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Paper short abstract:

Our research engages with integrative & collaborative techniques in cultural mapping to document local knowledge of Bhutanese landscapes, & foreground ontological relationships and more-than-human agencies in conservation protected areas via painted counter-maps informed by Himalayan Buddhist art.

Paper long abstract:

At the intersection of Tibetan Buddhism and indigenous ‘Bon’ animism in the Eastern Himalayas, complex relational and spatial ontologies exist between protective territorial deities (gnas bdag gzhi bdag, yul lha) and the communities that propitiate them. In Bhutan, a suite of local deities and more-than-human spirits are known to occupy territory, in forests, cliffs, trees, lakes, and springs, mediating relationships between people and their environments. Different local deity classes occupy and exhibit agency within the landscape, places described as “the deity’s palace” or “citadel of the deity” (pho brang). These landscape-scale relational ontologies inevitably intersect with the politics of conservation and development in the Kingdom. While characteristics of gnas bdag gzhi bdag are historically documented in religious text, there have been relatively few efforts to document this knowledge with community practitioners. Moreover, even fewer efforts to map deity citadels in a participatory capacity exist, precluding richer geographical understanding of their relational complexities, protected status, spatiality, and territoriality. Our research engages with integrative and collaborative techniques in cultural mapping to document local understandings of the landscape and foreground the more-than-human agencies and political ecology of conservation protected areas for priority species. Drawing insights from Himalayan artistic traditions, than kha and ldeb ris, we painted a series of deity counter-maps to accentuate cultural landscape realities and re-center marginalized traditional knowledges in conservation & development arenas.

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Paper short abstract:

Hunter-gatherers in Australia needed rights to retreat to a permanent water source during drought and a network of social relationships that guaranteed the right to forage over a wider area during normal times. 2 cultures in different ecologies are compared to show adaptations of the core culture.

Paper long abstract:

Culture and ecology in Aboriginal Australia – two case studies (proposed for panel 08)

Robert Layton, University of Durham

Two basic requirements for survival as hunters and gatherers in Australia were (a) to have rights to retreat to a permanent water source during drought and (b) to have a network of social relationships that guaranteed the right to forage over a wider area during normal times. These were (and are) intimately associated with two core elements in traditional Aboriginal culture: the sacred site and the ancestral track, which also allocate people’s corresponding responsibilities to care for the land, its ecology and features. Australia’s ecology is, however, very varied. Aboriginal cultures have adapted creatively to these diverse conditions. In this paper I propose to compare the two cultures with which I am most familiar: the Anangu living around Uluru in the Western Desert, and the Alawa in the monsoon woodland south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, to show how a common core of cultural themes have been adapted in different and creative ways.

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Paper short abstract:

This study explains conservation as an environmental policy, by challenging the idea of perpetuity and invulnerability of the sacred nature as the way the Siberian Buryats access the gods, destroys nature-centred morality and the interactive relationship with the environment in the Buryat society.

Paper long abstract:

The Buryat society, as long as its environment is not physically changed or so long as it is unaware of changes, has demonstrated stable relationship with its nature-based religion and sacred sites, with people describing these as the core of their daily lives and worldview. Unexpectedly, widespread awareness of environmental problems as a result of current global efforts or environmental restrictions on natural sites by the Russian government, as conservation measures, have challenged this society's relationship with its bioregional space. This means that, contrary to the dominant idea that indigenous peoples are still responsible for nature, the destruction and pollution of sacred natural sites by this indigenous community tell another story. This begs the question, what is the translation of conservation in an indigenous mind that has led to destroyed environment? By relying on an anthropology of policy, the study finds that conservation, due to its connotation, namely helping fragile nature to remain, has targeted the Buryat society's nature-based religion. Since these society's order is established based on religious expression, conservation can immediately be translated into a vulnerable sacred place, both objectively and subjectively. Such a perception, has led to struggles with both the sacred and holy that are defined based on nature. As a result, conservation challenges the perpetuity of sacred nature and, consequently, suggests a possibility wherein the main route to holiness is blocked, or at least troubled. In this situation, gods and the sacred in the society are gradually vanished and the sense of morality towards bioregions fade.

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Paper short abstract:

Natural resource management in the DR Congo is like a jigsaw puzzle that is partially assembled, with diverse management approaches spread across the country. Integration is urgently required to ensure ecosystem integrity as well as the knowledge and practices of Indigenus and local communities.

Paper long abstract:

In the global move toward ecoregional conservation, the delineation and “planning” of landscapes in the Congo Basin was the focus of major investments from the early 2000s. Most of the Congo Basin landscapes incorporate protected areas but land use planning also identified and delineated “community-based natural resource management zones” and “extractive” zones.

In February 2016, the Democratic Republic of Congo passed community forest legislation that went far beyond the areas delineated as CBNRM zones within the Congo Basin landscapes in scope and scale. To date 85 community forestry concessions (CFCs) have been established with 37 pending, currently covering a total of 2.2 million hectares. While many CFCs are found within the Congo Basin landscapes and have been supported by conservation groups, others are independently created and managed.

This paper considers the strengths and limitations of landscapes and CFCs for conservation and for the well-being of people living in and around them. It posits a deep relationship between environmental considerations such as protection of wildlife, climate change adaptation and ecosystem resilience and social development considerations such as cultural continuity, reduction of rural violence and corruption, sustainable rural economic growth and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

The paper identifies complementarities between landscapes and CFCs as well as other pieces of the NRM puzzle such as protected areas, including community reserves, and recommends working at the ecological and social scales necessary to fight the brutal extraction of DRC’s natural resources and concomitant disempowerment and impoverishment of its peoples.