Amid Industrial Development Threats to Lands, Major Opportunities to Support Indigenous Stewardship

A community-based conservation and development planning program in Northern Australia puts native title holders at the center of decision-making processes when it comes to assessing development proposals and influencing related land-use decisions. Although Northern Australia contains the largest intact savannahs in the world and important cultural value, it is also seen as having significant potential for large-scale agriculture and mining. 

The first pilot of this program was with the Walalakoo Aboriginal Corporation for the Nyikina-Mangala Native Title area, which includes the Lower Fitzroy River and delta. TNC worked with Indigenous partners to develop a process for mapping environmental and cultural values that would allow them to proactively assess the impacts of development proposals.

Tailored reports and maps make it easier for native title holders to counter common power imbalances in land-use decision-making processes and to more effectively negotiate the terms by which development projects are implemented. 

This planning approach has been implemented in other parts of Northern Australia and the hope is to expand it nationally. 

The Wehea Dayak Community has lived in the ecologically rich forests of the Muara Wahau area of East Kalimantan for generations but now face risks from palm oil plantations and timber concessions.  

“The forest for our community is the source of life,” says Siang Geah, a Dayak Wehea leader. “The forest is rich with many things supporting life that cannot be quantified, such as clean air, water, flora, fauna and medicines, but most important for us, the forest has all that we need to perform our ritual culture.  

“That is why we should protect the forest, and we cannot do it alone. We need support and to work together with various elements. Not only with the Dayak community but also with conservation actors, NGOs, corporates, and local and national governments.”

Through its local affiliate, Yayasan Konservasi Alam Nusantara (YKAN), TNC worked with the Wehea to develop spatially explicit plans to sustain biodiversity, social and economic services, and cultural values.

These efforts guide management of the extensive Wehea-Kelay landscape, now listed as one of East Kalimantan’s essential ecosystem areas outside of conservation areas, with the government, timber concessions and palm oil plantations.

The Awajún, who live on the banks of the Marañón River in the Peruvian Amazon Basin, are navigating cultural change, the overextraction of resources from the river and the forest around them, and development threats such as hydroelectric dams, highways and illegal mining.  

In partnership with TNC, the Awajún are undertaking community-led, participatory mapping of their territories and resources based on their criteria and knowledge. The Awajún will be able to use these maps to develop quality-of-life plans and to more effectively articulate their values and visions for the future when negotiating with outside parties that want to use their lands.  

TNC’s concern for the conservation of natural resources, its revaluation of culture, and its promotion of sustainable projects are reasons to hope and reaffirm a friendship, says César Sarasara, an Awajún community leader. 

For generations, Indigenous pastoralists have grazed their livestock on the grasslands of northern Tanzania, where the Tarangire River swells and shrinks with the seasons. But the landscape has changed.

Past conservation efforts to create parks have only provided 20% of the space wildlife need to forage and roam. Roads and other infrastructure created by a growing human population have fragmented ecosystems. Climate change and overgrazing are degrading what remains. 

In addition, a recent government policy designed to increase national food security has placed pastoralists in a farm-it-or-lose-it situation. If they do not actively cultivate their land, they can lose their ancestral rights to it.  

Through the Northern Tanzania Rangelands Initiative (NTRI), TNC is helping communities through the complex and costly process of securing formal title to their communal lands. The creation of detailed maps allows communities to designate zones for farming, development, communal grazing and wildlife that accommodate both community values and landscape-scale patterns of wildlife movement.

Indigenous Guardian programs in Canada are playing a crucial role in incorporating traditional knowledge into the stewardship of lands and waters, which improves the success of conservation efforts and highlights the leadership of Indigenous communities.  

“The work we do is important because no one knows our land better than us, the ones who are out on the land every day,” says Devon McLeod, lands manager for the Misipawistik Cree Nation, which still lives with the legacy of the hydroelectric dam that changed the flow of the grand rapids on the Saskatchewan River. “It’s up to us to make sure that it is taken care of properly and that things are done in a good way.” 

Data collected by the Guardians on factors like ecological health, wildlife populations, and local values can be used to influence land-use decisions that have historically been made without adequate Indigenous involvement.

Nature United, TNC's Canadian affiliate, is supporting Indigenous Guardians by creating a platform for communities to come together, exchange ideas and learn from one another across regions.