance

The evolution of contemporary community-led governance structures and conservation

initiatives within the North Rupununi carry numerous ecological, cultural and livelihood

implications for the ecosystems, animal and plant species, and Indigenous communities

of the region. Adopting some of the analytical categories from Pathak et al.’s (2004) and

Kothari et al.’s (2000) discussions of ecological benefits emerging from CCAs in India, in

Figure 7.2 I outline in detail the key ecological and cultural impacts of local governance

in the North Rupununi. The initiatives I include in the matrix are contemporary

community initiatives based on a syncretism of customary and modern conservation

practices that have been discussed throughout the dissertation.

Figure 7.2 Ecological and Cultural Implications of Local Governance Type of Initiative

Ecological Impacts

Cultural and Livelihood Impacts

Examples

Customary protection of sacred and ancestral sites

Protection of water sources (ponds, creeks, lakes, rivers), mountains, forest areas; protection of rare and/or valuable species residing in these habitats

Safeguarding of legends, customary and spiritual beliefs, and social-ecological memory; Safeguarding of community identity

Fairview:

Iwokrama Mtn(legendary)

Tandy Lake (sacred)

Fairview Landing (petroglyphs)

Rewa:

Makarapan Mtn (sacred)

Grass Pond (sacred)

Surama:

Kaiwan Paru' (sacred)

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Burro Burro River (ancient battle site)

Karapiyapo (petroglyhs)

Wowetta:

Oma Pond (sacred)

Big bamboo Mtn (sacred, medicinal site)

Monkey Jump (legendary)

Protection of ecologically and culturally valuable animal and plant species

Protection of particularly valuable species, and attributed habitat conditions and ecological processes; Recovery of populations to healthy levels

Nurturance of human–animal/ human-plant relationships; Safeguarding of cultural practices; Safeguarding of animal and traditional medicinal knowledge; Aesthetic enjoyment

cultural beliefs/taboos related to use or consumption of animals

controlled access, use and harvesting of plant, tree and animal species

monitoring and research

sacred areas and beliefs linked to specific species

Sustainable use practices of habitats

Conservation of diverse habitats (e.g. watersheds, forests, savannahs) and wildlife species inhabiting them

Safeguarding of local natural history knowledge; Sustenance/ generation of relevant livelihood practices; Development of local social-environmental governance

rotational farming

agroforestry

selective logging

gathering NTFPs

monitoring and research

Sustainable harvesting and use practices for game species

Regeneration and conservation of wildlife populations; Recovery of populations to healthy levels

Safeguarding of local hunting/fishing techniques and relevant livelihood practices

bow and arrow, dogs

hook and line, fish traps

selective hunting –– no juveniles or pregnant females

harvest quotas

monitoring and research

mating/spawning patterns

monitoring and research on vulnerable and keystone species

Initiatives to conserve and/or sustainably use relatively intact ecosystems

Conservation of important ecosystems and their resident wildlife; reduction in threats to them

Development of local social-environmental governance; Sustenance of relevant livelihood traditions; Generation of alternative livelihoods, training and economic opportunities

establishment of CCAs

mixed customary and modern systems of norms and regulations related to sustainable farming, hunting, fishing and gathering of NTFPs

sustainable use areas

monitoring and research

Initiatives to: restore degraded habitats; regenerate

Restoration of forests, water sources, savannahs; Regeneration and conservation of

Revival of traditional livelihoods or generation of new livelihoods, training and economic

community conservation areas

rehabilitation programs for threatened species

re-plantation/ regeneration

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threatened species Developing ecosystem services

vulnerable wildlife species; Reduction in over-exploitation; Reduction of threats to, and conservation of ecosystem services

opportunities; Benefit-sharing with government and institutional stakeholders; Development of local socio-ecological governance

schemes for key tree, animal, plant species

regulate harvesting and land use practices

carbon storage, climate regulation, water protection, pest control, biodiversity protection

monitoring and research

protect vulnerable animal species

Resistance to destructive commercial and development interests (hunting, extractive industries, state policies)

Reduction or elimination of factors threatening ecosystems, species and community lands and customary systems

Safeguarding of material and livelihood base; Safeguarding of cultural and political identity; Safeguarding of local socio-ecological governance

regulations to mitigate/prevent harmful interventions from outside interests

effective negotiation and conflict resolution mechanisms

institutional and legal support from collaborative partners

Education and environmental youth leadership

Monitoring and conservation of ecosystems, species and habitats;

Development of environmental awareness and leadership; Safeguarding of inter-generational knowledge; Development of syncretic knowledge and research

Wildlife Clubs/ Environmental Clubs

Backyard ecology/ nature interpretation walks

BHI Training Institute

Training workshops, internship, educational and research opportunities

Radio internships

Community-based eco-tourism

Conservation of species and habitats

Development of environmental awareness; Nurturance of human–animal/ human–nature relationships; Safeguarding of local animal and natural history knowledge

NRDDB ecotourism

Surama eco-lodge and wildlife tours

Wowetta Cock of the Rock

Iwokrama Canopy Walkway

Rewa eco-lodge

Rupertee and Aranaputa mountain trails

Extending beyond the majority of externally imposed conservation and protected

area management approaches that focus on specific species, habitats and/or

ecosystems, community-led approaches are concerned with protecting ecosystems and

biodiversity, as well as sustaining the rights, knowledge, human–nature relationships

and cultural institutions of Indigenous communities. Community–led approaches also

safeguard communal land and resource tenure systems and relevant customary norms,

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while developing more contemporary socio-ecological governance and regulatory

structures, and livelihood alternatives. Leadership, capacity development, research and

socio-economic opportunities are vital dimensions of community-led conservation and

are explicitly or implicitly embedded within all initiatives.

Effective Impacts on Wildlife positive

The ecological implications of both the collaborative and community-led conservation

and research initiatives have been quite positive and visible to most community

members, particularly community wildlife researchers, elders and hunters.

Simultaneously, there has been a very positive increase in ecological consciousness,

cultural revitalization, conservation awareness and interest in animals that have

actualized and sustained such initiatives. Although many wildlife management and

research initiatives at the community-level have been supported by IIC and other

conservation partners, the initiatives have been envisioned and implemented by

NRDDB, BHI and relevant communities.

While the vast majority of wildlife and plant species inhabiting forest, watershed

and savannah areas around villages and within the Iwokrama Forest reserve have

maintained healthy populations, there are certain species that have been under some

level of threat: arapaima (Arapaima gigas), black caimans (Melanosuchus niger), giant

river turtles (Podocnemis expansa), tapirs (Tapirus terrestris), Guianan Cock-of-the Rock

(Rupicola rupicola), Amazon parrots (Amazona amazonica), red brocket deer (Mazama

Americana) and white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari). Under the aegis of customary

and regulatory norms, education, and the leadership of NRDDB-BHI, community

researchers, village councils, and wildlife club leaders, communities are engaged in

diverse strategies to protect and sustainably harvest critical animal species. A

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combination of the following strategies have contributed to regenerating and restoring

healthy population levels of threatened animal species:

i) Sacred areas and cultural beliefs/taboos - i.e. arapaima, tapirs, black caimans, brocket deer, white-lipped peccaries, jaguars

ii) Species monitoring and research –– arapaima, black caimans, river turtles,

tapirs, jaguars, giant otters, brocket deer, Cock-of-the Rock birds, parrots and macaws

iii) Protocols and regulations on harvesting and use –– arapaima, black caimans,

tapirs, Cock-of-the Rock birds, parrots and macaws, white-lipped peccaries iv) Habitat and ecosystem restoration and conservation –– replantation of fruiting

palm and hardwood species (kokerite, lu, ité, greenheart, mora), conservation of watershed and forest areas, responsible savannah burning practices; positively influences all animal species

v) Resistance to destructive commercial and development interests ––mining,

logging, petroleum, road development, bioprospecting; positively influences all animal species

vi) Educational, capacity and leadership training –– positively influences all animal

species

Recovering the arapaima population and conserving the fishery throughout the

North Rupununi has been the most stunning success for the communities. With

institutional support from IIC and the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute in

Amazonas, Brazil, the Arapaima Management Plan (Fernandes, 2005; NRDDB, 2002)

was developed as part of NRDDB’s initiative to recover and sustain the arapaima fishery

from its dramatic decrease over the past forty years to a regional count of only 425 adult

arapaima over one meter in length in 2001. The arapaima holds deep cultural and

spiritual significance for Indigenous people in the North Rupununi and was customarily

protected through both cultural taboos restricting consumption of the fish, and beliefs

that the enormous freshwater fish was a master spirit for other fish species.

Furthermore, harvesting arapaima is illegal under the 1953 Guyana Fisheries Act.

However, Brazilian hunters and traders traveling through the region in the 1960’s began

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predating on Guyana’s arapaima population and soon convinced local Indigenous

fishermen to engage in the trade. Slowly, cultural taboos on arapaima relaxed and many

people began integrating the fish into their diet (IR1 & 7, 2009; VE3, 2009). The

unregulated predation on arapaima (either by state or local institutional enforcement)

continued unabated until the species became so reduced as to dramatically impact

watershed ecosystems and local livelihoods in the region. Recognized under the

Guyana Fisheries Act, the Arapaima Management Plan was designed and actualized

through community leadership and participatory research and management processes

and involves fishermen, community researchers, and community leaders from villages

throughout the North Rupununi (NRDDB, p.c., 2008; NRDDB, 2002).

The objectives of the Arapaima Management Plan are to increase the local

arapaima population, improve local institutional and wildlife management capacities, and

increase and diversify fisher’s income (PRMU, 2005). The following describes the

community-led arapaima management system:

1) Arapaima individuals are counted and monitored in all conserved lakes and ponds at the beginning of every dry season.

2) The count is analyzed in relation to count and harvest data from previous years

to determine population increase or decrease. 3) Based on count and monitoring data, the number of individuals that may be

harvested is determined. 4) Individuals to be harvested is shared amongst fishermen and their families. 5) Only adult, non-reproducing arapaima can be harvested. 6) The harvested individuals cannot be beyond the regulated quota. 7) Arapaima are not to be harvested for commercial sale.

The arapaima inhabits an extensive system of ponds, lakes and river tributaries

throughout the region, as seen in Map 5.2. Conservation sites for arapaima have been

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developed in many villages, especially Surama, Rewa, Fairview, Apoteri, Crashwater

and near Karanambu (see Map 5.2 for species concentrations at different conservation

sites). Community and executive fishery committees, alongside community researchers

conducting seasonal counts have, worked to establish strict and culturally embedded

protocols on arapaima harvesting and conservation that have been tremendously

successful in restoring the fishery to very healthy levels in a short period. All community

members demonstrated enthusiastic support and pride for the arapaima management

plan and their ability to collectively actualize and sustain it at such a successful level.

While some local people are acknowledged as illegally fishing arapaima, the majority of

transgressors are identified as hunters from the Coast and Brazil. Many people also

linked the ethical and organizational structuring of arapaima conservation to the

customary knowledge and norms that people had regarding arapaima in long ago times

(IR1 & 6-8, 2009; VC3-4, 2009; VE3 & 6 & 10, 2009). A community peaiman and the

Arapaima Project Manager recall (IR7, 2009; VE16, 2009):

People believe that the arapaima master has a window in the pond and can see when someone is trying to catch an arapaima...We also have beliefs against eating the arapaima. The history I have learned from our people is that the arapaima were thought of as masters of other fish and never used as food by the Makushi people. But with the influence of the Brazilian people during the 1960’s, and their increasing introduction of eating to our region through mining and such, the numbers of arapaima start to decline…I see the outcome of the arapaima management as the community members being more aware about arapaima to our culture and they are understanding the importance of leaving the arapaima to regenerate and not harvesting them in unsustainable ways.

Constraints to Community-led Conservation

While I argue that community-led conservation approaches have the potential to be the

most sustainable, socially progressive and culturally relevant form of conservation and

protected area management at the community level, there are considerable constraints

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that must be taken into consideration. Indigenous and local communities, and

community-based and community-led conservation approaches, are often romanticized,

and the conservation interest and capacities of Indigenous people inflated to reconcile

the disappointments of academics and environmentalists with global conservation,

development and market policies. In light of their increasingly globalized and complex

environmental, social and economic realities, very few Indigenous communities have

been able to effectively govern and manage their ecological and cultural resources

without some level of institutional and capacity development support from external

systems and institutions. Hence, the North Rupununi communities’ collaborative

conservation partnership and institutional alliance with IIC has been particularly

transformative both in strengthening their local institutional capacities, and enshrining

their ability to respond to the diverse pressures and changes of their contemporary

context.

The pressures of market-based economic and development models, as well as

influences from national and global cultures, continue to pervade and shape

conservation knowledge and practice, even within community-led structures. Hence, the

North Rupununi communities have to find innovative ways to adapt, negotiate, resist and

syncretize relevant and progressive aspects of external knowledge and management

systems with their own local systems and context to navigate the challenging, yet

analogous paths of biodiversity conservation and community development. As well,

depending on the nature of land rights, level of dislocation from customary systems,

quality of local leadership and pressure to adopt external knowledge and management

capacities, community-led governance and conservation models often take a long time

to mature and become autonomous or sustainable. Other constraints include:

commercial demands from external markets; rapid local population growth or increasing

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settlement of outside populations; out-migration of youth and skilled community

members; and acute land degradation and resource scarcity (Smith & Wishnie, 2000).

Social Justice in Collaborative and Community-led Conservation

Although virtually absent from the mainstream global conservation discourse, any

critically informed conversation about collaborative and community-led approaches

would be hollow without discussing the primacy of social justice issues and the rights of

Indigenous and local partners within conservation configurations. However, the political

ecology (Blaikie, 1985; Forsyth, 2006) literature does emphasize social justice in

conservation discourse and policy, particularly stressing the political and social

underpinnings of environmental issues and knowledge, as well as the co-production of

environmental knowledge and social values within communities and societies.

Developing socially just conservation policy and practice that: i) address the structural

social inequities facing Indigenous and local actors within the conservation domain and

ii) promote strong community leadership and local governance structures are important

aspects of social justice within the political ecology discourse. Moreover, such policy

transformations are critical to Indigenous peoples’ resistance to inappropriate and

destructive conservation and development regimes (IUCN, 2006).

As a response to such structural inequalities and ecological threats within most

global conservation and protected area (PA) policies, Brosius et al. (2005) emphasize

that an alliance of social justice, cultural engagement and environmental conservation

imperatives are central to conservation and PA initiatives. Community leadership and

governance configurations for conservation and natural resource management provide

the possibility for a rights-based framework for action on the intersection between

environmental degradation and social injustice (Brosius et al., 2005). Through such

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configurations, Indigenous actors contribute to a fundamental re-visioning of

conservation whereby active recognition of Indigenous rights (lands, resources,

customary practices and FPIC), more equitable forms of knowledge-building and power-

sharing, and human development priorities are linked to effective environmental and

wildlife management priorities.

Since structural inequalities and injustice operate on multiple vectors –– including

amongst different social constituencies and interests within communities –– social justice

priorities must also be addressed within the community-level governance and

conservation structures. In the North Rupununi, most consultative, dialogic,

educational/training and consensus decision-making processes within communities and

local institutions aim to be inclusive and participatory for all social groups, the active

recruitment and representation of women, youth, elders and non-Makushi community

members has definitely improved to a relatively equitable level. However, while there is

discussion of broader human development goals, and discourse regarding recognizing

and protecting Indigenous territorial and resource rights within existing governance and

environmental management structures and documentation, there does not appear to be

much explicit discourse on the concept of power inequities and social equality at the

intra-community level.

I loosely adapt here McNeely’s (2005) framework to identify practical dimensions

of social justice, community self-empowerment and governance for the North Rupununi

conservation context that may already exist and/or should be substantively implemented.

i) Mechanisms for equity, collaborative dialogue, decision-making, power-sharing and conflict resolution should better articulate respect for Indigenous rights and reconcile different conservation and management objectives.

ii) Conservation and protected area guidelines and regulations (i.e. IIC, CI, PRMU, Village Plans, Guyana Environental Protection Agency) should explicitly articulate the practice of social justice in conservation.

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iii) Community self-empowerment and governance policies within both collaborative and community-led contexts should explicitly recognize Indigenous communities as central partners or leaders in initiatives.

iv) Inclusive, transparent and adaptive local governance (i.e. NRDDB, BHI, Village Councils) is a pivotal component of conservation and management; implemented collaborative actions should develop and promote such governance systems for conservation initiatives and protected areas.

Within the Iwokrama Act (1996), Memorandum of Understanding (2003) and the

Collaborative Management Agreement (2008), IIC recognizes the territorial, resource

and customary rights of Indigenous people of the North Rupununi. IIC also provisions for

equitable decision-making and management responsibilities, and benefit-sharing with

respect to the Iwokrama Forest reserve and conservation program. IIC promotes

collaborative and more autonomous community-based conservation initiatives at the

community level and have provided numerous training workshops on the topic.

Moreover, IIC has provided legal, administrative and technical support for village

demarcation, titling, management plans and the recent PRMU community-led NRM

framework for the whole region. Alternative livelihood, socio-economic and cultural

development for the communities have also been important provisions and supportive

actions by IIC. Hence, while social justice is not explicitly designated within IIC’s

regulatory or operational discourse, many features are recognized and provisioned for

the equitable inclusion of communities as rights-holders. However, if a priority for social

justice and its attendant considerations were clearly enshrined within such discourse,

there would be less ambiguity about the actual level of management powers,

responsibilities and benefits that communities hold. In practice, most management duties

and powers reside with IIC, many community members feel that they are increasingly

disconnected from key decision-making and management processes made by IIC and

CI.

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Most analyses of collaborative partnerships in conservation in global contexts

look exclusively at the impacts of such arrangements on Indigenous or local populations,

and on the ecosystems and wildlife resources they are working to protect. But it is just

as important to understand the impacts and benefits that collaborative partnerships have

on the conservation organizations and/or agencies which partner with local communities.

How does engagement with Indigenous cultures and knowledge forms positively

influence how conservation organizations relate to Indigenous communities? Moreover,

how can these organizations broaden their epistemic and policy approach to

conservation and protected area management to be more holistic and inclusive of

cultural and socioeconomic dimensions, to be more knowledge- and rights-based? In

the spirit of reciprocity within conservation and collaborative relationships, my study has

looked specifically into this important facet of the NRDDB–IIC partnership. Findings from

my interviews and observations with IIC and community participants indicate that IIC’s

engagement with the North Rupununi communities and cultural institutions over the

years has created a greater institutional openness to local cultural uses of and

relationships with animals and the forest, as well as socio-ecological interpretations of

landscapes. As such, IIC’s vision, and conservation and protected area management

policies, have been relatively more rights- and social justice-based, integrative and

inclusive than those of other institutional partners working with NRDDB, but also those

active in conservation and Indigenous contexts throughout the Amazonic region.

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CONCLUSION: ENVISIONING NEW PATHWAYS IN CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH

Coming Full Circle

I am once again in the North Rupununi for Amerindian Heritage Month and in the last

stages of writing my draft. I am aware of how profound the connection is between the

way people engage with their natural environments and the complex socio-cultural

rituals and practices they develop to inscribe meaning and continuity within those

human-nature interactions. Despite several hundred years of colonialism, several

decades of intensifying transnational extractive activities, and other encroaching

interests and transformative shifts within the region –– the animal populations, tropical

forests, savannahs and wetlands continue to flourish in 2010 much in the way as they

did in the time of the ancestors. This process has been facilitated, and threatened by

human activities over the history of Indigenous settlement and non-Indigenous industries

in the North Rupununi.

Conscious of their history, legacy and future rooted in this land, and in

relationship with all animals, plants and natural entities, the North Rupununi communities

are trying to conserve and revitalize their environments alongside their customs and

knowledge –– while also experimenting with external forms of scientific and technical

knowledge that have come with different conservation and development interventions. I

am also struck by the simultaneous rarity, strength and vulnerability of the NRDDB-IIC

partnership and the community-led institutions and initiatives –– which are similar to

young, tender plant shoots laying strong roots while searching for sunlight to grow and

mature. The relational space is critical to collaborative conservation partnerships, and to

culturally embedded, community-led conservation frameworks. Imperative to community

members has been that their Indigenous way of life, customary knowledges and

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practices, relationships with animals and their environments, and contemporary

contributions to conservation are valued and recognized as assets within their

collaborations with IIC and other institutional partners.

I also found myself reflecting on the three question sets outlined in chapter one,

regarding points of contention and possibility for the role of Indigenous communities

within the global conservation debate. Although not homogenously experienced, most

people within the North Rupununi communities first come to know, value and interact

with local animals, plants and landscapes by participating in the harvesting, livelihood

and socio-cultural activities that comprise their Amerindian way of life. Experiential and

cultural expertise related to land and animals are gained and reproduced through

i) empirical interaction with the natural world and ii) the socialization of intergenerational

customary knowledge and practices. The communities’ gradual development of complex

systems of socially sanctioned customary beliefs and norms such as rules on wildlife

harvesting and use, sacred areas, legends, just-so stories, cultural taboos and

shamanism have provided a framework for mediating and regulating people’s ethical and

responsible interaction with animals and habitats. However, customary systems have

also enriched and layered local people’s relationships with the natural and cosmological

worlds, lending a sense of meaning, reciprocity and value to the role those worlds and

natural beings play in people’s lived experiences.

The increasingly modern lifestyles, conservation models and market orientation

that also feature within the contemporary North Rupununi context, greatly influence

current generations of community members in their knowledge-production and

relationships with animals and the environment. Some community members have

become disconnected from their customary systems and beliefs and have opted for

either a more scientific pragmatism to their interactions, or for a more individualistic and

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commercially-motivated approach. However, most people have engaged in a syncretic

process whereby they have synthesized beneficial aspects of conservation, managerial

and market discourses into their framework of experiential knowledge and enduring

customary practices. Syncretic knowledge-building and integrative conservation

management forms have transformed into increasingly autonomous local environmental

governance and leadership initiatives that aim to respond more adaptively and viably to

the contemporary ecological and social realities confronting the North Rupununi

communities.

Although the term environmental ‘value’ has been configured by Western

capitalism to signify an economic pricing mechanism and tends to be used exclusively in

this sense, a deeper understanding of value is based in the cultural and ideological

significance people attribute to animals and the for the natural world. Values, like

knowledge, are dynamic, socially produced and transmitted through learning and

practice. The North Rupununi communities have a cultural tradition of attributing intrinsic

value to their environments and wildlife based on the reciprocal relationships and cultural

material practices that connect them to the natural world. Hence, they do not customarily

perceive forests, wetlands, savannas, animals and plants as commodities with a market

value. Nor do they customarily perceive the life-sustaining products, processes and

functions of ecosystems as marketable goods and services.

However, with the deepening entrenchment of Indigenous societies within global

market, conservation, research, and governance networks, communities have had to

grapple with discourses that tend to feature a more utilitarian, scientific, technical and

commercial approach to animals and habitats. The incomprehensibility of commodifying

and marketing the natural world to many community members in the North Rupununi is

captured by Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network:

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What’s happening is that in this whole market system is that it’s put a market value on traditional people and traditional teachings — those things that we hold sacred to our people…They’re trading air that is sacred. We’re looking at some spiritually profound values that people of industrial society really have a difficult time grasping (Lang, 2009).

Conservation institutions such as IIC (particularly in its current market-oriented approach

to making the Iwokrama Forest and conservation self-sustaining), and the current

Guyanese government’s low carbon economic strategies — have played a significant

role in attempting to legitimize a scientific and neoliberal ethos for managing protected

areas and community resources for economic profit. However, prior to a shift toward

increasingly market-based conservation strategies, and still under the current leadership

of numerous IIC managers and field station staff, the IIC has been committed to working

with local institutions such as NRDDB, BHI and village councils to build an intercultural

and democratic collaborative partnership with the North Rupununi communities. The

NRDDB-IIC partnership has for the most part, been viewed by communities as enabling

community self-empowerment and the development of community-led conservation

strategies. However, the embedding of the North Rupununi communities within global

conservation’s institutional and market networks via their relationship with the IIC and

other partners has compelled community actors to grapple with a challenging

combination of local development and conservation priorities, and economic

development agendas related to their lands and resources.

Considering the significance of context specificity and local environmental

agency within development of locally grounded conservation projects, the North

Rupununi community members’ situated ecological expertise and their communal and

consensus-based decision-making have profoundly impacted the IIC’s collaborative and

protected area management processes. Furthermore, local knowledge expertise and

cultural institutions have contributed to the detailed, holistic and place-based texture of

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IIC’s conservation approaches and research; and to the quality and reciprocity of their

community outreach and collaboration during the formative years. Such contributions ––

alongside the communities’ proactive and inspiring initiatives to secure their land and

village rights, to develop strong conservation leadership and governance at the

community level, and to propel IIC as a leader in collaborative and community-based

conservation –– are influencing a re-envisioned understanding of collaborative and

community-led conservation frameworks within the global conservation discourse.

Synthesis of Research Questions

Question 1 How has the engagement between Indigenous and conservation systems contributed to: a) re-envisioning the notion of conservation through processes of negotiation and syncretism, and b) furthering Indigenous rights and priorities?

Evidence from my interviews, map biographies and observations shows that Indigenous

people from the North Rupununi communities have been active environmental agents in

negotiating the complex interplay of challenges and transformative possibilities within

their collaborative partnership with IIC, and the emergence of vigorous community-led

conservation and governance structures. The communities are confronted with

increasingly complex environmental and social challenges within their territories and

communities such as the i) impacts of climate change on local animals and farm crops,

ii) commercialization of wildlife and the marketization of forests and ecosystems

services, and iii) entrenchment within national and transnational economic development

schemes and wage labour. The ways in which the North Rupununi communities mobilize

their environmental agencies reveal the resiliency, embeddedness, and flexibility of their

knowledges and customary practices in response to the local and globalizing ecological,

social and economic changes impacting their communities and lands. The ability of

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community members to grapple with, adapt to, and synthesize modern scientific and

managerial discourses with their own customary and experiential knowledges has been

facilitated by particular strategies of engagement and bridging such as, metaphor,

adaptation, negotiation, resistance, activism and syncretism. Hence, the concept of

conservation contact zones has proved to be an appropriately “uncertain and disruptive

metaphor” (Cheney and Weston, 1999, p.119) within my work because it has enabled

me to theoretically and empirically navigate the co-mingling and fluid entanglements of:

conservation discourses, and Indigenous resistive, adaptive and revitalizing practices.

Findings from my interviews and observations with community participants reveal

particular bridging points for syncretic knowledge-building and collaborative conservation

and management between community and IIC actors. One bridging point interprets

wildlife conservation, knowledge-building and collaborative management frameworks

through a combination of scientific and cultural metaphors, stories, taxonimies,

ceremonies, maps and norms. As such, conservation frameworks are layered with

teaching, experience and meaning. Another point of interface considers selective and

integrated adoption of customary and modern appropriate technologies that are

ecologically and culturally suitable for hunting, farming, community development,

conservation, and wildlife research. The authority of Indigenous knowledge and

expertise recognized equally with conservation knowledge within the NRDDB-IIC

collaborative partnership is another bridging point. Indigenous knowledge gains value

through relationships with local environments and species based on collective and

individual experience, and elder and shamanic specialized knowledge. A further area of

interface involves envisioning new pathways in conservation and wildlife management

that reflect a syncretism of revitalized customary practices and progressive scientific

strategies. IIC-supported, community-led conservation initiatives provide locally

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grounded and collaboratively directed paths for exploring, relating to, learning, protecting

and restoring the environment.

While community members would appear to be at a substantial power and

knowledge disadvantage vis-à-vis their conservation partners –– with respect to

economic and political resources, and formal scientific, managerial and technological

expertise –– they possess a wealth of situated ecological knowledge and expertise,

collective socio-political institutions, ancestral and formal rights as Indigenous peoples,

and increasing capacities in modern technological, administrative, finance, educational

and resource management models. Thus, the communities hold a substantial amount of

human resource and decision-making leverage within both the NRDDB-IIC partnership

and the particular path of environmental and social development for their lands and

communities. Interviews with community and IIC participants clearly reflect that in spite

of a recent decline in community engagement, the IIC (and community members

themselves) recognizes the significant role that communities have had in supporting and

transforming the Iwokrama Forest protected area and Iwokrama program into the

relatively successful and inspiring example of wildlife and forest conservation and

research it has become.

Sustained engagement with the conservation and managerial cultures of IIC and

other conservation partners has reconfigured customary and emergent local institutions

and knowledges, and influenced local socio-ecological relationships in profound ways.

Much of the loss of situated customary knowledges and institutions, and younger

community members’ feelings of dislocation from those systems, is less a result of

contact with conservation discourses and institiutions, and more an outcome of colonial

encounters, neo-colonial encounters with extractive industries and state agencies and

sustained contact with more dominant Guyanese Creole societal and cultural institutions.

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However, the reconfiguration of customary systems and institutions toward a

more Western-influenced and overtly-conservation orientation are a consequence of the

communities’ relationship and collaborative partnership with IIC and other partners.

Community actors’ newly developed modern environmental conservation and wildlife

management capacities supported by IIC have helped to reinvigour customary systems

and furthermore, to contribute to the building of contemporary community conservation

and governance structures that are reflective of contemporary realities. While IIC has

explicitly recognized, promoted and supported the value, revitalization and integration of

Indigenous customary systems within their collaborative processes and initiatives ––

there continue to be areas for improvement and institutional constraints that have

detained the ethical space framework and syncretic processes of the NRDDB-IIC

partnership from becoming more community-centered and socially just.

Pivotal to the increasingly active presence and engagement of Indigenous

peoples within the conservation domain is the growing socio-political mobilization of

Indigenous peoples around the world. Fuelling such mobilization has been the

resurgence of Indigenous consciousness with regard to how Indigenous people think

about themselves, their environments, struggles and aspirations — and how they

articulate that consciousness within the global conservation domain. Findings from

interviews with community and IIC participants, particularly shed light on the valuable

contributions that the North Rupununi communities have had on the evolution of the IIC,

the Iwokrama Forest reserve, the particular and nuanced natural history knowledge of

the region, the NRDDB-IIC partnership, and collaborative management arrangements in

global conservation.

Question 2 What has been the impact of the NRDDB-IIC partnership on the

communities’ capacity to develop local conservation leadership and governance?

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My empirical research examined whether NRDDB’s and the communities’ collaboration

with IIC and other conservation partners has facilitated or been inimical to their capacity

to strengthen their own local governance and leadership structures in adapting to

ecological, social and politico-economic pressures facing the region. Indigenous actors

in Guyana counsel that equitable and enduring relationships and collaborative

management processes between differentially positioned groups like Indigenous

communities and conservation partners, require a long-time investment, flexibility and

commitment from all partners.

Many possibilities and constraints have emerged from the collaborative

partnership between the North Rupununi communities and the IIC, and have much to

illuminate for global conservation policy and discourse. Outomes from interviews,

observations and document analysis reveal that formal recognition of Indigenous

peoples’ rights to their ancestral lands and to use and govern a healthy and secure land-

base, enables Indigenous customary systems and way of life to be resilient and adaptive

to change in its manifold dimensions. The linkage between formal recognition and

support for Indigenous rights, governance, knowledge revitalization and community

conservation transformations is exemplified through: the Collaborative Management

Agreement, the Iwokrama Act, genesis of the NRDDB and BHI, IIC’s support of

community rights claims (especially Fairview Village), IIC’s support of community-based

conservation and wildlife management, and development and implementation of Village

Management Plans and the PRMU Guidelines. The North Rupununi communities’

strengthened leadership and conservation capacities, facilitated through both their

collaborative partnership with IIC and other conservation partners and self-empowered

initiatives, has endowed them with the ability to navigate complex environmental,

politico-economic and social challenges internal and external to their communities.

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However, the increasing shift in global conservation policy toward market-

oriented approaches and away from Indigenous and local community capacity-building

and community leadership initiatives has directly impacted IIC’s own shifts in its

leadership and conservation policies, and moreover, its collaborative partnership with

the North Rupununi communities. Consequently, constraints to the NRDDB-IIC

partnership have intensified or developed in the areas of: fragmenting dialogue and

communication with communities on relevant policies, projects and institutional

objectives; decreasing local capacity-building initiatives in all areas; and decreasing

institutional support in terms of legal, financial, management and outreach resources for

communities. While such shifts and constraints have intensely impacted the North

Rupununi communities, community actors have channeled the benefits of their

partnership with IIC (training, education, cultural initiatives, institutional and legal

support, employment and youth opportunities), alongside their revitalized customary

systems, into developing sustainable and syncretic forms of conservation leadership and

socio-ecological governance. Although the impetus for communities to develop more

autonomous wildlife and resource management systems preceeds the NRDDB-IIC

partnership, findings from my interviews and observations with community participants

show that collaboration with and support by IIC has mostly strengthened the

communities’ capacities to realize such goals on their own terms.

The most successful collaborative conservation arrangements go beyond

recognition of shared priorities and interests and focus more on an integrative

understanding of sustainable use and conservation protocols; agreement on specific

conservation and socioeconomic development outcomes; and a commitment to

knowledge-building and sharing responsibilities, information and powers in ways that are

socially just. Hence, evidence from my interviews with community and IIC participants,

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and document analysis shows that a distillation of the following elements and formations

within the NRDDB-IIC partnership facilitates the legitimacy and benefit of collaborative

conservation discourse and practice for Indigenous communities:

i. a higher level of community integration, leadership and decision-making within the partnership;

ii. a commitment by IIC staff to work with local governance and customary

institutions; iii. a recognition of social justice principles, Indigenous rights, knowledges,

autonomy and the community’s contribution to defining and achieving conservation and management processes;

iv. agreement on desired conservation and community development outcomes;

v. the quality and reciprocal level of knowledge integration, sharing and building;

vi. IIC’s intimate and long-term interest in and commitment to the North

Rupununi communities and region;

vii. locally responsive capacity development opportunities; and

viii. IIC’s benefit-sharing mechanisms for communities (capacity, supportive and financial resources).

Hence, the NRDDB-IIC collaborative conservation partnership is markedly different from

the majority of global conservation contexts, and represents a move toward equitable

and syncretic models that will hopefully become more de rigueur for collaborative

conservation partnerships. However exemplary, there is much space for IIC to improve

in its collaborative management and conservation practices –– i.e., an expanded and

more explicit commitment to: community conservation leadership, consistently working

through locally embedded and democratic institutions (decision-making, dialogue and

governance), social justice principles, and consistent engagement in community

outreach and supporting capacity development.

IIC’s and NRDDB’s collaborative and community-led research methodologies

could also integrate, and even foreground, more culturally oriented wildlife and

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environmental history knowledge such as local mythology, just-so stories, behavioural

observations, hunting and harvest anecdotes, sacred area and master spirit legends and

customary beliefs. Such nuances would enrich and enliven scientific and technical data,

and give a sense of story, relationship and place to the research.

Question 3 How are culturally embedded Indigenous knowledges and customary

practices of human–animal relationships foundational to community conservation and wildlife management?

I have demonstrated through analysis of customary beliefs and norms, cultural

productions, cosmology and local human-anaimal relationships that locally embedded

knowledges and ethical customary practices are of critical importance to equitable and

sustained wildlife conservation initiatives in the North Rupununi. Interviews, map

biographies, stories and dances revealed that most community members continue to

perceive animals as subjects with agency, intention and intellect, rather than as objects

with little more than instrumental value. Thus, local ethical relationships of reciprocity

and responsibility toward animals and habitats based on their nutritional, cultural and

material significance to communities, and the cultural productions and practices that

emerge from such relationships, are central to conservation leadership at the community

level.

However, the disruption of Indigenous and traditional customary systems, social

values, and cultural beliefs embedded in local languages and grounded in ancestral

relationships to land is a major cause for internally (i.e. community over-harvesting of

arapaima, river turtles and peccaries) and externally (i.e. commercial hunting, extractive

industries, erroneous development schemes) imposed forms of unsustainable use of

animals and habitats. Although increasingly complexified by commercial influences and

dislocation from customary beliefs, the majority of community members acknowledged

and embraced their relationships of interdependence and reciprocity with local animals.

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They further recognized their perennial responsibilities to harvest and use animals

sustainaby, and to protect local animals and their habitats.

Consequently, recognition of enduring customary institutions, respect for

peoples’ rights to cultural as well as environmental resources, and strengthening the

interrelationships between communities and local animals (based on nutritional, cultural,

spiritual and material values) are critical requirements that have to be more strongly

addressed in global conservation discourse and policy. Findings from my interviews,

map biographies and observations with community participants indicated that culturally

embedded customary norms (whether consciously acknowledged or not) inspire ethical

and moral consciousness of responsibility and reciprocity in community members’

relations toward animals, plants and natural habitats, and they guide more sustainable

subsistence choices and harvesting practices amongst community members.

Evidence from my interviews, map biographies, observations and document

analysis indicate that the North Rupununi communities are engaged in diverse and

integrative strategies to protect and sustainably harvest critical animal species. A

combination of customary and regulatory norms, education, and the leadership of

NRDDB-BHI, community researchers, village councils, and environmental youth

leadership (i.e. Wildlife Clubs) have contributed to regenerating and restoring healthy

population levels of threatened animal species. Sacred areas, cultural beliefs and taboos

are protecting arapaima, tapirs, black caimans, brocket deer, white-lipped peccaries,

jaguars. NRDDB and village projects to monitor and research species are working to

conserve arapaima, black caimans, river turtles, tapirs, jaguars, giant otters, brocket

deer, Cock-of-the Rock birds, parrots and macaws. PRMU and Village Management

Plan protocols and regulations on wildlife harvesting and use assist in protecting

arapaima, black caimans, tapirs, Cock-of-the Rock birds, parrots and macaws, white-

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lipped peccaries. Community conserved areas and designated projects contribute to

habitat and ecosystem restoration and conservation, such as replantation of fruiting palm

and hardwood species (kokerite, lu, ité, greenheart, mora), conservation of watershed

and forest areas, responsible savannah burning practices; positively influences all

animal species. Recognized land rights, community activist strategies and resource

management regulations enable communities to resist and/or negotiate potentially

destructive commercial and development interests such as mining, logging, petroleum,

road development, and bioprospecting. Finally, educational and capacity development

and leadership opportunities provided by NRDDB, BHI and IIC positively influence all

animal species and habitats.

This dissertation has particularly explored the multi-faceted and innovative ways

that the North Rupununi communities adapt, envision and develop their contemporary

wildlife and forest management systems through the syncretic process of revitalizing

progressive customary environmental practices and knowledge and adopting and/or

appropriating modern scientific, collaborative and managerial discourses within the

global conservation domain. There are three features that have conditioned the

formation of progressive forms of collaborative and community-led conservation within

the North Rupununi:

1. The North Rupununi communities have vital material, cultural, ecological and ethical

relationships with their environments and animal and plant species, and are dependent on them for their livelihoods and way of life.

2. Customary and contemporary community leadership and management models in the

North Rupununi contribute to the sustainable harvest and use, and protection of habitats, species, environmental services and cultural institutions –– although the conscious objective of management may have been different in previous times (e.g. livelihood, water or crop security, safeguarding of cultural and spiritual places).

3. The North Rupununi communities are rights-holders over their lands and resources,

and have developed local capacity development and governance structures regarding the management of socio-ecological initiatives and conservation areas.

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This feature implies that community institutions have the capacity to institute and enforce regulatory guidelines and customary practices. While the communities are collaborative partners with IIC and other conservation organizations that may support some of the community-led initiatives, primary decision-making and management powers are vested in NRDDB-BHI, village councils and the communities.

A strategy that connects community actors together politically, culturally and

ecologically is to collectively imagine a new future, a new vision for themselves that

transcends the difficult nature of their current realities. The North Rupununi communities

are empowering themselves to create change within their lives and to set a new vision

for how they want to re-build and/or develop their communities, livelihoods,

environments and cultural and political institutions. An important part of the process has

involved negotiating encounters with conservation, development and state institutions. It

has also involved navigating new relational spaces of i) collaboration ii) socio-ecological

governance iii) knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building iv) ecological restoration and

cultural revitalization and v) animal interaction and harvesting. These processes and

relational spaces have been tenuous and complex, where domains of power,

knowledge, decision-making, dialogue and trust are constantly shifting in ways that

sometimes leave community members at a relatively disadvantaged position vis-à-vis

their conservation partners. However, the North Rupununi communities have not been

passive victims or allowed themselves to be coerced, silenced or disempowered by the

more inequitable and dissonant facets of global conservation and development.

Moreover, this study has illuminated the varied and innovative ways that

community actors’ self-consciously and self-determinedly engage with their conservation

partners; articulate and mobilize their rights, customary knowledges and institutions; and

adapt and syncretize aspects of modern science, technology and management

discourses that complement and augment revitalized Indigenous systems. As a

luminous example of the potential for local transformations toward more self-sustaining

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and autonomous forms of community conservation leadership, the Pîyakîîta Resource

Management Unit (PRMU) guidelines for mediating and regulating sustainable land and

natural resource practices and use particularly reflect the complex interplay of: i) place-

based and locally grounded contexts and priorities, ii) syncretism of customary and

modern conservation practices and discourses, and iii) global legal, policy,

environmental and market discourses.

Future Research Paths

My intention in this study is not to offer a set of scenarios reflective of the perfect

alchemy of elements for equitable and progressive collaborative partnerships and

transitions to community-led conservation. Instead, I present a place-based scenario of

transformative possibilities in conservation that have emerged from sites of post-colonial

entanglement, vulnerability and dislocation, cross-fertilization and hope. I have exposed

areas of tension and possibility within collaborative conservation relationships, global

conservation policy and discourse, collaborative knowledge-building, Indigenous

customary systems and relationships related to wildlife and environmental practice that

provide referent points for future work. This doctoral study has thus provided the

foundation for a long-term collaborative relationship with the North Rupununi

communities and institutions, and IIC. I am inspired by the possibilities for longitudinal

research that have emerged from this study, particularly in the areas of collaborative

processes that foreground Indigenous agency, institutions and priorities; environmental

youth leadership; local socio-ecological governance and conservation capacity

development; and integrative wildlife research.

I have provided a detailed, robust and contextualized analysis of both the

constraints and transformative possibilities of collaborative conservation relationships

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between Indigenous and conservation actors within the frames of the global

conservation domain and the particular setting of the North Rupununi, Guyana.

However, more research and the refinement of assessment tools are needed in terms of

examining the impacts of conservation institutional shifts, i.e. decreasing community

outreach and integration, increasing market-orientation, elite human resource

qualifications and increasing integration within global conservation networks, on

Indigenous community partners within collaborative partnerships. Furthermore, what

mechanisms and strategies can be developed to enhance Indigenous communities’

negotiation tools and bargaining powers regarding their rights and priorities vis-à-vis

institutional, state and industry actors? Collaborative research and conservation

initiatives should be more reflective of the situated knowledge and values that

community members hold with respect to regional animals and environments.

In examining the emergent development of autonomous environmental

governance, local and international institutions play a critical role as conduits in this

process by providing and facilitating the appropriate educational, training, decision-

making, and financial mechanisms and resources for communities to expand their

conservation and development capacities and human resources. With respect to local

governance and capacity development, and conservation leadership, more extensive

research is needed into viable forms of devolving conservation and protected area

capacities, powers and responsibilities to local communities and socio-ecological

governance institutions. Moreover, such research will focus on the development and

promotion of self-empowered, democratic and transparent environmental governance

institutions related to conservation leadership and community development within

Indigenous and forest-dependent communities.

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Of particular interest to Indigenous actors in the North Rupununi (NRDDB &

Iwokrama, 1998; NRDDB, p.c., 2009) is exploring context-relevant and integrative

strategies for capacity development and youth leadership that enable young people to

become self-empowered and equipped to negotiate and manage the interplay of

environmental and social issues facing their communities. In examining the emergent

development of autonomous environmental governance, local and international

institutions such as NRDDB, BHI and IIC play a critical role as conduits in this process

by providing and facilitating the appropriate educational, training, decision-making, and

financial mechanisms and resources for communities to expand their conservation and

development capacities and human resources. However, it is imperative that, while

facilitated and supported by conservation and development partners, such capacity

development and leadership strategies are defined and envisioned by the people

themselves.

The creation of the North Rupununi Wildlife Clubs is one of the successful

NRDDB-IIC collaborative conservation and capacity-building initiatives which is inspiring

local youth and conservation leadership, documentation of local natural history, positive

human–animal relationships and syncretic knowledge-building and integrative wildlife

research. More research on the expansion of wildlife clubs in terms of fostering a culture

of sustained environmental responsibility and consciousness, local conservation

leadership; and a methodology of animal interaction and research grounded within both

customary and modern conservation frameworks. Strategies to formally engage village

elders, rangers and hunters within teaching and training modules for wildlife clubs and

other youth leadership initiatives would strengthen the reciprocal flow of

intergenerational knowledge. As well, elders’ and hunters’ cultural articulations would

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reaffirm the bridging of cultural and natural worlds that have unfortunately started to drift

apart in the contemporary period.

An example of such a strategy would be to create an integrative Indigenous

knowledge and science educational curriculum and wildlife research practicum that

would utilize the conceptual and methodological tools presented in Figure 4.1 as an

interface between local ecological and wildlife knowledge, expertise and technologies,

and wildlife ecology, forestry and adaptive management models. Such an interface

offers more epistemologically and culturally syncretic methods for collecting, interpreting

and presenting research data whereby local natural history, customary knowledge and

cultural articulations of animals and their habitats is integrated with wildlife ecology and

conservation biology. There is also space for expanding integrative research methods

for refining and assessing wildlife health monitoring, sustainable harvesting and use

practices, and the interdependent relationships between community actors and local

animals.

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Glossary of Terms and Acronyms

APA Amerindian Peoples' Association of Guyana Balata Is the coagulated latex from the Bulletwood tree (Manilkara

bidentata). Balata was the first exported non-timber forest products in Guyana, used as an alternative to natural rubber. Today, it is mainly used to manufacture Amerindian handicrafts, particularly figurines.

Benab Is an Amerindian word for the customary round, gazebo-like,

palm-thatched houses that are multi-use spaces for meetings, socializing, resting or as a sleeping place for visiting people.

BHI Bina Hill Institute for Research and Training CBD United Nations Convention on Biodiversity

CCA Community Conserved Area

CEW Community Conservation Worker

CI Conservation International

CIDA Canadian International Development Agency Callaloo A popular Guyanese vegetable dish of Amerindian origin. Callaloo

is also a popular metaphor to describe the mixture and diversity of Creole or Caribbean culture.

Capacity A long-term continual process of educational and skills training Development opportunities targeted at building the educational, leadership,

managerial, political, technological, financial, and entrepreneurial potentials and abilities of local institutions and community members so that they may become more self-sufficient and self-directed in realizing their development and conservation goals. Capacity development initiatives should be relevant and responsive to the particular socio-cultural, ecological and political contexts of the local institutions and communities.

Coastlanders The majority of Guyana’s people who reside along the coastal

plane of Guyana. Conservation Conservation involves a dialectical set of relationships that

simultaneously naturalizes social relations among its different human communities, and socializes landscapes, animals and plants through cultural relations between human communities and the natural environment. For Indigenous peoples in Guyana, conservation means more than protecting natural habitats and species. Moreover, it is about protecting people’s relationships to the environment and to their way of life (a syncretic mix of

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customary and modern forms. Collaborative and community-level conservation comprises a nexus of relationships between Indigenous societies and conservationists and the interspecies relationships between Indigenous peoples and local animals. Although community members harvest and use certain species for food, cultural practices and their livelihoods, there is a cultural understanding that people are dependent on animals and forests for their survival and well-being, and animals and forests are dependent on people’s responsible environmental and wildlife harvesting and use practices. Hence, community members feel a deep sense of responsibility and care for animal species and for ensuring their flourishing, sustained survival and connection to communities.

Constitutional The amended 2003 Government of Guyana Constitution

recognizes Indigenous peoples’ rights to the promulgation, preservation and protection of their traditional territories, way of

life and cultural heritage. Indigenous customary land rights arise from long-standing occupation under customary law. However, under Guyana’s Constitution, there is very limited interpretation of ‘traditional rights’ (i.e. subsistence resource rights) and communities that do not have legal statuatory title remain vulnerable to State and commercial interests. Statuatory Indigenous land title confers legal land and resource tenure rights to titled communities for communal use and possession and constitutes a form of collective title, which cannot be alienated by private sale but may only be surrendered or shared by way of agreement with the Government of Guyana. The North Rupununi District Deveopment Board Constitution provisions for internal power-sharing mechanisms and an equitable division of roles and responsibilities amongst its staff, project, and member villages.

Democracy For local governance and external conservation institutions and

collaborative management processes to be genuinely democratic, they must be inclusive, rights-based, representative, intercultural and respectful of differences that exist between stakeholders. Mechanisms for decision-making, dialogue, knowledge-building, benefit-sharing and power-sharing should include equal representation and active input by all stakeholder groups.

Devolution A genuine devolution of rights, responsibilities and powers related

to wildlife and environmental management, and even to protected areas to communities, entails conservation organizations and state agencies transferring some, or all, of their control and authority to the local communities who are the primary users of and rights-holders to lands and resources under protection. Tandem processes that are necessary are capacity development and institutional support (from conservation partners) at the community level. Local governance institutions and community

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members need support in developing their institutional, managerial, financial, leadership, and resource capacities to the level where they can viably assume broad-based ownership of conservation and development powers. Alongside devolution is the decentralization or transference of decision-making responsibilities associated with wildlife and environmental management to Indigenous or local communities. Decentralized decision-making is constructive within local conservation practice and adaptive management strategies since it incorporates both local customary and contemporary institutions (which are grounded in the community’s worldview), as well as their specialized knowledge in adapting to ecological and social change.

EPA Environmental Protection Agency Guyana ENGO Environmental Non-Governmental Organization

Equity Highlighting social equity within environmental conflicts and policies works to challenge power imbalances and to disrupt an unequal cycle of winners and losers that disproportionately disenfranchises local people from conservation management. Equity promotes collaborative decision-making, power-sharing and management processes that ensure the full, equal and democratic participation of all community and conservation partners in conservation, wildlife management, research, community development and business ventures. At an intra-community level, equity involves greater social equality between community groups (especially inclusion of traditionally marginalized groups) and the development of democratic local governance structures.

FDI Foreign Direct Investment

FPIC Free, Prior and Informed Consent

Fortress Conventional model of wildlife and environmental conservation Conservation whereby protected areas are managed as pseudo enclosures

under policies to control access and harvesting activities by resident or nearby local communities – often displacing communities from the protected area.

GGMC Guyana Geology and Mines Commission

GPAS Guyana Protected Area System

GEF Global Environment Facility

GFC Guyana Forestry Commission

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GPS Global Positioning System

GRIF Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund

IDRC Canadian International Development and Research Institute

IIC Iwokrama International Centre for Conservation and Development

IPA Indigenous Protected Areas

IPR Intellectual Property Rights

IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature

Iwokrama Forest A protected area of 3,710 km2 of tropical forest ecosystem for Reserve which the Iwokrama International Centre holds management and

conservation responsibilities –– in collaboration with the NRDDB and Indigenous communities.

LCDS Low Carbon Development Strategy

Lifeway Refers to both the customary way of relating and living amongst the North Rupununi communities; and how people are ecologically positioned vis-à-vis other beings and natural entities within their broader environment.

Local Governance Local socio-ecological governance structures function to

autonomously and self-determinedly develop, mediate, regulate, educate and train community members on responsible and sustainable environmental and social practices and capacities. Such structures are based in customary frameworks and/or modern managerial and political frameworks that gain local legitimacy and authority within the community. In the North Rupununi, local governance comprises of an integration of institutional entities and processes (political and socio-cultural), formal protocols and regulations, social norms and beliefs. Local governance institutions and processes strive for internal leadership and power-sharing, equitable division of powers and responsibilities, and broad-based ownership of governance and environmental development processes amongst community groups.

MEA Multilateral Environmental Agreements MRU Makushi Research Unit NGO Non-Governmental Organization

NPAS National Protected Area System

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NRDDB North Rupununi District Development Board

NTFP Non-Timber Forest Product

Nature Just as there are diverse and complex natural environments, there are also diverse and contested ideologies about ‘nature’. While natural landscapes and entitites have a material or biophysical reality, understandings of nature’s materiality are based on partial truths and situated perspectives due to the cultural assumptions and values within which understanding is framed (Blaikie, 1995; Haraway, 1991). Rigid distinctions between nature and culture are artificial ontological markers imposed by dominant Christian, scientific, and market discourses as a means of separating human societies from natural environments for the purpose of people asserting their possession and control over nature. Furthermore, humans are natural entities and as such, the human and natural worlds are interrelated and interconnected. Many global Indigenous cosmologies and cultures value the natural world as sacred, and thus prioritize cultivation of reciprocal relationships with natural landscapes and non-human beings.

Neoliberal The neoliberal or “free-market” paradigm of conservation uses

conservation and natural resource management policy to expand state and/or corporate ownership over natural landscapes, plant, animal and mineral resources. This paradigm is often exercised through establishment of protected areas that act as neo-enclosures to control, and often exclude, Indigenous or local communities from access to and management of lands and resources. Neoliberal conservation policy commodifies and regulates the natural world as environmental goods and services according to economic pricing values and market mechanisms. Entrenched in neoliberal orthodoxy, market-oriented conservation strategies are aimed at protecting natural environments while providing economic incentives through business frameworks and the creation of global markets for environmental goods and services. State and institutional conservation strategies in Guyana are becoming increasingly business- or market-oriented, using the “conservation pays” ethos to legitimize and finance wildlife environmental conservation and wildlife management projects.

Management The term ‘management’, whether conceptualized according to

mainstream, adaptive or collaborative constructs of environmental practice - speaks to a more Eurocentric model of private and public property and ownership. However, notions about ‘possession’ and ‘control over’ environments and animals are in contravention to global Indigenous understandings about their reciprocal relationships with, and responsibilities toward non-human species and landscapes. Elders from the North Rupununi, and Canadian Aboriginal contexts believe that the environment

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and wildlife manage people more so than people manage the environment and animals (O’Flaherty et al., 2008). Although the term ‘management’ has been widely adopted by Indigenous people in their discourses with conservationists – conduct and responsibility regarding the harvest, use and protection of animals and natural resources is often expressed very differently within Indigenous discourses (LaDuke, 2005; Langton, 2003; Stevenson, 2006). ‘Sustainable harvest and use’, ‘reciprocity’ and ‘mutual responsibility’ are concepts that are often used by communities in defining their tenure of and practice toward environments and animals.

PA Protected Area

PES Payment for Ecosystem Services

p.c. personal communications

PHRIA Participatory Human Resource Interaction Appraisals

PRMU Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit

Pepperpot Pepperpot is the national dish of Guyana but it originates as an Amerindian stew. It has become ‘creolized’ in that it is now eaten by all ethnic groups in Guyana and takes on different ingredients and flavours depending on the cook. Pepper pot is popularly used as a metaphor in Guyana to describe products of cultural creolization.

Pîyakîîta “people of the landings” in Makushi language

REDD+ Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation

SUA Sustainable Use Area

Sovereignty Indigenous peoples’ struggles in Guyana to obtain legal and political rights to their villages and full autonomous control and use of their ancestral lands and natural resources. Territorial rights refer to rights of tenure and/or use of Indigenous lands (inasmuch as these may be different) –– they may be recognized under legal treaties or titling grants by the government or as de facto (in practice, although not officially ordained by law) customary rights. Derivative entitlements from territorial rights are collectively categorized as customary rights such as: cultural rights, decision-making rights, environmental stewardship rights, self-governance rights, spiritual rights and ceremonial rights. Legal titles over villages and territories are vested with recognized community members, and local governance institutions established within communities such as Village Councils and District Councils.

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UNDP United Nations Development Program

UNEP United Nations Environmental Program

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

WP Wilderness Preserve

WWF World Wildlife Fund for Nature

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Appendix A Matrix of Interview and Map Biography Participants

Thematic Group Interview Participants Map Biographies Participants

Community Environmental Worker

CEW 1

CEW 2

CEW 3

CEW 4

CEW 5

Village Elders

VE 1 VE 1

VE 2 VE 2

VE 3 VE 3

VE 4 VE 4

VE 5 VE 5

VE 6 VE 6

VE 7 VE 7

VE 8 VE 8

VE 9 VE 9

VE 10 VE 10

VE 11 VE 11

VE 12 VE 12

VE 13 VE 13

VE 14 VE 14

VE 15 VE 15

VE 16 VE 16

Village Counselors

VC 1 VC 3

VC 2 VC 4

VC 3 VC 9

VC 4 VC 10

VC 5 VC 11

VC 6

VC 7

VC 8

VC 9

VC 10

VC 11

VC 12

Village Hunters

VH 1 VH 1

VH 2 VH 2

VH 3 VH 3

VH 4 VH 4

VH 5 VH 5

VH 6 VH 6

VH 7 VH 7

VH 8 VH 8

VH 9 VH 9

VH 10 VH 10

VH 11 VH 11

VH 12 VH 12

IIC Management

IM 2

IM 3

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Appendix B Interviews with Community Environmental Workers

Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. How did you become involved with the CEW Programme?

2. What do you remember as your first experience with the natural world that inspired you to become interested in nature and animals?

3. Do you consider yourself to be an environmental leader? Why or why not?

4. Do you feel that your knowledge and skills regarding animals, environmental issues,

conservation and resource management has increased as a result of your CEW experience and training from Iwokrama?

5. Please describe your outreach activities with village members regarding: wildlife and

environmental conservation and management, community development, and education.

6. What was your experience of bringing together traditional/local knowledge with the concepts of: modern conservation and science; sustainable use; collaborative management?

7. Did you find that villagers’ ability to integrate traditional and conservation understandings

changed much depending on: age, gender, education level, village location, or involvement with Iwokrama and other conservation projects?

8. What were some of the most difficult concepts to explain related to forest and wildlife

management?

9. Were community members interested in wildlife management, research and conservation?

10. Did you work with hunters, fishermen and trappers in terms of educating them on

regulations for hunting, fishing and trapping certain species?

IIC and CI Rangers

IR 1

IR 2

IR 3

IR 4

IR 5

IR 6

IR 7

IR 8

Wildlife Club Leaders

WC 1

WC 2

WC 3

WC 4

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11. What have been the main conflicts experienced between villagers and wildlife? How have such conflicts resolved?

12. Have you been able to become involved in community project planning? Please explain.

Were you able to implement the project? If so, what were the outcomes?

13. Are there defined boundaries or sacred areas in, or near, the village that restrict hunting, fishing and harvesting practices?

14. Were there any animals that could not be eaten by villagers? What was the reasoning for

these rules? Are these rules still followed today?

15. What are people’s understandings of the collaboration between the communities, NRDDB and the Iwokrama Programme? e.g. has it been an equitable and beneficial partnership for communities?

16. What types of skills training and capacity development for villagers have been provided

by NRDDB/Bina Hill and Iwokrama? What more training and support do you think is required?

17. In your experience, has the Iwokrama Programme provided culturally relevant knowledge

and skills training? What improvements would you suggest?

18. Has the level of capacity-building been equal with community expectations and development needs?

19. What type of interaction and activities did you plan and carry out with Junior Wildlife

Clubs?

20. a) Do you think that the village youth have benefited from the wildlife/ environmental conservation and management initiatives – whether provided by NRDDB/ Bina Hill and/or Iwokrama?

b) How could they benefit more in terms of becoming environmental leaders within their community?

21. From all of your experiences engaging with communities in the context of community environmental extension, what are your impressions/ recollections with respect to:

a. Whether community members are still closely connected to the natural world (incl. the land/ landforms, waters, animals and plants)?

b. How would you describe their relationships to nature; to animals? c. Did you find that their relationships changed much dependent on: age, gender,

education level, village location, or involvement with Iwokrama and other conservation projects?

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Appendix B Map Biographies with Elders Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

I wish to document the environmental history biographies of the region based on the ecological and social memory of elders who have witnessed first-hand, or via stories and knowledge passed down over the generations, the progression of ecological change and interdependent relationships between communities, ecosystems and wildlife communities across time and space in and around the village area. In this way, the community has a record of their collective knowledge and memory of their village.

Indicate on Maps:

o Makushi names and explanations for different places and ecological features o pre-existing/ existing wildlife species and wildlife habitats o wildlife migration patterns o pre-existing/ existing natural and man-made ecological features and processes of

the territory (rivers, creeks, forests, groves, swamps, hills, villages, roads, trails) o pre-existing/ existing zones for farming, hunting/harvesting, fishing, gathering

medicines, fruit, timber and NFTPs o pre-existing/ existing zones which are prohibited from access and harvest due to

customary restrictions e.g. sacred sites o pre-existing/ existing areas of cultural and spiritual significance o conservation and sustainable use areas

1. What animals did people hunt in the old days? What uses did they have for these different

animals?

2. What areas were the best for hunting/ harvesting animals? Are these areas still good for finding animals today?

3. What are the traditional hunting practices that people used before and what practices do

people still use today?

4. Were there ceremonies and spiritual customs that people engaged in the old days that related to animals and/or nature (songs, dances, festivals, symbols/signs)? Are any of these ceremonies and spiritual customs still practiced today?

5. Were there any animals that could not be eaten by villagers? What was the reasoning for

these rules? Are these rules still followed today? 6. Are there defined boundaries or areas in, or near, the village regarding hunting and fishing

practices? 7. Were there customary rules or sacred sites that restricted the harvesting, use and/or

consumption of any animals or animal products? Are they still observed today? 8. Can you describe some of the traditional legends or stories that talk about the how animals

and/or how the savannahs, rivers, mountains and forests of the region were formed/ named? 9. What do you perceive as our relationship with animals (e.g. nutritional, cultural/ spiritual,

commercial)?

399

10. Do you believe that sharing your legends, beliefs and experiences about the region with the

younger generation will help them to understand how they should treat the lands, waters and animals of the region – in terms of respect and responsibilities?

11. Before the Iwokrama Programme and other conservation authorities became involved with

forestry and wildlife conservation strategies in the North Rupununi – before concepts like ‘conservation’, ‘management’ and ‘sustainability’ came into use - how did/do people think about custodianship and balanced, long-term use of animal and forest resources?

12. What are your beliefs regarding relationships of reciprocity between people and animals i.e.

interconnectedness, dependency and shared responsibility?

Appendix B Interviews with Iwokrama Program Management Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. Briefly outline Iwokrama’s mandate and programs regarding collaborative conservation

partnerships with the NRDDB and North Rupununi communities.

2. What have been some of the benefits and challenges of this conservation partnership for: i) Iwokrama ii) NRDDB and iii) the communities?

3. Have the communities been receptive to, and supportive of the collaboration between the NRDDB and communities and the Iwokrama Programme with respect to wildlife conservation and management?

4. What types of outreach, skills training and capacity development for communities have been provided by Iwokrama? What more training and institutional support do you think is required?

5. Has the level of capacity-building and outreach provided by the Iwokrama Programme been equal to community expectations and development needs? Are there any areas where it could be expanded or improved?

6. a) In what ways have youth from the communities benefited from the conservation and capacity- building initiatives provided by the Iwokrama Programme? b) Do you feel that a culture of local environmentalism and environmental leadership has been cultivated through the partnership?

7. a) Do you think that wildlife and environmental management approaches at the community level should be based more on traditional practices; modern practices or a combination of both? b) What would the benefits be for the community and the environment?

8. What mechanisms and initiatives have been created or supported by Iwokrama with regard to

recognizing and protecting the traditional Indigenous knowledge and lifestyles of the communities within conservation and management strategies?

9. How have traditional knowledge frameworks and modern conservation frameworks been integrated within Iwokrama’s research, training/educational and management initiatives regarding wildlife conservation?

400

10. What have been some of the challenges and successes of integrating/ bridging traditional ecological knowledge with the concepts of conservation science, sustainability and wildlife management?

11. a) Has the Iwokrama Programme’s collaboration with communities significantly changed the way that people hunt and use animals; utilize the Iwokrama Forest area? b) Has the collaboration changed the way that people relate to wildlife (culturally, materially, nutritionally)?

12. Do you feel that culturally embedded knowledge, practice and relationships between people and animals are foundational to engaged and sustainable forms of wildlife conservation and management – particularly at the community level?

13. In your experience, has the Iwokrama Programme facilitated the communities in their own priorities of: i) developing autonomous environmental governance ii) community development and iii) safeguarding their traditional knowledge, cultural and linguistic forms?

14. Has the Iwokrama Programme tried to recognize and integrate traditions of community

participation, consensus decision-making and negotiation within its management and decision-making processes?

15. In recognition of community members as traditional rights-holders, what are the mechanisms that the Iwokrama Programme has developed collaboratively with NRDDB regarding: i) consultation and dissemination of knowledge ii) equitable and active decision-making and participation and iii) benefits-sharing?

16. How has Iwokrama sought to include and engage differentially positioned social groups within each community (esp. women, youth, elders) within their consultations and projects?

17. a) Briefly outline Iwokrama’s role in assisting Fairview Village with their titling process. b) What has been the significance of this process and achievement in terms of: i) Iwokrama’s partnership with the NRDDB and communities ii) Iwokrama’s conservation mandate and iii) international approaches to collaborative and community-led conservation?

18. a) Is the Iwokrama Programme supportive of community-led conservation and wildlife management?

b) What have been some of the key supportive initiatives that Iwokrama has been involved with, or provided for the communities?

Appendix B Interviews with Village Councilors

Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. Are you aware of any traditional beliefs or systems that restricted the harvesting and use of

wildlife? (e.g. specific non-hunting/ harvesting periods or areas, spiritual beliefs, restrictions on harvesting and consumption)?

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2. Are there defined boundaries or sacred areas in, or near, the village that restrict access hunting and fishing practices?

3. What have been the main conflicts experienced between villagers and wildlife? How have

such conflicts been resolved within the village? 4. Have villagers been interested in wildlife conservation and management – whether through

community-based initiatives or with organizations such as Iwokrama? 5. What are people’s understandings of the collaboration between the communities, NRDDB

and the Iwokrama Programme? e.g. has it been an equitable and beneficial partnership for communities?

6. What types of skills training and capacity development for villagers have been provided by

NRDDB/Bina Hill and Iwokrama? What more training and support do you think is required? 7. In your experience, has the Iwokrama Programme provided culturally relevant knowledge and

skills training? What improvements would you suggest? 8. Has the level of capacity-building been equal with community expectations and development

needs? 9. Do people feel that their local knowledge and skills capacity have been recognized and

valued by the Iwokrama Programme – especially within collaborative research and management strategies?

10. Do you think that the village youth have benefited from the environmental conservation and

management initiatives – whether provided by NRDDB/ BHI and/or Iwokrama? How could they benefit more in terms of becoming environmental leaders within their community?

11. Do you think that wildlife and environmental management approaches at the community level

should be based more on traditional practices; modern practices or a combination of both? What would the benefits be for the community and the environment?

12. Do you feel that traditions of community participation and decision-making have been

recognized and integrated within NRDDB/ BHI and Iwokrama management and decision-making processes?

13. In your opinion, what have been the positives and challenges of collaborating with the

Iwokrama Program and other conservation initiatives? 14. How have the Pîyakîîta Resource Management Unit (PRMU) guidelines and by-laws been

received and implemented at the village level? 15. What types of conservation activities and projects have the Village Council and villagers

coordinated and led at the community level? 16. a) What do you think of the proposed Guyana Protected Area System initiative – especially

in terms of benefits for the communities? Do you think that a system of protected areas will be implemented with the free, prior and informed consent of affected communities?

b) What do you think of the Guyana Shield Initiative – in terms of benefits for communities

and environments in the region? Do you think that selling ecosystems services will facilitate conservation and local development strategies?

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17. Can you describe some of the external pressures/ environmental concerns facing your

village and/or the region?

Appendix B Interviews with Iwokrama Wildlife Rangers Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. Why did you decide to become a wildlife ranger? 2. Before you became a ranger, did you have an interest in exploring and/or studying

animals? 3. Do you feel that your knowledge and skills regarding: animals, ecosystems and

environmental issues has increased as a result of your ranger training and experience with Iwokrama?

4. Have your experiences as a ranger inspired you to be more conscious of, and responsive

to wildlife/ environmental issues? 5. Iwokrama claims that as a ranger, you receive a holistic knowledge of the natural

environment – did that teaching include relationships between people and nature; people and animals?

6. Do you feel that the scientific and technical knowledge and skills that you practice in your

work are complementary to your local knowledge and skills? Please explain. 7. In your ranger work, have you incorporated your local knowledge and cultural traditions

(i.e. story-telling, myths, beliefs, customs, art and customary institutions) about animals and the environment?

8. Do villagers feel that their local knowledge and skills capacity have been recognized and

valued by the Iwokrama Program – especially within collaborative research and management projects?

9. a) What are some of the wildlife research studies that you have helped with - initiated by

Iwokrama, and/or by external researchers? b) What role did you play in the research study? c) Was your own knowledge of animal species and habitats incorporated into the study? Were you acknowledged for your contribution?

10. Have you been able to use your training and knowledge as a ranger within your village? 11. How has community-led wildlife/ resource management been implemented at the village

level? 12. Do you think that training and education initiatives and collaboration with the Iwokrama

Programme have changed the way that villagers relate to animals? Have they changed the way that people hunt and use animals?

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13. Have you been able to become involved in community project planning? Please explain.

Were you able to implement the project? If so, what were the outcomes? 14. What is your understanding of collaborative management? Do you think that the

communities have had a central role in Iwokrama’s approach to wildlife management? Please explain.

15. In your opinion, what have been the positive and negative impacts of collaborating with

the Iwokrama Program and other conservation initiatives? 16. Can you share some of your knowledge about the natural history and behavioural

ecology of the animal species you most research/ monitor within the Iwokrama Forest or CI Concession; and/or around your village?

17. What is your knowledge about variations in the abundance and ranging patterns of

different animals that are being monitored? 18. How do the ranging patterns of such animals overlap living, farming and other livelihood

areas of villagers? 19. Do villagers use the sustainable use area of the Iwokrama Forest or CI Concession? If

so, how often and for what purposes? 20. Does much illegal hunting/ trapping go on within the boundaries of the Iwokrama Forest

or CI Concession? By whom?

Appendix B Map Biography Interviews with Village Hunters

Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. Which animals/fish do you typically hunt/fish during the dry and rainy seasons? Which months/ season of the year are best for hunting/fishing?

2. How many days per week do you spend hunting? 3. What tools or methods do you use to capture animals/fish? 4. How much hunting effort per catch do you invest for each species that you harvest? 5. Do you have any specific cultural beliefs or ritual practices related to your hunting (e.g. bina,

prayers, signs, dreams)? 6. Where are the hunting and fishing areas used by the village and where are they located?

(Indicate on map) 7. Is there any traditional customary mechanism for rotation of hunting areas, species, or

practices? 8. Does the migration pattern of hunted animals overlap living, farming and other livelihood

areas of villagers? (Indicate on map – species and overlap areas)

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9. Have you noticed a change in the concentration of different animals that you hunt since there have been formal wildlife and resource management plans put in place? (Indicate on map where lower/ higher populations of hunted animals are located)

10. Are you aware of defined boundaries, sacred areas or food restrictions (taboos) regarding

hunting and fishing practices? (Indicate areas on map) 11. What are some of the conflicts that you experience with specific wildlife species (i.e. personal

security and crop security)? How have such conflicts been resolved? 12. Do you feel there is a conflict between your traditional hunting/fisihing practices and

observing the regulations of Iwokrama or the Village Management Plan regarding harvesting restrictions on certain animals or harvest methods?

13. Can you describe some of the local knowledge or experiences about the natural history and

behaviours of the animal species you most hunt? 14. While learning how to hunt animals for food, do you study the behaviour and migration

patterns of the wildlife species? How do your observations assist in hunting? 15. Although you hunt and eat animals, do you feel a close relationship with the animal species

you are hunting, and/or with the environment? 16. Are there any traditional restrictions within the village regarding hunting/fishing practice and

use. If they are not complied with, what are the penalties? If Iwokrama regulations are not complied with, what are the penalties?

17. Do you feel that the village is hunting and using animals in a sustainable manner that is not

placing too much pressure on the populations of different species? If so, do you perceive your hunting and use methods to be more sustainable now than in the past? Why?

Appendix B Interviews with Junior Wildlife Club Leaders Principal Researcher: Tanya Chung Tiam Fook

1. What do you remember as your first experience with the natural world that inspired you to

become interested in nature and animals? 2. What is your favourite animal(s) to study? Why? 3. What are the objectives of the Wildlife Clubs? How have they changed/ remained the same

over the years? 4. Do you consider yourself to be an environmental leader? Why or why not? 5. Please describe the activities that you were involved with while in the Wildlife Club. 6. Do you feel that your wildlife club activities have contributed to increasing communities’

awareness, understanding and respect for wildlife and the environment? 7. Has your wildlife observation and data ever been used for Iwokrama research projects –

such as local wildlife surveys and monitoring?

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8. a) Has your experience with the Clubs been good for learning and capacity-building?

b) What specific skills and knowledge did you accumulate during your participation? c) Have these skills and knowledge assisted you in developing other aspects of your life and career?

9. How do you share and promote your positive experiences of gaining knowledge and

participating within the Clubs with other youth, your family and community? 10. What is your experience about the annual wildlife festival? Do you think that it promotes

interest and respect for local wildlife amongst the younger generation? 11. Do you feel that Iwokrama and NRDDB/BHI have provided you with enough learning,

training, materials and support to carry out your activities and to develop the Clubs’ program and outreach? Is there anything more that Iwokrama could do to help support your activities?

12. What ideas do you have to make the Clubs and support for their activities and development

stronger? 13. Do you feel supported by your family, teachers and Village Council in your interests with

wildlife and environmental leadership? 14. What types of training, activities, work have you taken on, or wish to take on, that would be

related to your wildlife and environmental interests? 15. Has your involvement with the Wildlife Clubs inspired you to continue promoting and working

toward conservation and environmental responsibility with youth in your community? 16. Based on your experiences participating in the Wildlife Clubs, would you recommend

membership to other youth? If so, how would you describe the benefits of participation? 17. Do you think that raising awareness in the community about local wildlife and environmental

issues will inspire other youth to be interested with participating in Wildlife Clubs and other environmental initiatives?

Appendix C Informed Consent Form for Research Participants Date: December 2008 - September 2009 Study Name:

Sustaining Indigenous Lifeways Through Collaborative and Community-Led Wildlife Conservation in the North Rupununi

Principle Researcher: This field study is being carried out principally by Ms. Tanya Chung Tiam Fook (a Doctoral Candidate in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada) with official permission from: Iwokrama Centre for Rainforest Conservation, North Rupununi District Development Board/ Bina Hill Institute, Region 9 Village Leaders, Ministry of Amerindian Affairs

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and the Environmental Protection Agency of Guyana. I can be contacted by email at tiamfook@yorku.ca. Purpose of the Research: This research study examines the broader social and politico-ecological processes, formations and implications shaping locally grounded human-animal relationships, integrative knowledge frameworks, environmental leadership and collaborative management strategies directed at sustainable wildlife use and conservation in Iwokrama Forest and the Makushi villages of North Rupununi, Guyana. Research Objectives: 1. To understand Makushi and Iwokrama perspectives on: i) the environmental history of the

North Rupununi savannah and Iwokrama Forest landscapes and ii) the natural history and social ecology of focal animal species.

2. To examine how Makushi people have engaged with both locally embedded and external discourses and processes, in defining their contemporary wildlife knowledge, customary rights and management practices.

3. To explore the challenges and possibilities for creating dynamic and syncretic spaces for building integrative and locally grounded wildlife knowledge, research and management within the NRDDB-Iwokrama collaborative partnership.

What You Will Be Asked to Do in the Research: Participants will be requested to collaborate with the principal researcher in terms of planning, design, data collection and interpretation, and feedback/evaluation. Participants will be requested to engage in one or more of the following research activities: 1) community meetings 2) in-depth interviews 3) oral history narratives 4) environmental history map biographies project and 5) participant observation. Participants will be consulted beforehand to discuss the time frame of the activity and when is most convenient for both participants and researcher. Risks and Discomforts: I do not foresee any risks or discomfort from your participation in the research. Benefits of the Research and Benefits to You: In terms of benefits, this research study intends to be the beginning of a meaningful and long-term collaborative engagement to promoting and strengthening locally-grounded knowledge, capacity and leadership building processes related to ecological and social change within the region. Voluntary Participation: Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. Withdrawal from the Study: You can stop participating in the study at any time, for any reason. Your decision to not participate or to withdraw from the study will not influence the nature of your relationship with the researcher or York University, now or in the future. Should you withdraw from the study, all data you have provided associated with the project will immediately be destroyed where possible. Should you withdraw from the study, honoraria and travel stipends already paid to you will not need to be returned.

Confidentiality: Confidentiality and anonymity of research participants will be respected throughout the research process to the fullest extent possible by law. All information you supply during the research will be held in confidence and unless you specifically indicate your consent, your name will not appear in any report or publication of the research. However, if you do not want to remain

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anonymous, you must sign below and indicate that you want to reveal your true identity. All field notes and transcripts will:

Use an interview number as opposed to a name for classification purposes

Use a pseudonym (a false name) to protect your identity

Alter any additional information that might reveal your identity Research data will be collected in the form of audiotapes, videotapes, field notes, maps, and interview transcripts. While in the field, all data collected will be kept in a safe place that is only accessible to the principle researcher. Primary data will be archived and produced into GIS maps, a CD and DVD which will later be disseminated to communities and affiliated institutions – maps will contain aggregated data and the CD and DVD will contain edited raw data. Since the CD and DVD will display verbal or graphic personal identifiers, I will only include your voice or image recording if you indicate your consent. All other records will be destroyed after my research is completed. Compensation for Participation

Participants do not stand to gain direct financial compensation, royalties, capital equipment etc. from this research as it is strictly intended for academic purposes and not for commercial purposes or gain. However, I will offer small honoraria for key research collaborators and travel stipends for participants who must travel far from their villages for research activities. Questions About the Research? If you have any questions about the research project and/or research activity(ies) in which you are asked to participate, please do not hesitate to ask the principle researcher, Ms. Tanya Chung Tiam Fook. This research has been reviewed and approved by the Human Participants Review Sub-Committee, York University’s Ethics Review Board and conforms to the standards of the Canadian Tri-Council Research Ethics guidelines. If you have any questions about this process, or about your rights as a participant in the study, please contact: Dr. Martin Bunch, Graduate Program Director, Faculty of Environmental Studies at mbunch@yorku.ca or Ms. Alison Collins-Mrakas, Manager, Research Ethics, 309 York Lanes, York University at acollins@yorku.ca. Legal Rights and Signatures: I __________________________ consent to participate in the research study Sustaining Indigenous Lifeways Through Collaborative and Community-Led Wildlife Conservation in the North Rupununi, Guyana conducted by Ms. Tanya Chung Tiam Fook. I have understood the nature of this project and wish to participate. I am not waiving any of my legal rights by signing this form. My signature below indicates my consent. ____ Participant Signature Date ____ Principal Investigator Signature Date

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Appendix C Verbal Informed Consent Script My name is Tanya Chung Tiam Fook and I am a PhD student in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Although I grew up in Canada, my family is from Guyana. I am doing a field research study on the social, ecological and political processes, formations and implications shaping locally grounded human-animal relationships, integrative knowledge frameworks, environmental leadership and collaborative management strategies directed at sustainable wildlife use and conservation in Iwokrama Forest and the Makushi villages of North Rupununi, Guyana. I would specifically like to understand Makushi and Iwokrama perspectives on: i) the environmental history of the North Rupununi savannahs/ wetlands and Iwokrama Forest ii) the influence of human-animal encounters on the habitat use, ranging patterns and social behaviours of harvested animals within their overlapping habitats. I would also like to understand how both traditional perspectives and institutions, and modern conservation perspectives and projects have influenced Makushi communities in defining their contemporary wildlife knowledge, customary rights, management practices and collaboration with Iwokrama Centre for Conservation. I would greatly appreciate your collaboration in collecting and interpreting research material that will help me to explore the issues and questions significant to this study. The knowledge, ideas, observations, stories and experiences that you share with me, and that we create together during your participation are very valuable to my research and will hopefully contribute to increased awareness and relevant strategies for Indigenous communities and conservationists. In particular, I hope this study will contribute toward recognizing and strengthening locally-grounded knowledge, capacity and leadership building processes related to ecological and social change within the North Rupununi region. Everything that you share with me will be kept completely confidential and unless you would like your name included in the study, I will never use your name or reveal your identity in any documentation or reporting of this research. Your participation in this study is completely voluntary and will not result in any discomfort or risks to you. If you consent, I will ask that you participate in one or more of the following research activities: 1) community meetings 2) in-depth interviews 3) oral history narratives 4) map biographies or 5) participant observation. We will discuss these activities in more detail, as well as a schedule for your participation in the research study that is convenient for you. If you feel that you must stop participating in the study at any time, for any reason, it is your right to do so. If at any time you have questions about this research study or activities, please feel free to ask me. If you understand the nature of the study and wish to participate in it, please give your verbal consent.

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Appendix D NVIVO-Coded Analytical Concepts and Themes within Research Benefit-Sharing Derived community benefits from collaborative partnerships with Iwokrama/CI and

conservation-related initiatives – mainly non-financial benefits such as: co-management rights, community development, capacity development, employment and educational opportunities, business opportunities; financial benefits include funding and business opportunities and community development funds generated from IF fees, tourism and ESS payments.

Derived Iwokrama benefits from collaborative partnership with communities and conservation-related initiatives and business opportunities (sustainable logging, tourism, ESS payments); non-financial benefits include support and collaborative relationship with communities

Capacity Development Community development facilitated by autonomous and Iwokrama-supported initiatives Institutional support of management capacity and community conservation and cultural

initiatives by Iwokrama Program, CI or NRDDB; developing the adaptive and human resource capacities of community members

Job opportunities/ lack of job opportunities for villagers within communities or at the Iwokrama Field Station (particularly for youth); concern regarding the lack of sufficient and quality employment and learning opportunities (particularly for youth) being stimulated by the Iwokrama Program and other community and external programs and projects in the region

Institutional support – recognition and support from Iwokrama to assist community members in adapting to and developing the capacity to integrate conservation science, technology and collaborative management procedures within their own understandings, practices and initiatives

Lack of resources – to provide adequate capacity development and services within community

Local brain drain – implications for community capacity and development when villagers out-migrate in search of outside job and travel opportunities – particularly younger villagers who have received formal training and/or skills training; concern that youth who have received training are unable to procure employment within the region and must search elsewhere for opportunities

Training and skills development – workshops, skills training and educational opportunities to develop conservation and leadership capacity within communities - provided by NRDDB, Iwokrama Program and CI; concern that there is not sufficient skills and educational training to develop the human resources capacities and needs of the communities and institutional programs that are steadily growing in number and scope

Challenges and Expectations Christian Church – role of church in discrediting and displacing local cultural and knowledge

forms; perceived points of convergence between traditional beliefs and Christian beliefs Climate change – the impacts of climate change on wildlife behaviours, plant and tree cycles

and ecosystems; impacts on crop cultivation – implications for communities Concerns about institutions – community leaders and members have specific issues of

concern regarding Iwokrama and CI regarding expectations (continuity in capacity-building, outreach and communication with communities; quality employment opportunities; contradictory conservation practices like logging) that the institutions have not recognized and/or fulfilled

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Contradictions – communities perceive discrepancies between the mandate, promises and commitments made by the Iwokrama Program/CI regarding community involvement and development - and the actual practices and interests that the institutions pursue

Difference in priorities – communities observe that Iwokrama Program/CI hold divergent priorities with respect to conservation and community development from those of the communities

Disconnect with traditions – many community members (mainly middle-age and some youth) no longer believe in many of the customary beliefs and systems in terms of their viability for protecting wildlife and the environment; they feel connected with a more modern and utilitarian worldview whereby the cultural underpinnings of environmental practices are not recognized or deemed important – they question the relevance of such beliefs and traditions in their contemporary reality

External threats – external actors and forces that have threatened or caused negative impacts within villages: i.e. Brazilians imposing new hunting norms that undermine food taboos; coastlander and other illegal hunters breaching community regulations and Iwokrama reserve regulations; extractive industries (esp. Groundstar petroleum and mining companies) ignoring Amerindian Act and village structures to pursue commercial interests that negatively impact communities and territories – industries make promises of community benefits but are only interested in maximizing their own profits and interests

Government responsibility – responsibilities assumed by the government or attributed to the government by communities regarding safeguarding communities and wildlife/environment

Internal challenges – challenges and concerns that villagers have regarding community regulations on harvesting and use, PRMU process, conservation projects (particularly those that are managed by people outside the village), concerns about village leadership, lack of youth engagement, and community participation/apathy in conservation and community development projects

Collaborative Relationships and Management Centrality of communities within collaborative partnership: importance of community

participation and support of conservation partnership, conservation initiatives and the business ventures; development, integrity and sustainability of the Iwokrama Program

Collaborative relationships and processes - between communities, NRDDB and Iwokrama Program/CI - qualities defining positive forms of relationship and relationship-building: respectful, equitable, inclusive, recognition of Indigenous people as rights-holders, beneficial; power-sharing – equitable or top-down; challenges that have prevented or limited equitable relationship-building and power-sharing arrangements

Collaborative projects – between villages and Iwokrama Program/CI related to conservation, resource management and capacity training

Communication and dialogue – Inclusion of communities within dialogue processes around Iwokrama initiatives and management directions; communication of ideas, decisions, planning and strategies with communities; level of communication capacity within communities; knowledge-sharing between institutions and communities; communities feel there has been a lack in continuity of communication and knowledge-sharing, and a fundamental break-down in quantity and quality of dialogue from Iwokrama/CI

Community outreach – Community Environmental Worker, Ranger and Iwokrama Staff (sponsored by Iwokrama Program) outreach activities with communities regarding conservation initiatives, conservation education and Iwokrama projects; timely and engaged dissemination of information on projects, program activities and management issues; community disappointment with the lack of continuity in outreach activities and information dissemination by Iwokrama Program/CI

Consensus – collective and participatory decision-making and agreement processes within village meetings; collaborative meetings with NRDDB and Iwokrama Program/CI

Consultation – information-sharing, information-gathering and consent processes undertaken by Iwokrama Program/CI with communities regarding collaborative management,

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conservation projects, business ventures; consultations between: i) Iwokrama Pogram, NRDDB and communities ii) NRDDB and communities

Decision-making – customary decision-making processes at the village level; recognition and inclusion of local decision-making mechanisms within collaborative and Iwokrama-led meetings and forums; tendency toward top-down decision-making by Iwokrama Program/CI

Endorsement of collaboration by communities – favourable sentiments about the benefit of collaborating with Iwokrama program/CI

Outside authority – communities feel at times that Iwokrama or CI impose their interests and agenda regarding management decisions and projects in a top-down manner

Ranger support within communities – expectation that rangers will work more closely with home villages, especially with youth programs and security within the village; disappointment that rangers are stationed almost exclusively in Iwokrama reserve/ CI concession

Shift in Iwokrama directorship – community members correlate the shift in Iwokrama’s priorities regarding conservation and commitment/ investment in community capacity development and collaborative partnership with the shift from earlier directorship; communities identify present leadership of Iwokrama Program as being more interested in commercial (market-oriented) endeavours than the partnership with communities

Village representation – villager interests, concerns and recommendations are represented within NRDDB meetings and initiatives/ collaborative meetings and initiatives with Iwokrama/CI; expectation that villages could more directly represent themselves within meetings and dialogue with NRDDB, Iwokrama Program and CI

Community Wildlife Management Bina Hill Institute – role, activities and programs of BHI in facilitating autonomous

community management, capacity development Community autonomy and agency – autonomous conservation and management initiatives

led by communities and BHI/NRDDB with or without support from Iwokrama Program/CI; agency of communities (individual or collective) to decide on whether it is in their interest to take up conservation, community development and leadership initiatives at the village level

Community wildlife management – contemporary wildlife and forestry management plans, initiatives and governance systems led by village councils and committees to encourage responsible and sustainable harvesting and use practices for wildlife and forest resources; positive experience or challenges facing village councils and communities in attaining management goals

Community regulations – wildlife, forest and farming regulations implemented at the village level; concern that there is not enough formal implementation and enforcement of regulations at village level

Community titling and mapping – community-led initiatives to map community boundaries, usage areas and resources; institutional support from Iwokrama Program in formal demarcation and titling processes, especially for Fairview Village

Community-based tourism – eco-tourism initiatives led by communities (supported by Iwokrama Program and other institutions); linkage between conserving wildlife, interest in wildlife and tourism

Community-initiated projects – wildlife/forestry conservation, research and management projects led by communities; community conserved/protected areas within village; village self-help and cultural development projects

Community rights and right to FPIC – recognizing and protecting Indigenous communities’ rights to: lands, resources, knowledges and customary systems; resource management; consultations process and principle of free, prior and informed consent by organizations, government and industry agents who have interests in communities and their lands

Impacts on wildlife – positive or negative impacts from customary and community-led wildlife practices and management initiatives on local animal populations

NRDDB representation – NRDDB’s role as: mediator between communities and Iwokrama Program/CI; representative of community interests, concerns and recommendations in the

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collaborative process; facilitator of community conservation and capacity development initiatives

PRMU process – process of planning, consultations and implementation of PRMU guidelines; importance of PRMU guidelines for village wildlife and resource management; challenging issues with ratification of PRMU guidelines; concerns regarding PRMU documents: based more on modern management and legal structures; some regulations appear unfair to Indigenous people; level of language inaccessible to communities

Sustainability – sustainability of wildlife harvesting and use and environmental practices within: customary systems or contemporary community management initiatives; awareness and long-term vision of the need to protect and care for forests, wetlands, animal and plant resources for future generations and to maintain; many villager’s (especially elders) concept of sustainability is interconnected with a sense of interconnection, interdependency and responsibility with all living entities

Cultural Practices with Animals Performances influenced by local animals – dances, songs, theatre traditionally performed

within communities and contemporarily performed at cultural shows and the annual wildlife festival

Prayers and blowing tobacco smoke – peaiman and elders would be called upon to sanctify villager’s ability to eat or use taboo animals – or to cure a villager afflicted from using taboo animal or transgressing a customary tradition - by performing prayers to the animal spirit and blowing tobacco smoke; peaiman and elders called upon to rid a sacred site of evil spirits and allow access to villagers

Parishara ceremony – a large multi-village festival dedicated to cassava harvesting and includes animal dances such as the peccary dance and the hummingbird dance to embody and celebrate the centrality of cassava as a crop and form of nourishment for communities – and villagers’ interconnection and interdependence on their farmlands and animals

Customary Institutions, Beliefs and Practices Related to Environmental Management Animal masters – animal guardians believed to be owners or protectors of the animal

species (master’s “pets”) or landscape where they inhabit; often protectors of valuable (and sometimes heavily predated) resources or sacred species to communities such as: peccary herds, arapaima, fresh water sources, diverse and plentiful fishing grounds, mineral sources; animal masters allow access of hunters to ‘pet’ species if hunting and fishing are done in a responsible manner that does not involve overharvesting or injured animals to be left behind

Animal taboos – eating practices related to specific local animal species that have cultural taboos attached to them; taboos restricting menstruating women’s activities and movements; taboos attached to interference with specific animal species – physical and mental afflictions that will result from transgression of taboo restrictions; many villagers continue to believe in these traditions and have direct experiences within their families

Change in customary beliefs and practices due to societal and ideological shifts within communities; change in belief and practice often precipitated by a villager’s transgression of customary beliefs or rules with no discernible harm coming to that person; belief that such beliefs were stories told by elders and peaiman to frighten people and dissuade them from entering an area or using a resource

o Changes in beliefs and practices precipitated by outside researchers or tourists who transgressed restrictions and encountered no problems

Cultural embeddedness – wildlife and environmental practices are embedded within the knowledges, human-animal relationships and cultural institutions of local communities dependent on their environments; recognition by community members and Iwokrama Program that local cultural practices, beliefs and relationships are foundational to sustainable environmental awareness and wildlife management initiatives; recognition of cultural and knowledge continuity in environmental practice between past and modern contexts

Customary traditions and beliefs – socially accepted and sanctioned beliefs, cultural traditions and rules related to harvesting and use of wildlife and forest resources; mediated

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by peaimen, elders and village toshaos; serious repercussions were said to befall a person who transgressed rules; many villagers continue to believe in these traditions and have direct experiences within their families

Peaiman mediation and control – peaiman is communicator and mediator between animal masters and communities, negotiating the terms of harvesting and use; peaiman is a guardian of customary beliefs and traditions - advises communities on responsible and sustainable harvesting practices – warns villagers of repercussions if they do not abide by customary rules; sanctifies use of taboo animals and entry into sacred areas with prayers and tobacco smoke; peaiman cures people of ailments using medicinal plants

Recognition of customary knowledge and systems as a form of conservation – community leaders and members recognize that customary systems and cultural beliefs functioned in previous times to conserve lands and resources and to instill a sense of responsibility and respect for wildlife and natural resources; recognize that stories were a means of dissuading people, especially youth, from

Sacred areas – ecological areas and landscapes such as ponds and mountains where communities traditionally believe that animal masters and/or evil spirits (oma) reside and protect the site and the animal species inhabiting there from hunters, menstruating women and outsiders who transgress social sanctions regarding that site; belief that sacred areas function as a customary form of protected area; recognition that most villagers no longer believe in the validity of sacred areas – that they were just stories designed to frighten people; many villagers continue to believe in these traditions and have direct experiences within their families

Environmental Awareness, Education and Leadership Community education and awareness – education and awareness sessions provided by

community workers, NRDDB, Iwokrama Program or CI on: wildlife and rainforest conservation, collaborative management, sustainability, wildlife/natural resource management

Environmental leadership – leadership roles and conservation initiatives taken up by village youth, rangers, toshaos and village councilors; youth leaders mentoring other youth in communities to be interested in conservation, cultural, educational and training initiatives / to take up leadership roles in their communities

Wildlife Clubs – objectives, activities, wildlife festival, positive impacts for youth (care and interest in animals and the environment, skills and knowledge on wildlife and the environment)

Human-Animal Interactions

Animals as pets – keeping animals (macaws, powis, trumpeter bird, peccaries, labba, boa constrictor) as pets; kinship bonds between people and animals

Conflicts with animals – animals increasingly enter into farm areas and destroy important crops such as cassava; villagers feel like they are competing with animals for their farm crops; many recognize that animals are increasingly coming into farm areas for food because their fruiting trees have either been felled or they do not bear as often; some animals pose a threat to communities or hunters such as jaguars and venomous snakes

Human-animal overlap areas – living and farm areas within or around the village – or hunting areas intersecting with animal habitats - where villagers interact with specific animal species through hunting, observance or tourism activities; abundance of specific animal species in certain areas and whether abundance is rising, decreasing or remains the same; whether animals are more or less abundant in areas around the village in the present day as they were in past times; animal ranging patterns

Human-animal relationships – villagers feel a sense of relationship with animals, particularly the species that come into their living and farming areas; people feel a sense of

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cultural, ideological and material value for local animals, and responsibility, respect, compassion, enjoyment and love for animals; interest in conserving animals and keeping them in close proximity to villages; recognition that elders had a deeper and more cultural/spiritual relationship with animals than the contemporary generation – however, recognition that wildlife club youth, people working more directly with conservation and tourism initiatives have a deepening relationship; elders, wildlife club leaders and rangers hope to encourage more respect and interest in animals amongst communities

Interconnectedness and interdependency – recognition that all animals, plants and ecological areas are interconnected with communities - that every species has a function and role to carry out within the process of life; recognition that people are dependent on animals and forests for their survival and well-being, and animals and forests are dependent on people’s responsible management practices and livelihood activities; sense of responsibility and care for animal species to ensure their sustained survival and connection to communities

Interest in animals – villagers’ interest in observing, researching and interacting with animals in their natural habitats around villages and within the forest; interest in knowing more about animals by rangers, CEWs and wildlife club youth has grown since they have become involved with conservation and leadership activities

Hunting and Fishing Practices

Traditional and contemporary hunting and fishing practices – hunting and fishing practices and patterns (areas, season and duration) that were practiced in past times and are mostly still practiced until the current day; weapons and strategies used by hunters and fisherman; hunting rituals or symbols used to assist hunting or fishing success

Bina use – hunters had the traditional practice of using bina plants to assist their hunting; each animal species has its own bina plant that will attract the animal to the hunter; peaiman or elders would advise hunters on bina use; very few hunters continue to know about or believe in bina practice

Unsustainable practices – elders and other villagers recognize some traditional or recent hunting and fishing practices as unsustainable and compromising both the ecological integrity of the species population and ecosystem, as well as the cultural integrity of the communities’ customary beliefs; traditional practice was poisoning fishes; recent practice was trapping birds for commercial sale, use of seine nets for catching fish, over-harvesting collared peccaries and arapaima fishing; village leaders and management plans attempt to discourage and regulate against these practices, and educate communities on the unsustainability of such practices

Indigenous Knowledge and Customary Institutions Amerindian identity – Amerindian sense of self and identity connected to lands, livelihoods,

cultural and environmental practices Animal and place name stories – villager’s stories (collective known) about animals, the

environment and place names; feature animals as persons and detail the relationship between: animals and their environment, and animals and people/cultural practices

Connection with other Indigenous peoples – allusion to other Indigenous societies in Guyana (the Wai Wai) and in Canada; latter society’s experiences with colonization and struggle to recognize and protect traditional knowledge and cultural institutions

Elder and intergenerational knowledge – village elders’ teachings in the form of: stories and experiences, provide advice and engage in activities with younger generations to encourage their interest in, and sustainable use of the forest, animals and plants; villagers attribute much of their ecological knowledge and hunting/fishing knowledge to their parents’ and grandparents’ teachings; recognition of the immense importance of elder knowledge and intergenerational knowledge to sustained and ethical environmental practice within the communities and cultural practices; recognition of elders’ deeper and self-aware relationships with the animals and the natural world – reflected within their knowledge and practice;

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intergenerational knowledge also takes the form of youth educating their parents and older villagers about conservation and environmental awareness; community and Iwokrama activities to recover intergenerational knowledge

Foretelling – elders recollect that they, or their parents, had known long before that a day would come when people from outside the Amerindian communities would bring in new technology, policies, create infrastructural changes (i.e. the road, buildings) and impose changes in how people interact with, and manage the forests, savannas and wildlife; that people from outside would destroy the lands, resources and Amerindian way of life

Importance of local language - recognition of how important revitalizing and sustaining Makushi and other Indigenous languages is to: the Amerindian way of life, and the teaching of stories, intergenerational knowledge and cultural practices; community projects to revitalize and teach Makushi language within schools and the community

Importance of stories to continuity of local knowledge – recognition of how valuable the articulation and teaching of stories and other cultural practices are to the continuity and usefulness of local knowledge and sustainable environmental practice; some villagers lament not having had their parents or grandparents share their knowledge and relationships with animals through stories and cultural practices – or they lament that they did not recognize and appreciate the importance of such stories to their knowledge and way of life until now that they are older, but have forgotten most of what their elders taught them; some elders are still committed to sharing stories and experiences with younger generations if they are interested to learn them

Indigenous knowledge – body of experiential environmental and cultural knowledge that North Rupununi community members have accumulated over time in relation to their lands, forests, wildlife, land use and livelihood practices, and cultural interests; individual and collective understandings and articulations of knowledge; epistemological foundations oriented in environmental awareness and practice; contemporary IK influenced by modern conservation and scientific knowledge, and western and other cultural knowledges that are imported into communities – confluence of knowledges particularly manifest within members who are linked with external conservation, development, research and religious projects, and external market activities; concern that younger generations are uninterested in learning this knowledge (that it is irrelevant in the modern context) and are becoming dependent on modern knowledge forms – concern that traditional knowledge is quickly disappearing; community and Iwokrama projects to recover and revitalize IK

Medicinal knowledge – peaiman and elders’ knowledge of local medicinal plants; recognition of the vital importance of medicinal knowledge is to communities, despite the increasingly availability of western medicine; concern that younger generations are uninterested in learning this knowledge and are becoming very dependent on western medicine – concern that the knowledge is quickly disappearing

MRU support – role and importance of MRU researchers in protecting and revitalizing Amerindian identity, customary knowledges and practices, cultural institutions and language – particularly with respect to community development and strengthening and localizing wildlife and forest management

Natural history knowledge – local knowledge about the natural history of the animals, plants and forests of the region – wildlife behavioural ecology (mating/spawning, hunting/eating habits), habitat, population abundance, seasonal ranging patterns; knowledge mostly obtained through first-hand hunting/fishing and observational experience, or passed on by parents and grandparents

Protecting knowledge and culture – recognition by communities that their knowledge forms and cultural institutions are very important to sustaining their Indigenous way of life, and their environments, animals and natural resources – and must thus be protected from external threats or cultural erosion within their own communities.

Integration of Knowledge and Management Systems

Adapting to scientific knowledge – rangers, CEWs and other community members working with Iwokrama or CI on conservation initiatives indicate their difficulty in learning scientific

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nomenclature for wildlife and plant species, and biological processes using a scientific pedagogical model; observation that the complexity of naming species and ecological processes in Makushi language is at a higher degree than scientific nomenclature – therefore, learning both systems together is very challenging

Bridging knowledges – methods and models used by Iwokrama Program, rangers and CEWs to bridge modern conservation knowledge, technology and management frameworks with the social realities and customary knowledge systems of communities; methods of communicating, teaching and training conservation and management concepts that would be understandable and hold cultural relevance to community members, especially elders; elders as a resource for bridging cultural institutions, local knowledge and conservation science within collaborative and community-led initiatives – and for younger generations

Difference in worldviews – recognition of the difference in worldviews and perspectives between Indigenous systems and conservation systems, particularly in terms of: perceiving the relationships between culture and nature, environmental ethics, reciprocity and the value of animals and the environment; interpreting ecological processes, conservation/ sustainable harvesting and use, wildlife management concepts and regulations; communicating ideas, concepts and actions; disseminating information and knowledge; protecting wildlife and ecosystems and enforcing regulations; recognition that elders and middle-aged villagers had a particularly difficult time understanding the methods, concepts and worldview of modern conservation and wildlife management

Integration of Indigenous and conservation systems – process of integrating customary knowledges, practices and cultural institutions with modern conservation knowledge and management systems - and creating syncretic knowledge and management forms more culturally relevant and responsive to the contemporary conservation and development priorities of communities; initiatives to teach and integrate understandings of key concepts of conservation within the worldview and epistemological context of local communities; integrative wildlife research based on local knowledge and relationships and substantiated by modern conservation science; interest of the Iwokrama Program to incorporate the perspectives, traditional knowledge (including language) and customary (decision-making, communication, cultural systems) forms within conservation and research initiatives

Understanding of collaboration – due a lack of understanding, differences in worldviews and the experience of colonial interventions, many villagers (especially elders and hunters) were weary and suspicious of the concepts of modern conservation, and the intentions of Iwokrama Program regarding collaborative management, at the inception of Iwokrama’s outreach and consultations activities with communities and of the collaborative partnership; recognition that community members who make an effort to understand and participate within collaborative and community-led initiatives, are more likely to support and benefit from the collaborative relationship and conservation – whereas the members who are resistant to understand and participate, remain very skeptical and feel they are not benefiting at all from the arrangement.

Protected Area Regulations

CI Concession – regulations in CI Concession area related to fishing, hunting and harvesting NTFPs; historical or contemporary usage of Concession area by communities

Effectiveness of Protected Areas – recognition that Iwokrama Forest reserve, CI Concession or community conserved areas (CCAs) are beneficial for protecting critical wildlife species and habitats, natural resources and ecosystem services; recognition that PAs are potentially beneficial for Indigenous communities to conserve their lands, resources and livelihoods – potentially effective for protecting Indigenous land and resource use rights; frustration that the Iwokrama reserve and Program are not effective in protecting wildlife due to lack of regulatory monitoring and enforcement capacities by Iwokrama management and rangers

Illegal harvesting mainly perpetrated by Brazilians, coastlanders and outside military entering illegally through the Iwokrama reserve and village areas to do commercial and sport

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hunting and fishing; some illegal commercial fishing, especially of arapaima, by community members; villagers and leaders identify numerous breach areas in the Iwokrama reserve and are concerned about the lack of patrols and effective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms

Iwokrama Forest Reserve – regulations in Iwokrama Forest reserve area regarding logging, hunting, fishing and harvesting NTFPs; Sustainable Use Areas for community usage and sustainable logging concession - Wilderness Preservation areas for strict preservation and research activities; historical or contemporary usage of Iwokrama Forest by communities; villagers’ belief that Iwokrama Forest is now off-limits to communities (assumption of Iwokrama Program having unilateral control and a preservationist conservation ethos); many points of entry and possibilities to breach the Iwokrama reserve boundaries by commercial or game hunters due to ineffective monitoring and enforcement mechanisms

Participation and Interest in Conservation

Apathy or disinterest in participating in or supporting conservation or community development initiatives

Wildlife and Conservation Research

Research studies conducted by Iwokrama Program and international academic and research institutions on: wildlife ecology, monitoring and surveying wildlife populations, forestry, environmental and social impact assessments – always in collaboration, or with the assistance of North Rupununi communities; community-led research on wildlife monitoring, wildlife management techniques, agroforestry and traditional ecological knowledge.

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Appendix E Sketch Map Sample – Wowetta Village

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Appendix F Iwokrama Forest Reserve: Indigenous Rights in WPs & SUAs

Activity Wilderness Preserve Sustainable Utilization Area

Construction and maintenance of roads

Prohibited Permitted after impact assessment

Construction and maintenance of trails

Permitted after impact assessment

Permitted after impact assessment

Use of motorized vehicles, boats, etc.

Limited to essential management purposes in accord with area management plan

Controlled use permitted in accord with area management plan

Clearing land for agriculture Prohibited Limited to defined community resource use areas

Collection of specimens for scientific research

Prohibited Permitted after approval of research proposal by Iwokrama

Timber harvesting, gathering non-timber plant products, fishing for Amerindian household use

Traditional use patterns restricted to non-destructive gathering at levels that do not significantly alter species abundance or ecosystem structure

Permitted utilizing traditional and sustainable harvesting methods

Hunting for Amerindian household use

Permitted using traditional and sustainable harvesting

Permitted using traditional and sustainable harvesting methods

Timber harvesting, gathering non-timber plant products, hunting, fishing for commercial purposes

Prohibited Permitted after impact assessment and approval of sustainable management plans

Mineral extraction Prohibited Possible after impact assessment and approval of sustainable management plans to mitigate adverse impacts and ensure rehabilitation

Construction of infrastructure including tourist cabins, towers, and canopy walkways

Prohibited Permitted after impact assessment and sustainable management plan

Campsites Temporary small campsites for less than 8 persons permitted after impact assessment and site management plan

Permitted after impact assessment and site management plan

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Appendix G Workshop on Indigenous peoples’ rights, REDD and the draft Low Carbon Development Strategy (Guyana) Public statement of participants

Georgetown, 26th June 2009 After initial examination of the government’s draft LCDS and the draft REDD plans, and following lengthy discussions over three days, we, the undersigned Amerindian leaders, elders and participants in this workshop, sponsored and facilitated by the Amerindian Peoples Association (APA), wish to publicly state the following: Noting that our lands and territories are being affected by climate change impacts that threaten our lands, livelihoods and way of life, and considering that the greater part of climate change pollution stems from industrialised countries, we call on governments to take major steps to cut industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases. Recognizing that the indigenous peoples of Guyana are the historical guardians of the forest, we in principle support proposals that aim to protect the standing forest where these initiatives fully respect and secure our rights and value our traditional knowledge and practices. In order to ensure that indigenous peoples’ concerns, priorities and proposals are fully incorporated in national forest and climate policies and low carbon initiatives, we call on the government and international agencies and donors to ensure that all public consultations meet international standards and good practice principles. In particular, our peoples through their own representative institutions must be given adequate time for collective decision-making and space to reach internal agreements on our responses to the government’s plans. We must not be pressured to make early decisions without full understanding of the implications of these policies for our forests, lands and livelihoods. All public consultations must provide our communities with relevant information in the right format and languages, including information on both the possible benefits and the possible adverse impacts of the government’s current plans. Issues raised by our leaders and communities must be fairly documented in the consultations, and their concerns and proposals must influence the final documents. In addition, to ensure that REDD and LCDS policies and initiatives in Guyana fully uphold our rights and deliver equitable benefits for indigenous communities, we hereby recommend that: • All policies are developed and actions carried out with full recognition of and respect for indigenous peoples’ rights in accordance with international norms, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and related human rights instruments • Outstanding land and territorial issues identified in the Amerindian Lands Commission report of 1969 must be dealt with upfront as an integral part of policy design and implementation. • An independent body comprised of indigenous leaders and elders must be established to address and deal with outstanding territorial land claims. Such an entity can be an advisory body to the National Toshaos Council. • A moratorium on mining and industrial logging must be put in place in all fragile environments, including watersheds, and river and creek heads in both forest and non-forest areas. • Large-scale industrial farming and aquaculture on fragile, non-forest land in savannah, mountain and wetland areas must not be promoted.

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• Proposed hydro-dam projects must fully respect indigenous peoples’ rights in accordance with international law and must meet standards established by the World Commission on Dams (WCD) • Priority should be given to support for community-based farming and other sustainable development activities in savannah and forest areas Georgetown, 26th June 2009 • Participatory revision of the Amerindian Act of 2006 be carried out as soon as possible to strengthen its provisions so they are fully consistent with international standards, particularly its provisions dealing with land demarcation, titling and extensions; and the responsibilities of government agencies to uphold our rights, including our right to free, prior and informed consent • The Forest Act 2009 and the forthcoming Protected Areas Act must fully respect our rights, including our customary rights to land and resources • Our rotational farming must not be classified as “deforestation” nor “degradation” and this sustainable traditional land use practice must be fully safeguarded in any national LCDS/REDD program • The global community and the Government of Guyana must explicitly recognize indigenous peoples as rights holders not merely stake holders in all climate change discussions, policies and programmes • The historical stewardship role of indigenous peoples in protecting Guyana’s forest on their traditional lands must be recognised and rewarded, including recognition and support for community conserved territories • Capacity building at the community and national levels must be carried out • Support and legal recognition of existing and future community-based mapping initiatives must be provided, including training of indigenous cartographers and other related technicians • Support and respect of indigenous governance and representative institutions at the local, regional, and national levels to foster informed inputs to national policy-making on climate change, conservation and development • Safeguards must be put in place to ensure that no LCDS or REDD scheme may proceed on our traditional lands (titled and untitled) without our free, prior and informed consent • An indigenous peoples working group on REDD and the LCDS be established and recognised by government to assist and support informed and culturally appropriate consultations with Amerindian communities. Indigenous peoples must be able to choose their own representatives to take part in this working group. For our part, we commit to working to inform our communities and organisations of key rights, risks and opportunities relating to the REDD/LCDS issue. We aim to do this through the formation of teams involving our own people who are knowledgeable of our land use and way of life and who speak our languages.We call on donors and support organisations to provide adequate financial resources to carry out the aforementioned actions, including support for our own information dissemination and capacity-building efforts in our communities.We the participants of this workshop call on our Toshaos and other representatives not to sign nor endorse agreements on LCDS/REDD or related issues without the express prior consent of their home communities.