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An Embera woman with children holding traditional hand-woven baskets. (Photo courtesy of Panart)

Where Central and South America come together, grows a rainforest that is one of the richest ecological regions of tropical America. The Indigenous peoples who live there depend on this forest for food, medicine, building materials and much more. But parts of the rainforest are being cut by outsiders, the pressure on natural resources is increasing, and the livelihoods of the Indigenous peoples are threatened.

"How can we reconcile decent livelihoods with the protection of the environment?" asks Catherine Potvin, an associate professor at McGill University in Montreal and the leader of a research project supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). "All the work we’ve developed has been trying to do that." [See related sidebar: A life-changing Experience]

A biosphere reserve under threat

The province of Darién, which forms a land-bridge between the Central and South American continents, is home to the largest national park in Central America: Darién National Park. Inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1981, this 579,000 hectare park was recognized as a Biosphere Reserve two years later. The park contains a wide range of habitats: sandy beaches, rocky coasts, mangroves, freshwater marshes, palm forest swamps, and lowland and upland moist tropical forest. It is home to thousands of plant species, as well as hundreds of species of birds, mammals, and reptiles.

Darién is also home to about 65,000 Indigenous people who belong to one of three Central American Indian Nations: the Kuna, the Emberá, and the Wounaan. The three Nations, distributed throughout small villages, still live a traditional lifestyle. They use the forest to farm, hunt, fish, and gather medicinal plants and materials to build homes, boats, and for crafts. Their traditional way of life has been environmentally sustainable for centuries.

How to sustainably manage resources?

However, this way of life — and the biodiversity that supports it — are increasingly under threat. Loggers are cutting down trees to make wood products, and farmers are chopping them down to clear land so they can plant cash crops. Along with government and nongovernmental groups, Indigenous peoples are engaged in an ongoing effort to protect Darien from this destruction — for example by undertaking land mapping to illustrate forest resources, and by campaigning to stop land clearing.

But they also need to find new strategies for sustainably managing the resources they depend on. In 1998, IDRC launched a two-year project that brought Canadian researchers together with Indigenous communities to work toward this goal. Researchers worked with local people in two villages (one Kuna, the other Emberá), as well as two Indigenous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Fundacion Dobbo Yala, and Fundacion Darién.

Reviving palm trees

Potvin worked with an Emberá conservation biologist, Rogelio Cansari, and Fundacion Darién to reintroduce several palm species near the village of Ipetí, and develop sustainable management practices. The team identified two palm species that were considered endangered: black palm and sabal.

Black palm is important for both cultural and economic reasons. For generations, Emberá women had attracted suitors by weaving baskets from the fibre of the black palm. More recently, these unique and finely wrought baskets have been selling for hundreds of dollars in Panama City and international markets.

For Potvin, the answer to the decline in this resource seemed obvious: plant more black palm. "I figured that with a PhD in botany, I should be able to do that!" she says, laughing. It wasn’t quite so easy. Only half of the seeds germinated, and it took them nearly a year to do so. Despite various trials, they could not improve the track record. The poor germination rate did not deter the local population however. Demand for black palm was so great that some 21 Emberá communities nonetheless adopted the practice of planting seeds every year.

Planting seeds catches on

"From a botanist’s point of view, we weren’t successful. But from another perspective we were — because we involved a lot of people in the work it had a large impact," says Potvin. "One of my great pleasures in this project was to visit a village for the first time and see a tree nursery. The villagers had completely appropriated our idea. The best part was that they didn’t know anything about me."

Sabal is another endangered palm species. Villagers must harvest leaves from 40 trees to get the 400 leaves they need to make a roof on a single Emberá home. The extreme pressure on this resource has led to machete fights in Darien National Park. Ipetí is one of the few Emberá communities where sabal can still be found.

"It’s now standard practice to grow and share plants, and borrow seeds in Emberá villages," says Potvin. "This is because of the project. We’ve used no sophisticated techniques. But everything has been done with the people, and they’ve been able to teach others. People from other communities have visited Ipetí to get seeds and bring them to other parts of Darién where the sabal is extinct."

Taking stock of the forest

The project also identified various endangered nonmedicinal plants. Sarah Dalle, who was then a graduate student at McGill University, worked with Fundacion Dobbo Yala to identify endangered species in Nurna, an isolated village with only 200 inhabitants. Potvin conducted similar work in Ipetí with several Canadian and Emberá colleagues.

Researchers began by interviewing local people about 20 plant species to understand the extent to which people felt these plants were endangered. They then undertook an ecological inventory in the forests using Global Positioning System technology. The team’s hypothesis was that the two villages used the same species for the same reasons. If this were true, similar strategies could be put in place to preserve the plants.

However, this idea proved false. The villages had only 10 species in common. For nine of these shared species, villagers used the same part of the plant, but not necessarily for the same reason. Harvest times also varied. These differences were determined by factors such as culture, land tenure, vegetation patterns, and geography, as well as the villagers’ perceptions of abundance.

Moreover, in Nurna, the five species believed to be most endangered were widely dispersed throughout the territory. "The diversity in distribution patterns means we’re dealing with different ecological requirements," says Dalle. "Different strategies will be needed to conserve the natural habitat of these different species."

Cultural workshops revive traditions

In the course of doing the ecological inventory, researchers also learned about traditional knowledge and how it differs between men and women. To help pass on this knowledge — which is in danger of being lost — the researchers organized workshops in Ipetí. For example, a workshop for women was held in which the techniques and myths of body painting were taught, and an illustrated booklet and posters were later produced.

A workshop on how to make traditional instruments such as the flute and drum was organized for men. A music group has since been formed. A further workshop for men focused on how to make dug-out canoes. The people of Ipetí then initiated a workshop on their own, in which they built a traditional Emberá communal house. The house is now a space for community meetings and celebrations, as well as a repository for all the material related to the project, including such things as plant-use books, questionnaires from plant-use workshops, and posters.

Ongoing work

Local participation was an important part of the project. Every night, Dalle attended meetings in Nurna to report on and discuss the research. The interviews carried out by the Emberá and Kuna researchers were crucial, proving a key input into the research process. Local participation in the research process has helped ensure sustainability, says Dalle.

"They’ve organized a lot of activities in Nurna since we left. They’re starting to collect seeds for mahogany and sabal, and about 100 men and women worked for three weeks to prepare a big farm where they will grow sabal and other timber trees, as well as agricultural crops," says Dalle.

The trust built up by the researchers in Darién has enabled them to work on medicinal plants, based on the clear recognition that the ownership of the natural resources belongs to the community. Working in two different Kuna and Emberá villages, the project’s second phase will examine intellectual property rights and develop compensation mechanisms for traditional knowledge; it will develop a list of key medicinal plants, as well as document oral traditions and rituals; and it will promote the conservation of traditional knowledge, which may include formal apprenticeships.

Mark Foss is an Ottawa-based writer and editor.

For a Canadian researcher at McGill University, an IDRC project to promote sustainable use of plant biodiversity in Panama was a life-altering experience.

In 1994, while on sabbatical from McGill University, Catherine Potvin started working in Panama to see how the Emberá people interacted with their environment.

"The meeting with the Emberá completely changed my life," she recalls. "When I arrived in the village, I wanted to say things like: ‘Why are you cutting down this forest? It has a value in itself.’ Then I realized it was impossible. These people had to obtain resources from the forest. You couldn’t just tell them, ‘Don’t use things.’ This started, for me, a process of growth."

This encounter motivated Potvin to submit a research proposal to IDRC to work with Panama’s Indigenous people on the sustainable use of biodiversity. During the course of the two-year project, her thinking underwent a further transformation. Where she once was a scientist preoccupied with plants for their own sake, she became someone more concerned with how these species sustained traditional lifestyles.

"I’ve learned from the Emberá that there is a forest to preserve, but there is also a way of life and a culture to preserve. I think I’ve reached an extreme viewpoint now. I would be sadder if people lost their way of life than if one of the plants they used disappeared."

2002-03-01

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