10:12 p.m.
Dear IUFRO Meliaceae Working party:
Below is IUFRO Spotlight #73. Other Spotlights can be found at:
http://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
Regards,
Sheila Ward
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: IUFRO Headquarters <office(a)iufro.org>
Date: Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 5:45 AM
Subject: IUFRO Congress Spotlight #73 - A Quest for Fairness in Forest
Management Decisions: Integrating Indigenous Rights, ...
To: Dear IUFRO Officeholder <mahoganyforthefuture(a)gmail.com>
[image: IUFRO Spotlight]
IUFRO Congress Spotlight #73 - A Quest for Fairness in Forest Management
Decisions: Integrating Indigenous Rights, ...
*IUFRO Spotlight issues up to September 2019 will primarily focus on the
XXV IUFRO World Congress that will take place on 29 September-5 October
2019 in Curitiba, Brazil.*
*Individual Congress sessions will be highlighted in order to draw
attention to the broader Congress themes, the wide variety of topics that
will be addressed at the Congress and their importance on a regional and
global scale.*
*Visit the Congress website at http://iufro2019.com/
<http://iufro2019.com/> or https://www.iufro.org/events/congresses/2019/
<https://www.iufro.org/events/congresses/2019/>.*
A Quest for Fairness in Forest Management Decisions: Integrating Indigenous
Rights, Practices and Knowledge
PDF for download
<https://www.iufro.org/fileadmin/material/publications/spotlights/congress-spotlight73-indigenous-rights-practices-knowledge.pdf>
[image: Photo showing Haida Heritage Centre at sunrise. Ngaio Hotte]
Haida Heritage Centre at sunrise. Ngaio Hotte
"The practices, rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples in forestry are
being increasingly recognized by national policies, international treaties
and by business arrangements such as certification," said Dr. Stephen Wyatt
of the School of Forestry at the University of Moncton in New Brunswick,
Canada.
"But," he said, "actually putting these into practice is
challenging."
Dr. Wyatt, will be one of the presenters at a IUFRO World Congress session
in Brazil this fall, entitled: *Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and
their Forests: Governance, Dialogue and Power for Rights and Recognition*.
A second related session: *Indigenous and Traditional Peoples and their
Forests: Values, Knowledge and Practices for Management and Livelihoods*
will be held later the same day.
"What we have to remember is that traditional knowledge is typically based
on very-long term experience of a particular location, whether this
concerns usable plants, animal behavior, water management or environmental
changes," he said. "This knowledge can be of vital importance for
contemporary management.
"There will be a total of 21 presenters in the two sessions; all reflecting
different aspects of Indigenous Peoples' knowledge, management and
governance of forests," he said. "They will be presenting research from 13
different countries in South, Central and North America, Africa, Asia and
Europe.
"While each culture is distinct, Indigenous values are often centered
around respect for the forest and an acknowledgement of the complex
inter-relations within forest ecosystems – a precursor of much of our
scientific rhetoric about sustainable management."
There are many obstacles that can block acceptance of traditional knowledge
in forest management, Dr. Wyatt explained. "Some are institutional – the
exclusion of traditional knowledge holders from forest management planning
processes.
"Others lie in the Indigenous communities themselves, where elders who hold
the knowledge are dying or where customs impose restrictions on knowledge
sharing."
Among presenters, Andrea Vásquez Fernández has been working with the
Ashéninka and Yine Peoples from the Peruvian Amazon to understand
"intercultural respect," in a context where ideas of "development" are
used
to justify resource exploitation by outsiders, over the preferences of the
Indigenous occupants.
Dr. Wyatt noted: "Forest managers are typically trained in forest science
methods that originated in 19th century Europe. They may not appreciate the
importance or the usefulness of knowledge that is transferred orally
through stories, instead of being printed in a textbook."
The Congress sessions, he added, are aimed at sharing experience and
research about how those Indigenous rights, practices and knowledge can be
incorporated into forest management practices.
"The nature of obstacles faced by Indigenous Peoples varies greatly across
the world," Dr. Wyatt said. "Speakers in the sessions will be describing
some of these obstacles in different situations, and will also be
presenting some of the ways to overcome these.
"They have a variety of solutions to offer. Some are based in institutional
changes – regulations or consultation practices. Others may involve
educational techniques for forest planners, or for Indigenous Peoples.
"Yet others relate to good old-fashioned scientific fieldwork – getting out
in the forest, studying the environment and learning from people who have
been doing it for generations, he said.
"For example, Folaranmi Babalola will be describing how sacred forests in
Nigeria have contributed to maintaining forest diversity and supporting
livelihoods; Kazuhiro Harada will be examining new community forest
legislation in Indonesia that recognizes traditional rights and practices
in tree tapping; and Ngaio Hotte will be considering how to overcome
distrust between Indigenous Peoples and governments in Canada."
"Interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples are critical
here. While there are many instances of conflict and tension between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples, there are also multiple examples of
collaboration. We will be seeing both in these sessions."
The goal is to share experiences and ideas about how to make it easier for
forest scientists, managers and policy makers to better recognize
Indigenous Peoples in forestry, he added.
"But that recognition presents a variety of challenges, and requires more
than just words from forestry managers, governments and companies.
"Research around the world has developed a series of tools that can help us
respond to this challenge and enhance forest management with new
information, deeper understanding, more effective governance and greater
recognition of Indigenous Peoples. That's what we want people to take from
these two sessions," he said.
*See you at the IUFRO 2019 World Congress*!
Visit *http://iufro2019.com/ <http://iufro2019.com/>* * Look out for
*#IUFRO2019
<https://twitter.com/hashtag/iufro2019?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash>*
on Twitter and *XXV IUFRO World Congress 2019
<https://www.facebook.com/events/1881111872132294/>* on Facebook
------------------------------------------------
*IUFRO Spotlight* is an initiative of the International Union of Forest
Research Organizations. Its aim is to introduce, in a timely fashion,
significant findings in forest research from IUFRO member organizations
and/or involving IUFRO officeholders to a worldwide network of decision
makers, policy makers and researchers.
*The findings reported here are submitted by IUFRO Member Organizations.
IUFRO is pleased to highlight and circulate these findings to a broad
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The International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) is the
only worldwide organization devoted to forest research and related
sciences. Its members are research institutions, universities, and
individual scientists as well as decision-making authorities and other
stakeholders with a focus on forests and trees. Visit:
https://www.iufro.org/
------------------------------------------------
*IUFRO Congress Spotlight #73 published in September 2019 by IUFRO
Headquarters, Vienna, Austria. Available for download at:
**https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/
<https://www.iufro.org/media/iufro-spotlights/>*
*Contact the editor at office(at)iufro.org <wolfrum(a)iufro.org> or
visit https://www.iufro.org/ <https://www.iufro.org/?id=104>*
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