ABSTRACT
PIP: The Congress Workshop on People and Protected Areas convened to discuss the need to combine modern science and traditional knowledge to effect sustainable development among indigenous peoples in the world. The founder of the Fundacion Pro-Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta talked about development of training programs for displaced farmers and rehabilitation of Indian lands and villages in the Sierra Nevada of northern Colombia. The 3 indigenous peoples (Kogi, Arsario, and Arhuaco Indians) have only recently regained title to their forebears' lands. In fact, in 1990, the government of Colombia gave about 25% of the country back to indigenous populations. The forebears of the Kogi, Arsario, and Arhuaco Indians constructed great stone cities and advanced systems of agriculture, terracing, and irrigation. The Indians have lived under the Law of the Mother for thousands of years. This code dictates human behavior so that humans are in unity with plant and animal cycles, star movements, climatic phenomena, and the sacred geography of the coastal mountains. They are so much an integral part of their ecosystem that they even limit their population size. Now they resurrect villages in 2 national parks and indigenous reservations. Farmers who colonized the area since the 1960s must now leave the reserves and begin anew in nearby buffer zones. Here they learn revitalized agricultural techniques to abandon their illegal marijuana, cocaine, and poppy farming. At the workshop, participants also learned about conservation activities of the Imgrauen in the Banc d'Arguin National Park in Mauritania who continue to use dolphins to catch mullet. In India, the Bisnoi people living in the Rajasthan desert have established their own unofficial protected areas to keep the fragile ecosystem. Other examples were in Niger and Central Europe. The workshop participants agreed that recognition of land tenure and intellectual property rights were high priorities.^ieng