Basic HTML Version
13
Annual Review
2010/11
T
welve percent of the earth’s land surface is formally
protected as national parks, wildlife reserves, etc. In
addition, sacred sites, taboos and customary practices
of indigenous peoples and local communities can
facilitate environmental conservation in the matrix of
land use beyond protected areas, even if that is not their
expressed purpose.
Sacred groves from India to Ethiopia conserve biodiversity
and provide ecosystem services including watershed
protection, hosting pollinators and serving as refugia for
wildlife in the landscape. Local freshwater management
systems, such as
tagal
in Malaysian Borneo and
fish fêtes
in
Guinea, West Africa, encourage locally sustainable fishing via
zoning and temporal restrictions. Species-specific hunting
taboos such as
fady
in Madagascar manage resource use in
culturally relevant ways.
My research considers 1) the ecological value of customary
conservation both within protected areas and in the matrix
beyond, 2) the persistence of customary conservation through
stochastic events and cultural change and 3) the implications
of these findings for formal conservation frameworks.
Across West Africa people report that
ninkananka
, or mythical
dragons, live in the forest and if you see them, you will die
on the spot or soon after. People claim to avoid parts of
the forest where the
ninkananka
are said to live for fear of
death. I mapped eighteen dragon areas using a Global
Positioning Satellite (GPS) unit in Kiang West, the Gambia,
and calculated the degree of vegetation cover using satellite
imagery from 1984 to 2009. I compared the vegetation
cover of the dragon areas with the landscape surrounding
them and also with Kiang West National Park and three
nearby forest reserves. Despite their small size, the dragon
patches of forest were consistently vegetated and did not
fluctuate in vegetation cover like the national park or forest
reserves. Thus, my research in the Gambia demonstrated
a positive ecological value of the local belief in the dragon,
which conserved vegetation cover more consistently than
formally protected areas. This contribution of customary
conservation is noteworthy as formally protected areas in the
tropics are particularly sensitive to fluctuations in funding and
management capacity.
I also performed household surveys in Dumbuto, a
village bordering the national park, and found that 86% of
respondents believed that the dragon was real. I also found
a positive correlation between belief in the dragon and people
who spent more time working in the bush and a negative
correlation between people who were highly educated
or had pursued advanced religious education. Although
the dragon areas currently offer conservation value to the
landscape, the correlation between lack of belief and higher
education, general or religious, may have implications for the
conservation of the landscape as education improves with the
country’s development.
Considering these findings, my research also explores
the effects of stochastic events and cultural change on
customary conservation practices in Malaysian Borneo, one
of the most bioculturally diverse places on Earth. In Kudat,
a region of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, the Rungus people
formerly believed there were animals in the forest that would
dance to provoke you, and if you laughed, you died soon
after. These dancing animals lived around the peak of the
highest hill in the region, Gugumantong, with implications
for watershed protection. However, the British government
survey team for Gugumantong included Iban people, locally
known as headhunters from the west, who hunted the dancing
animals for food. In this case, outsiders compromised the
effectiveness of local customary conservation practices. The
Rungus communities have only recently formally conserved
Gugumantong with assistance from the UNDP Climate
Change Program.
My research concludes by considering the implications of the
ecological value and the degree of persistence of customary
conservation for formal conservation frameworks. I discuss
opportunities for the integration of customary conservation
with the formal conservation framework, such as the adoption
of
tagal
, a local Kadazan Dusun river management system
in Malaysian Borneo, by the Sabah Department of Fisheries.
Initially approached by one village whose
tagal
practices had
waned over time, the Department of Fisheries assisted the
community with the reintroduction of the system, eventually
rolling out
tagal
to forty villages, some of which did not
previously practise
tagal
locally.
I am grateful for the support of my research by the Keble
Association, the Biosocial Society and the Sir Richard Stapley
Educational Trust.
Spiritual leaders perform ritual to
protect community forest, Alab Vil-
lage, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.