WiserEarth Editors

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Manggarai Communities Collaborate with International Researchers to Research and Conserve Their Biocultural Diversity

On Flores Island, Eastern Indonesia, two indigenous communities have signed an MOU to jointly build institutional capacity in researching and conserving their biocultural diversity, while simultaneously running community-based ecotourism programs based on their research. The Tado Community Training and Research Center (Pusat Penelitian dan Pendidikan Mayasarakat Tado or P3MT) and the Waerebo Tourism Organization (Lembara Parawisata Waerebo) together involve 35 indigenous research associates and around 4000 community members, supported by the Ethnobotanical Conservation Organization for South East Asia (ECO-SEA).  The program has documented and revitalized over 700 ethnobiological traditions, practices, and narratives, involving over 250 plant and fungi species, dozens of mammal, avian, and insect species, and over 30 traditional rice landraces, while publishing all related documents in the threatened local Manggarai dialects. The Tado have also mapped their ancestral lands using GPS and photo-documentation, while the Warebo people have begun to rebuild their ancestral dwellings.

Realizing Research Ethics
Community participation and leadership at every stage in the processes of biocultural research and the development of ecotourism is fundamental to ECO-SEA’s approach. The Tado and Waerebo programs embody the principles of the ISE Code of Ethics (http://ise.arts.ubc.ca/global_coalition/ethics.php). The Principle of Traditional Guardianship (fourth in the Code) recognizes human beings’ interconnection with the Earth and role as stewards of its ecosystems, and specifically the “responsibility of Indigenous peoples, traditional societies and local communities to preserve and maintain their role as traditional guardians of these ecosystems through maintenance of their cultures” and all they encompass. The Principle of Active Participation (fifth in the Code) calls for community collaboration in research design and “prior review of results before publication or dissemination” to ensure that from their first conception projects are meeting local needs and in their final stages there is greater accuracy of data. The tenth principle, the Principle of Active Protection, charges researchers with a responsibility “to enhance the relationships of Indigenous peoples, traditional societies and local communities with their environments and thereby promote the maintenance of cultural and biological diversity.”

The Principle of Reciprocity, Mutual Benefit and Equitable Sharing (twelfth in the Code) acknowledges that communities are “entitled to share in and benefit from tangible and intangible processes, results and outcomes that accrue directly or indirectly and over the shorter and longer term” from research founded on their “knowledge and resources.” The Code’s thirteenth principle (the Principle of Supporting Indigenous Research) goes even further, asking academic researchers to support communities “in undertaking their own research based on their own epistemologies and methodologies, in creating their own knowledge-sharing mechanisms, and in utilizing their own collections and databases in accordance with their self-defined needs.” The sixteenth principle (Principle of Acknowledgement and Due Credit) requires that “Indigenous peoples, traditional societies and local communities must be acknowledged … and given due credit in all … forms of dissemination for their tangible and intangible contributions to research activities.”

By helping to establish the Tado Cultural Ecology Conservation Program, financing and furnishing the Tado Community Research and Education Center, translating key documents such as the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and precursor agreements to the 2007 UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights into Bahasa Indonesia prior to signing a joint Memorandum of Understanding and beginning collaborative research, sponsoring the attendance of Tado research associates at training courses and national and international conferences, engaging community members as peer reviewers of research results, ensuring that elders and farmer research associates were involved as co-authors of scientific papers, building local capacity so that the Tado and Waerebo research associates could administer their own research and conservation programs, helping the Tado and Waerebo communities to enact policies on what portions of the research would be made public and which portions were kept confidential, developing health insurance programs for both communities, supplying computers, digital and video cameras, GPS units, solar chargers, textbooks, and cellphones upon request, and helping to establish a self-sustaining business program that channels funds back into ongoing research, ECO-SEA has brought the ISE Code of Ethics to life.

Related links:

Tado Community-Based Ecotourism Program: http://www.floreskomodo.com/

ECO-SEA: http://www.ecosea.org

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Related links:

http://www.scielo.br/pdf/bwho/v82n4/v82n4a05.pdf

http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/pdf/1746-4269-4-1.pdf