On the indigenous peoples and land: the ecological native

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Two main issues have been central on the indigenous demonstration held in Colombia these days. The first one is their demand for more protection from the Colombian State because of the indigenous people murdered by the groups fighting in the Colombian internal armed conflict. The second one has to do with their constant and almost eternal fight for land.

It is true that, due to some of the customs the indigenous communities have, there are reasons to question the way how they and their discourse have inserted into a global context flavoured with "correct multiculturality" (with racism still alive and kicking in the world), which contradicts or reassert their claims and life projects. Political "correction" stands everything. But, beyond antropological and cultural questionings, related to the way indigenous people behave and Western society’s behaviour toward them, let’s be honest, today more than ever, interests and claims by the indigenous communities in Colombia are worthless. Right now it is worth to question the real role of indigenous fight into the Colombian and global environmental discourse.

Undoubtedly indigenous claims have gained a lot of ground despite their troubles in the political field. Indigenist discourse has shapen in some way the current ecologist and environmentalist thought in the world. It is a fact that, at least formally, different international agencies, researchers, and academia members agree to recognize the indigenous groups as the natural allies for conservation and good management of ecosystems (Alarcón-Cháires, 2006). Nevertheless, the "good savage" picture is currently revalued. But this situation must be analysed in the light of the modern history of those people and the role of Western society on these new behaviour standards (Alarcón-Cháires, op. cit.).

Along these lines, in a healthy reading and analysis exercise, I’d like to bring as a reference the work of Colombian anthropologist and researcher Astrid Ulloa (2004), La construcción del nativo ecológico: complejidades, paradojas y dilemas de la relación entre los movimientos indígenas y el ambientalismo en Colombia ("The construction of the ecological native: complexities, paradoxes, and dillemas of the relationships between indigenous movements and enviromentalism in Colombia").

According to Ms Ulloa, in the last few decades, the identity construction process of indigenous movements has been related with ecological ideas. This, to a great extent, is due to a identity construction process by indigenous movements based not only in their traditions, but contact these communities have had with the so-called "Western vision", with its legal definitions and local and global stereotypes in connection to the socio-enviromental contexts every indigenous community copes with.

This means that actions indigenous movements take on the enviromental issues can be summarized both in the effects they have had as movements and the effects generated on those movements. This is where the ecological native concept comes from, a product from diverse discourses generated by several social actors located in different positions of power spectrum (Ulloa, op. cit.).

Recognition of indigenous movements as ecological ones can not be separated from their fights for the right to their own territories and keeping management from their natural resources and ecological patrimony. In these fights, identity elements based in ecological ideas questioning the Western model of society have been present.

Here, my fellow readers, the key issue into these fights is reaching and reaffirming the concept of community self-management (also associated to some peasant communities), as an option for a sustainable appropiation of the ecological wealth of territory. This belongs to the world vision indigenous communities have (which is a cultural aspect), where life, expressed in the ecosystem and the biodiversity connected to their territories is sacred but not untouchable. It is part of their life project.

In accordance to a 2002 study by Agustín Codazzi Geographical Institute –IGAC– and the Colombian Corporation of Agricultural Research –CORPOICA–, more than 60% of land in Colombia has forest and conservational vocation, this means they are not suitable for any kind of agricultural activities. The bragged 27% figure of land property in Colombia the national government attributed to the now “landowner indigenous” is nothing more than a sophism, not because of the figure, which can be true, but the way it is presented.

Most of those lands are part of vast areas of forests, rainforests, grasslands, and plains, dry areas, among others, which are protected areas known as Natural National Parks –PNN–, where land use is restricted, precisely because of their strategic importance from the ecosystemic point of view for all Colombians. Besides, indigenous peoples do not see only money and profitable productivity in land, just as an estate owner does. A lot of those territories is seen as an integral part of one only living being: the mother earth. This is why those official arguments are so disgusting, so un-common sense and above all, without any environmental sensitivity. Please, let’s show some good sense, please.

What is notorious is that in Colombia there is a high amount of disputes for land use, which threatens our country’s strategical ecosystems due to so many human pressures, including war, through illegal crops or law-sponsored actions such as the establishments of green palm deserts. All this happens because a lack of territorial organization, development of integral, public policies of human development and the fact the rural communities (including indigenous ones) are not consulted in the decision process regarding these issues.

As an agricultural counter-reform with uncertain social and ecosystemic impacts is developing in Colombia, indigenous peoples are criminalized and still are one of the weakest links in Colombian armed conflict. When will this society manage to reach a point where ancestral and contemporary visions of development complement each other in order to raise quality of life and enviromental security of our territories?

Of course, nobody speaks or writes about the Fiesta de la Coca being held in these days, quite close to the epicentre of the “pitched battle” in Popayán, the capital city of Cauca department. As Transnational Institute’s Drogas y conflicto en Colombia blog comments: “…it’s striking these attempts to promote a revalorization of coca leaf happen at the same time the indigenous movement fight in Cauca occurs. In both aspects the request of a people to their culture and territory to be respected is expressed, in order to [coca] leaf consumption and indigenous’ social protest not to be criminalized. Despite some tergiversations in national media, indigenous peoples have not stopped to insist in the peaceful nature of their movement and their total contempt for using fire arms and explosives.”

The ancestral, peaceful, and not violence-related indigenous message, as a questioning source toward our model of society, could not be clearer. Colombian society must increasingly find spaces where (all kind of) radicalisms can be put aside in order to promote a territorial development where security, not only police but also environmental, which is a concept which, at least in public policy, should be considered.

It would be very valuable for this country to recognize, validate and, above all, respect native visions of territory management, which have been validated not only by indigenous communities, but also peasant and black people communities, without the imposition of other models or the criminalization of them. We can not let violence from ones and others taints the real dimensions and fairness of indigenous claims.

Cheers.

Related bibliography in Spanish

Alarcón-Cháires, Pablo. 2006. Riqueza ecológica versus pobreza social. Contradicciones y perspectivas del desarrollo indígena en Latinoamérica. En: Pueblos indígenas y pobreza. Enfoques multidisciplinarios. Programa CLACSOCROP, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Available at http://bibliotecavirtual.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/crop/indige/S1C1Alarcon.pdf

Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi -IGAC- y la Corporación Colombiana de Investigación Agropecuaria -CORPOICA-. 2002. Zonificación de los conflictos de uso de las tierras del país. Capítulos III y IV. Bogotá, Colombia.

Ulloa, A. 2004. La construcción del nativo ecológico: complejidades, paradojas y dilemas de la relación entre los movimientos indígenas y el ambientalismo en Colombia. Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia –ICANH-. Bogotá, Colombia.

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This article was originally published 23 October 2008 in equinoXio. Translated from Spanish by Julián Ortega Martínez

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