1. Dances of the Fruits

The culture of the Muinane and Uitoto peoples was in danger of total eradication. First the clearing of the forest for rubber plantations in the Colombian Amazon and subsequently they had to take work in the rubber plantations in order to survive. They also had to send the young people to the capital city for education and work. However, due to the fight for and achievement of constitutional recognition of territorial and cultural rights as well as intensive ethnographic and botanical research in their area, the Uitoto and Muinane peoples have come to revalue and revive their culture and with that, culturally-based institutions with important bearings on biodiversity conservation and enhancement in the area were established.

One of these culturally based institutions is the Dances of the Fruits that forms part of an indigenous system of education meant to develop local experts in different fields of specialization such as food crops, medicine, animals etc. As a student in any of these fields, one has to achieve knowledge through the art of asking experts as well as through practical experience. The extent to which sufficient knowledge has been achieved is tested in a sequence of public exams, known as the Dances. Each of these dances has a theme depending on the line of specialization and the level achieved by the student and his family. In the line of specialization of fruits/food crops, the theme could be cassava or a certain type of palm. As many as 200 guests, obviously coming from a large area, may be invited for such a dance and all of the guests are expected to bring seeds of their best varieties of cassava, while the student and his family have the obligation to sow and test the seeds received. Moreover, the student will be asked a set of questions to test his or her knowledge on the topic.

As in many other indigenous cultures, certain crops and certain natural resource management related tasks are associated with women while others crops and tasks are associated with men. This is also the case in relation to the dances of the Uitoto and Muinane peoples. For instance, the creation of a seed bank containing all the received ‘seeds’ of cassava and the testing of these varieties against different criteria is predominantly a task for which women take responsibility.Obviously the revival and the renewed status of these culturally based institutions such as the dances imply that biodiversity and biological knowledge is not only maintained but is further developed to a far wider extent that would be the case in the absence of recognition of indigenous territorial and cultural rights. Hence, the importance of not only involving indigenous men and women in their capacity as the local managers and stewards of natural resources, but of recognizing that their practices, their knowledge is culturally based and thus dependent upon the recognition of indigenous territorial and cultural rights.

Source: Parra Valencia, Germán. 1996. "I congreso colombiano de etnobiologia", Cespedesia, Vol 21. no. 67.

Kronik, Jakob. 2001. "Living knowledge: institutionalizing learning practices about biodiversity among the Muinane and the Uitoto in the Colombian Amazon". Ph.D. thesis. Roskilde : Roskilde University, Institute of Environment, Technology and Social Studies. 

2. Women prefer multipurpose crops

Indigenous women in Nepal and Bhutan are known to play a crucial role in decisions regarding what to plant and what seeds to use. But also in other seed-related activities, women supersede men: They select good seeds for the next season, basing their decisions on taste, colour, resistance to diseases and insect pests, adaptation to soil, and agro-climatic conditions, and preserve them with a variety of traditional methods. Indigenous women also exchange seeds, and in some ethnic groups, grandmothers and mothers pass seed selection skills on to their daughters. Their special knowledge of the value and diverse uses of plants for nutrition, food security, health, and income determines which plant varieties should be conserved, based on their usefulness to the family and community. Women take into consideration a plant’s multiple uses, providing a balance to the market-oriented pressures that emphasize high yields and uniformity.

Although women’s knowledge and contribution to agricultural production is substantial, it is, in general, not visible and not considered significant by agricultural professionals. Instead, agriculturalists portray traditional crop varieties as inferior, ‘backward’ crops that should be replaced by high social status crops requiring provision of seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, training, and technical advice from extensionists. As keepers of the knowledge related to these so-called ‘marginal’ crops, women themselves are marginalised in the process in societies that give increasing value only to those who can produce cash.

So despite and, perhaps, because of their intense involvement in seed supply systems, women’s roles as custodians of local crop varieties and landraces have been greatly undermined by development planners, causing them to lose status and control over their resources. Modern crop varieties are developed to increase productivity and production, whereas women require multipurpose crops. They are rarely asked what their needs are. Packaged with attractive incentives, these new varieties are then delivered to men. Due to the biases of male extensionists, the widespread illiteracy of women, and obstacles to their mobility, rural women in both Bhutan and Nepal are frequently left out of the efforts to disseminate new information and seeds to farmers. The result is that women’s crops are becoming marginalised, women are without access to the new skills imparted to their men folk, and the base of biodiversity and the indigenous knowledge for maintaining it are being narrowed down without women understanding the process or its consequences.

Source: Adapted from Gender Dimensions of Biodiversity Management: Cases from Bhutan and Nepal by Jeannette Gurung. Newsletter No. 31 Biodiversity Management in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas. 

3. Hardwood and softwood tree seedlings in Thailand

In Thailand, forest officials consulted with village men to implement a community forestry project. Men advised that they needed more hardwood tree species for commercial purposes. Three thousand hardwood seedling were provided, but were left to die. The reason was that women in that region care for the seedlings, and, as the providers for family subsistence, they preferred softwood species for fuel wood. Women were included in a second round of consultations, as forestry officials realized the need to take into account all stakeholders. Finally seedlings of both varieties were provided, fulfilling the needs of women and men in the village.

Source: Sass, J. 2002. Women, men and environmental change: the gender dimensions of environmental policies and programs. Population Reference Bureau Series. Emerging Policy Issues in Population, Health and the Environment, Population Reference Bureau, Washington D.C. – quoted in Nomadic News 08/2004. 

4. Consequences of establishing a National Park in Cameroon.

Not long ago, the women of the Bifa village in Cameroon earned a considerable part of their income by selling bush meat in the villages nearby and in a neighbouring rubber plantation. The men were in charge of the hunting whereas the women took care of selling the meat, receiving the monetary income from the sales. When the government created the National Park in the area, the park guards started to pursue the women confiscating their meat. They even entered the women’s kitchens to verify what they were cooking. Nobody bothered to explain clearly the new rules on the use of bush meat to the women and the boundary limits of the park. The park guards failed to stop the hunting, as the buyers went directly to the hunters in the forest to buy meat in a clandestine way. The only consequence of the new rules and procedures was that the women were left without an income.

According to the women, they have no problem in accepting the creation of the National Park. They only wish to know where it is legal to hunt and not to be punished when the meat they sell comes from outside the park boundaries.

The road that the people of the Ebianomeyong village in Cameroon use to reach the city was closed by the government due to the fact that it cuts across the National Park, and that they wanted to put a stop to illegal hunting. However, the hunters seldom use this road as they are too easily discovered there and thus prefer alternative routes. The consequences for the village women are however severe, as the closing down of the road inhibits them to bring their agricultural production to the market in the city and to bring their sick children to the doctor. The women have expressed their willingness to help the authorities prevent illegal hunting and logging as long as they can keep up an income of some kind and maintain access to local social services.

Source: M. Shimamotoi, F. Ubukata, y Y. Seki. 2004 "Forest Sustainability and the Free Trade of Forest Products, Ecological Economics, 50: 23-34. 

5. Women's source of income turned over to the men

In the Solomon Islands’ forestry sector, gender research done in consultation with local officials, highlighted the difficulty women have in head-loading cut timber. The immediate response of the sector specialists and project staff was to hand over the work to the indigenous men. However, discussion revealed that forestry work was the indigenous women’s main source of income, which was now to be handed over to their husbands. As a result of the discussions and new information, an EC Delegation suggested considering to develop an improved technology – a pull and tackle device - that could be used by women and thus enable the work to remain in the control of the women.

Source: Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the Programme of action for the mainstreaming of gender equality in Community development cooperation. Adopted 21 June 2001. http://europa.eu.int/comm/europeaid/projects/gender/documents/gender_programme_of_action_en.pdf

6. Traditional rules in Africa

Traditional or customary rules, once established, controlled the access of African people to natural resources. Rules prohibited, for example: cutting particular trees; some methods of gathering certain fruits and other tree by-products; and access to sacred groves and mountains.

Cutting fruit trees, in particular, was prohibited. In Zimbabwe, it was almost inconceivable for anyone under traditional tenure to cut Uacapa kirkiana without the express permission of the guardians of the land. Other trees, such as Sclerocarya birrea and Parinari curatellifolia, were directly linked to ancestral spirits and rituals, and were protected by a standing penalty system, which was enforced by a chief and his lineage.

Traditional rules regarding gathering fruit facilitated the conservation of fruit trees. Most fruits were supposed to be harvested for use in the home, and not for sale. Rules governing fruit gathering included the following:

• Never pick up a [Uacapa kirkiana] fruit with two hands

• Shake the tree and use a stone or another instrument as a way to dislodge the fruit.

• Do not curse or express delight about the quality or quantity of fruit.

Other rules limited the quantity of unripe fruits leaving the forest, so that fruit picking did not damage the trees. It was generally understood that if any of the offences were committed, the person who committed them would disappear in the forest.

In terms of woodland management, the traditional rules went even further: tree cutting was banned in designated places. The declaration of such places, and their subsequent protection, lay in the land-guardian relationship.

Source: In African Environment outlook – Past, present and Future Perspectives. 2002 published by UNEP