Political ecology of the degradation of forest commons in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
GOLAM RASUL
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Rubber Plantation ◽  
Chittagong Hill Tracts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Control And Management ◽  
External Intervention

Indigenous people have widely been blamed for degrading South Asia's montane forest resources through the practice of shifting cultivation, yet some studies have revealed that indigenous people used forests in a sustainable way for centuries until external intervention. The history of external intervention in the forests of South Asia is more than two centuries old. The process of degradation of forest resources requires understanding of the political and social processes that condition access, control and management of the land and resources involved. The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh, a part of the Himalayan region, underwent essentially the same socio-political and historical processes as many other countries in the region and had very similar experiences in forest management. By examination of policies and associated effects on CHT forest over the past two centuries, this paper reveals that the process of forest degradation in the CHT started during the British colonial period with the nationalization of forests, establishment of reserve forests (RFs), management of forests by government agencies and weakening of traditional institutions. The process of degradation was accelerated by: privatization of forest land for the promotion of sedentary agriculture, horticulture and rubber plantation; the construction of a hydraulic dam on the Karnafuli River; the settlement of lowland people; and the constant conflict between indigenous people and the Forest Department. The degradation of CHT forests is not only the result of traditional agricultural practices, but also of many other factors including inappropriate policies and programmes.

scholarly journals STRENGTHENING THE POSITION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FOREST BY SUBSQUENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT DECISION OF REPUBLIK INDONESIA NO.35/PUU-X/2012 TO SUPPORT OF REDD+ INDONESIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anti Mayastuti
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Forest Degradation ◽  
Land Ownership ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Reduce Emissions ◽  
The Government

<p><em>The problems of disputes over land ownership of forest between the government (in this case is the state) and the community, has been occured tens of years ago, but the increase was higher along with just an era of reform. A possession of forest resources has been dominated by large employers with the strength of their capital, while the local community (in this case of indigenous people) who rely on forest resources for generations before this country stood, their fate was even more marginalized. In fact, the existence of indigenous people with local wisdom value, plays an important role in forest management, as recognized in Act No.41 of 1999 about Forestry. </em><em>Inequality of distribution of forest resources this mastery was seen as a base for real social conflict happens in the life of the community law. Furthermore it was published constitutional court’s verdict of RI No.35/PUU-X/2012 to provid e access to justice for indigenous people over the mastery of the forest. This recognition is strengthened by the existence of a REDD + Program aims to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation that requires the existence of a customary law society active participation through the empowerment of local wisdom values.</em></p>

scholarly journals Development and Culture in the Context of Chittagong Hill Tracts (Cht), Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Sabiha Yeasmin Rosy
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Development Planning ◽  
Development Project ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Chittagong Hill Tracts ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

This paper aims to understand the background of development and draws a link to culture in the context of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) - a post conflict region – to explore how the dispossession and commercialisation of culture in development planning is processing tension between different actors by reviewing secondary literature. The Indigenous people of Bangladesh have a longstanding history of struggle to achieve self-determination due to their institutional reference as ‘tribes’ or ‘ethnic minorities’. Denial of Indigenous peoples’ identity contributes to their discrimination and violation within the existing development concerns. The specific structural regulations and resource mobilization activities resulting from institutions – government, military, and powerful individuals - in areas inhabited by Indigenous people reflect the asymmetrical relations between Indigenous peoples and Bangalee actors. The conflict started in this region with the mobilization of ethnic majority Bangalee through the settlement programs in 1970s as a part of ‘development’ project, which later created tensions in this region due to the exploitation of people, land, and culture. As the government and ongoing military presence greatly shape ‘development’ for local people, the power relations between different actors facilitate the various forms of exploitative development projects. In addition, the ignorance towards integration of culture in development projects results in imposing threats to Indigenous peoples’ lives, livelihoods, and access to resources. This paper focuses on the economic expansions in this region from modernist perspectives drawing the example of tourism development in the CHT, which can marginalize and exploit Indigenous people in the making of ‘development’, Social Science Review, Vol. 37(2), Dec 2020 Page 87-103

scholarly journals Transforming power in Amazonian extractivism: historical exploitation, contemporary "fair trade", and new possibilities for indigenous cooperatives and conservation

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Burke
Keyword(s):  
Political Ecology ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Fair Trade ◽  
The Body ◽  
Brazil Nuts ◽  
Community Based Conservation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Body Shop ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

Cooperatives have been widely supported as vehicles for community-based conservation and development. However, these organizations are often developed around specific income-generating projects rather than broader considerations of how relations of power and ecological exploitation might be transformed. This article uses the case of AmazonCoop—a cooperative dedicated to the supposedly fair trade of Brazil nuts between Amazonian indigenous people and the multinational corporation The Body Shop—to illustrate how historical political ecology might facilitate the design of more radically transformative cooperatives. Contextualizing AmazonCoop within the history of Amazonian extractivism, and particularly the extraction of wild rubber, reveals the specific mechanisms and processes through which indigenous people have gained and lost power. This analysis thus creates opportunities for thinking more creatively about how contemporary conservation–development schemes might pursue ecologically sustainable and socially just social transformations.Keywords: cooperatives, fair trade, conservation, development, indigenous people, Brazil

Peering Beyond the Imperial Gaze: Using Digital Tools to Construct a Spatial History of Conquest

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy M. Mikecz
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Digital Maps ◽  
Spatial History ◽  
Colonial Texts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spatial Narrative

Ethnohistorians and other scholars have long noted how European colonial texts often concealed the presence and participation of indigenous peoples in New World conquests. This scholarship has examined how European sources (both texts and maps) have denied indigenous history, omitted indigenous presence, elided indigenous agency, and ignored indigenous spaces all while exaggerating their own power and importance. These works provide examples of colonial authors performing these erasures, often as a means to dispossess. What they lack, however, is a systematic means of identifying, locating, and measuring these silences in space and time. This article proposes a spatial history methodology which can make visible, as well as measurable and quantifiable the ways in which indigenous people and spaces have been erased by colonial narratives. It presents two methods for doing this. First, narrative analysis and geovisualization are used to deconstruct the imperial histories found in colonial European sources. Second it combines text with maps to tell a new (spatial) narrative of conquest. This new narrative reconstructs indigenous activity through a variety of digital maps, including ‘mood maps’, indigenous activity maps, and maps of indigenous aid. The resulting spatial narrative shows the Spanish conquest of Peru was never inevitable and was dependent on the constant aid of immense numbers of indigenous people.

scholarly journals Indigenous People, Organized Crime and Natural Resources: Borders, Incentives and Relations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan P. van Uhm ◽  
Ana G. Grigore
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Organized Crime ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Economic Incentives ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Criminological Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
Organized Crime Groups ◽  
Criminal Groups

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green criminological perspective, we consider how organized crime groups trading in natural resources value Indigenous knowledge. We also examine the continued victimization of Indigenous people in relation to environmental harm and the tension between Indigenous peoples’ ecocentric values and the economic incentives presented to them for exploiting nature. By looking at the history of the coloniality and the socioeconomic context of these Indigenous communities, this article generates a discussion about the social framing of the Indigenous people as both victims and offenders in the illegal trade in natural resources, particularly considering the types of relationships established with dominant criminal groups present in their ancestral lands.

INVESTIGATING TEOTIHUACAN THROUGHTMPSURFACE COLLECTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian G. Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Urban Sprawl ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Urban Center ◽  
Digital Format ◽  
Surface Survey ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
History Of ◽  
Extensive Surface ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Surface Observations

AbstractIn the 1960s, the Teotihuacan Mapping Project (TMP) focused an ambitious, multiyear survey program on the pre-Columbian urban center of Teotihuacan. In addition to creating a highly detailed map, the TMP made systematic records of surface remains and collected nearly one million artifacts from roughly 5,000 provenience tracts. Taken together, the spatial, descriptive, and artifactual data collected by the TMP still constitutes one of the most extensive and most detailed records in existence for any ancient city. This paper characterizes and provides an update on TMP surface observations, particularly as they exist in digital format. Several analytical case studies illustrate substantive ways in which these data have been used in the decades since the TMP survey to investigate the culture and history of ancient Teotihuacan. The utility of extensive surface survey data for investigating key urban organizational elements such as neighborhoods and social districts is briefly considered, along with the growing importance of the TMP collections and records as increasingly large parts of Teotihuacan are lost to urban sprawl and destructive agricultural practices.

GEOINFORMATION SYSTEMS IN FOREST RESOURCES MONITORING

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-74
Author(s):  
P. Savkov ◽  
N. Levinskova ◽  
G. Bondarchuk ◽  
N. Postarnichenko
Keyword(s):  
Development Strategy ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Production Control ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Active Monitoring ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Forestry Production ◽  
Control And Management

The total area of the forest fund of Ukraine is 10400000 hectares, of which 9600000 hectares are covered with forest vegetation. In total, 15.9 % of the country's area is covered by forests. This figure is growing: in 50 years the area of forests increased by 21 %, almost three times increased stock of wood – it is estimated within 2102 million cubic meters. But this is not enough. Today there are a number of problems connected with forestry, for example: mass destruction of forests, lack of forest development strategy, low level of forest resources use, lack of reliable information about the biomass condition, forest fires. According to the State Agency of Forest Resources of Ukraine, the volume of unauthorized felling has been steadily decreasing for a long time, during 2005-2010. However, already in 2011 it was 25,100 cubic meters, which is 2.2 thousand more than in the previous year, 2007. However, this statistic, too, is mostly about illegal logging by local people, so it reflects very small volumes. The largest number of poached logging is recorded in the Lviv region. For example, in 2018 in the region 12,047 cubic meters of wood were illegally cut, and the figures do not stand still. As a consequence, this situation over time can lead to environmental degradation, increased water and wind erosion, degradation of agricultural land. The forest industry is one of the promising industries in Ukraine, for which it is advisable to use the tools of geographic information systems that provide detailed and necessary information, which greatly simplifies the work in research, analysis and prediction of the dynamics of the forestry fund of Ukraine. With the help of geospatial analysis tools we open up new horizons in the development and organization of forestry production, control and management of forests at all levels. This is why in today's conditions the introduction of geoinformation technologies can not only save money, but also save large areas of the forest fund and hundreds of diligent villages, settlements and cities. The events that took place in April 2020 showed that the lack of active monitoring of burning areas has painful consequences. The fire destroyed almost 40 houses in the resettled villages, Lichmans Srednyaya Rudnya, Nizhnyaya Rudnya and Verkhnyaya Rudnya, 45 buildings were saved, about 5 % of the protected area, 11500 hectares in the southwestern part of the Chernobyl Reserve were affected. These villages in Zhytomyr region were resettled after Chernobyl. More than 2000 people and 120 units of equipment were involved in extinguishing the fireі.

scholarly journals Aboriginal entrepreneurship in the Northern Ob region

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-85
Author(s):  
Elena P. Martynova
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Family Ties ◽  
The North ◽  
Structure Of Communities ◽  
Informal Economies ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
History Of

he article deals with the history of the development of entrepreneurship in the Northern Ob region among the Nenets, Khanty and Mansi. The author calls it «aboriginal” meaning that it as an economic activity that makes profit from the works directly related to the traditional sectors of the economy of the indigenous North peoples or from sale of products of economy. The article is based on the author’s field materials obtained during many years of field research (2000, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2017 years) in different areas of Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. It was found that two types of aboriginal entrepreneurship are developed in the Northern Ob region: institutional and informal. The first is represented by communities (either tribal or national) of indigenous people and farms. Their organization is socially oriented: communities are primarily a place of work for fishermen and reindeer herders. Community entrepreneurship is supported by the authorities of the district and the Okrug through a system of grants. The income of most community members is low, forcing them to seek additional income opportunities. The structure of communities of indigenous people is based on family ties. Informal aboriginal entrepreneurship spontaneously emerged in the crisis of the 1990-s and still does not give up its position. It provides the main income to families of private reindeer herders and fishermen. As a result of this aboriginal business quite stable client networks are formed that contribute to the social integration of local communities. Such entrepreneurship brings higher incomes, compared with the legalized formal ones, despite the lack of support from the “top” of the authorities. This largely contributes to its stability in the harsh northern conditions, where the market is small. The risk of being deceived is not an obstacle to the development of such business. The boundaries between institutional and informal economies in the North are penetrable and fluid. A private reindeer herder can be a member of the family community, and after delivering the minimum rate of products traditional industries can act as an independent businessman, selling products through his customers or visiting merchants. The same can be true for members of fishing communities. The interweaving of institutional and informal entrepreneurship forms a complex network of social and economic interaction in local communities.

scholarly journals The Efforts of Talang Mamak Indigenous People to Maintain Their Existence in Customary Forest Resources Battle

Society ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36
Author(s):  
Rizky Octa Putri Charin ◽  
Arief Hidayat
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Conflict Of Interest ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Private Company ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Descriptive Method

The resources of Customary Forest play an important role for Talang Mamak Indigenous People to survive. The exploitation of the forest by private company and investor has caused a violent conflict. The situation of the indigenous people becomes worsen since local government does not fully protect their rights on the forest.  Even, Local government tends to defend private company and investor in addressing the conflict. Customary forest of Talang Mamak indigenous people is in the oligarchs grip and conflict of interest with their elder. The Indigenous people are in crossroad, to preserve or to release their heritage and right. This study aims to determine the efforts of Talang Mamak Indigenous People to maintain their existence in the customary forest resources battle with private company and investor. This study used qualitative descriptive method. The data collection were documentation analysis and other relevant literature. This study used Theory of Oligarchy (Winters 2011) as grounded theory. The result found that the efforts of the indigenous people to fight for their rights getting weak. Some of them begin to accept compensation from the company and investor, in other word, some of them are willing to release their heritage and right on the forest.

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