The global community has become increasingly concerned about the future of life on earth. Anthropologists have been among those who have seen the problems in remote places, but they have not been leading political actors among the many people and organizations that have worked to educate the public about the dangers to the environment.
Following the United Nations conference in 1992 in Rio, Viacheslav Rudnev began his work to promote research papers on the contributions that the knowledge developed over generations among indigenous people has made, and could make, to sustainable development. He has worked to organize scholars in ethnology and in other disciplines who have done research that contributes to solving the problems of balancing the needs of humans, other living things, and nature so that we can develop sustainable ways to survive. He invited Dorothy Billings to join him as Co-Chair of the Commission on Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development, a Commission which he successfully proposed to the International Union for Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) in 1998, and which has regularly organized panels for international congresses since then. Dr Rudnev reports the history of this work in his introductory article for this Special Issue.
Researchers who have presented their work at IUAES meetings were invited to give their papers at the 117th American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Washington, DC in December 2014. It is those papers, as well as some papers that had been given at recent meetings of the IUAES, that we have gathered together in this Special Issue of Global Bioethics.
Anthropologists have been focused on the ethnography of indigenous peoples: their cultures, their values, and their knowledge. Our sojourn with “development” has been more recent; with “sustainable development” more recent still. After World War II, colonial governments began to leave their colonies, having prepared, more or less, the local people to take over their own governments. Neo-colonialism, largely of economic enterprises, began everywhere: developers moved in to remove resources needed by the industrialized world, and newly formed local governments needed the economic foundations they provided. The authors here have looked at what these outside “developers” have done that profoundly affects the lives of indigenous peoples and their ability to sustain and develop themselves.
Ethel Vesper reports her research in Micronesia, islands that have been colonized by various European governments for centuries and have, since World War II, lost much of their land base to occupation by the US military. She focuses on Guam and the island of Bikini, which is no longer habitable.
David Ryniker found in Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, that the Vaturanga people of the Solomon Islands have a history of movement, missionization, colonization, and national consciousness which has moved them from their traditional lands. They have learned to conceive of their movements over time by designating directions in space. Through these indigenous mappings they claimed ownership, about which they were increasingly concerned as modernity threatened the transmission of knowledge to the younger generation. In doing this the Vaturanga are able to hold claim over land, resources, and indigenous knowledge in a rapidly changing economic context.
Tukul Walla Kaiku writes of the people of New Hanover Island in Papua New Guinea and of their religious activities in support of their wish for development. As this is her home island, where the language spoken is her first language, she has special insight into the actions of her friends and relatives. In the religious aspects of the Johnson cult are contained a continued search for sustainable and modern technological development for an indigenous Lavongai society.
Buddhadeb Chaudhuri has researched the tribal people of India for many years, and has taught many students at the University of Calcutta to follow in his footsteps. He writes of the indigenous knowledge of local people and also of the modern world that thinks it has a monopoly on “science”. We have much to learn from the traditional medicines tribal people have collected in the forests, and much to lose with deforestation so prevalent throughout India.
Sumita Chaudhuri writes of the skillful adaptation of the people from rural India who come to the urban centers trying to find a way to survive. They have learned to make urban gardens at the edge of cities, which provide them with fresh food and also with something to sell to the urban people who are happy to have fresh produce.
Indigenous knowledge brings to the modern world techniques and strategies for sustainability about which modernity is unaware. Archaeologist Annick Daneels reports on her extensive research in Mexico on earth as a building material that has endured through hundreds of years; contrary to the general conception of earth as easily dissolved and unsustainable over time. She suggests that the ancient knowledge of this technique might usefully be revived today in areas where the materials needed are present.
Dorothy Billings reports on various development projects in Papua New Guinea and West Papua. Extractive industries have generally been devastating and not sustainable forms of development, but ecotourism may hold more opportunities for preservation of the people and resources.
The most powerful ally that most indigenous people have is international law. James Phillips has researched the possibilities international law provides for indigenous people to regain control of their land and resources, and the efforts of dedicated lawyers to restrain developers. However, case studies show the difficulties encountered in the pursuit of justice along the legal road.
Developers are usually corporations which have as their primary responsibility making money for their stockholders: local stakeholders, who need clean water, have not been primary factors in their decision-making process. Khalid Younis has carried out research with 21 managers of companies operating in Liberia to find out what they believed to be their responsibilities and to see what factors influenced their decisions as leaders.
Over the long run, participation of local communities and cooperation between affected peoples constitute and create sustainable development. Matthew Harms has written about a group composed equally of Maori, the local Polynesian indigenous people, and local Pakeha, the Maori term for European settlers, and has planned and carried out a restoration and conservation project on a mountain still owned, in traditional conceptions, by local Maori. Problems along the way have so far not defeated this effort.
Renata Freccero provides a bright spot for a discussion of sustainable development: she has studied in Italy in the mountains where local people have been aware of the need to conserve and protect their environment, and have successfully carried out their work while maintaining clean air, clean water, and their own health.
Elena Fursova also writes about the importance of traditional knowledge to local people throughout their changing histories. She focuses on those who for one reason or another migrate to new places. Her work has been with the peasants of Siberia, who rename the new places they come to while reapplying their knowledge of agriculture and maintaining their respect for nature.
Participation of local people in development projects varies from one place and project to another described in these studies. In some of these studies, people depend successfully on their own indigenous knowledge for their own survival. Many studies, however, show the destruction of a local people and of their resource base by wealthy and powerful outsiders. In some cases, local people have successfully adapted to change, but only when they are able to at least survive. In the long run, and sometimes in the short run, local participation is essential not only to serve social justice, but also to the success of projects. Managers can perhaps be educated in these matters, by training or by becoming the targets of lawsuits which enforce laws that protect the rights of local indigenous populations. The protection of people and of the environment are not mutually exclusive goals: these studies give evidence that when people are protected, nature is also protected. Indigenous people seem to know this as part of their traditional knowledge.