Memories of Fire: Eduardo Galeano and the Geography of Guatemala

In Memory of Fire, a poetic narration of the history of the Americas from pre-Columbian times to the late 20th century, Eduardo Galeano furnishes readers with over 1200 of his trademark vignettes, some 35 of which pertain to Guatemala. Galeano evokes disparate aspects of the geography of Guatemala, past and present, in grounded miniatures of time, place, and episode. His sketches of the experiences of Maya peoples allow us to see them as survivors of three cycles of conquest: (1) conquest by imperial Spain; (2) conquest by local and international capitalism; and (3) conquest by state terror. Composed in the literary mode of creative non-fiction, Memory of Fire serves as an inspirational classroom text, exposing students not only to factual detail but also a powerful artistic imagination.     

Rights or Containment? The politics of Aboriginal cultural heritage in Victoria

Aboriginal cultural heritage protection, and the legislative regimes that underpin it, constitute important mechanisms for Aboriginal people to assert their rights and responsibilities. This is especially so in Victoria, where legislation vests wide-ranging powers and control of cultural heritage with Aboriginal communities. However, the politics of cultural heritage, including its institutionalisation as a scientific body of knowledge within the state, can also result in a powerful limiting of Aboriginal rights and responsibilities. This paper examines the politics of cultural heritage through a case study of a small forest in north-west Victoria. Here, a dispute about logging has pivoted around differing conceptualisations of Aboriginal cultural heritage values and their management. Cultural heritage, in this case, is both a powerful tool for the assertion of Aboriginal rights and interests, but simultaneously a set of boundaries within which the state operates to limit and manage the challenge those assertions pose. The paper will argue that Aboriginal cultural heritage is a politically contested and shifting domain structured around Aboriginal law and politics, Australian statute and the legacy of colonial history.     

Rethinking Precolonial Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America

The indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of North America are widely believed to have been true “hunter‐fisher‐gatherers,” lacking plant cultivation of any kind. This depiction of the region's indigenous inhabitants emerged within early colonial accounts and was perpetuated within the literatures of geography, anthropology, and archaeology. Still, there is ample evidence of plant cultivation available from archival, archaeological, and ethnographic sources. In particular, the peoples of coastal British Columbia created large gardens of edible estuarine plants, using sophisticated indigenous technologies. The oversight of these practices in written representations of the region reveals consistent patterns of bias, emanating from the agendas of colonial agents and early academics alike. In turn, this bias has undermined aboriginal traditions of cultivation and indigenous land claims.     

Reclaiming the ancestral waters of indigenous peoples in the Philippines: The Tagbanua experience with fishing rights and indigenous rights

This paper discusses the impact of local and national policies in the Philippines on the participation of indigenous peoples in relation to fisheries management. Specifically, this research focuses on the Tagbanua, an indigenous group in Coron Island, Palawan, on the western side of the Philippines. The struggle of the Tagbanua in reclaiming their ancestral title to the land and sea reflects broader moves toward self-determination, which is critical not only to their ancestral lands and waters, but also to their survival. Indigenous rights are essential in addressing social justice and in giving a greater voice that encourages indigenous peoples towards self-governing institutions and common management of resources. Significantly, the fundamental development of indigenous peoples lies in the recognition of their rights in their ancestral domain and the preservation of their culture, tradition, system, practices and their natural resources. This paper examines the Tagbanua experience, through a critical exploration of institutions and property rights, with attention to corresponding effects in reducing conflict with other stakeholders in the area, and in affecting the sustainability of fishery resources.     

Water Flows Toward Power: Socioecological Degradation of Lake Urmia,Iran

Water is an invaluable resource, and equitable access to it is a fundamental human right. Disenfranchised groups often lose access to water resources because their interests are not well represented by decision makers. Excluding these groups from resource management policy often results in myopic decisions that contribute to further ecosystem damage. We describe the ecological degradation of Lake Urmia in Iran, which has recently experienced increased salinity and declining water quantity. The lake is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Ramsar site, and supports unique biodiversity in the region. The lake's decline is driven by the destruction of Zagros forests and the government's water policies, which diverted water to more politically connected agricultural land users, increasing social inequity and prompting more deforestation. The most straightforward restoration solution is to discontinue the diversions and allow critical inflows to recharge Lake Urmia, preserving the lake and wetlands for migratory birds, tourists, and local communities.     

Land tenure and REDD+: The good,the bad and the ugly

A number of international donors, national governments and project proponents have begun to lay the groundwork for REDD+, but tenure insecurity – including the potential risks of land grabbing by outsiders and loss of local user rights to forests and forest land – is one of the main reasons that many indigenous and other local peoples have publicly opposed it. Under what conditions is REDD+ a threat to local rights, and under what conditions does it present an opportunity? This article explores these issues based on available data from a global comparative study on REDD+, led by the Center for International Forestry Research, which is studying national policies and processes in 12 countries and 23 REDD+ projects in 6 countries. The article analyses how tenure concerns are being addressed at both national and project level in emerging REDD+ programs. The findings suggest that in most cases REDD+ has clearly provided some new opportunities for securing local tenure rights, but that piecemeal interventions by project proponents at the local level are insufficient in the absence of broader, national programs for land tenure reform. The potential for substantial changes in the status quo appear unlikely, though Brazil – the only one with such a national land tenure reform program – offers useful insights. Land tenure reform – the recognition of customary rights in particular – and a serious commitment to REDD+ both challenge the deep-rooted economic and political interests of ‘business as usual’.     

Lubbock Lake: Late Quaternary cultural and environmental change on the Southern High Plains,USA

Lubbock Lake (Southern High Plains of Texas) contains a cultural, faunal, and floral record within a virtually complete geological record spanning the past 11 100+ years. More than 88 archaeological occurrences have been excavated from five major stratigraphic units. The Paleoindian record (11 500–6500yr BP) begins with Clovis-age occupation (ca. 11 100yr BP) found within fluvial deposits (stratum 1). Subsequent Paleoindian occupations are found in lake and marsh sediments (stratum 2). Archaic occupations (8500-2000yr BP) are contained within aeolian and marsh deposits (strata 3 and 4). Ceramic occupations (2000-500yr BP) are found on a soil developed in stratum 4, in marsh sediments (strata 4 and 5), and in slopewash and aeolian sediments (stratum 5). The Protohistoric (500-300yr BP) and Historic (300-100yr BP) remains are in slopewash, aeolian, and marsh sediments (stratum 5) and associated soils. The Southern High Plains remained a grasslands throughout the last 11 500 years and neither man nor bison abandoned the region. The successive local faunas reflect changing ecosystems under pluvial to arid to more mesic to semiarid conditions. The occupation of Lubbock Lake through time appears to have been by small groups of people for both economic and short-term residential uses. These hunter-gatherer peoples underwent adaptive change brought about by climatic stress and alterations to food resources.     

Vulnerability of Aboriginal health systems in Canada to climate change

Climate change has been identified as potentially the biggest health threat of the 21st century. Canada in general has a well developed public health system and low burden of health which will moderate vulnerability. However, there is significant heterogeneity in health outcomes, and health inequality is particularly pronounced among Aboriginal Canadians. Intervention is needed to prevent, prepare for, and manage climate change effects on Aboriginal health but is constrained by a limited understanding of vulnerability and its determinants. Despite limited research on climate change and Aboriginal health, however, there is a well established literature on Aboriginal health outcomes, determinants, and trends in Canada; characteristics that will determine vulnerability to climate change. In this paper we systematically review this literature, using a vulnerability framework to identify the broad level factors constraining adaptive capacity and increasing sensitivity to climate change. Determinants identified include: poverty, technological capacity constraints, socio-political values and inequality, institutional capacity challenges, and information deficit. The magnitude and nature of these determinants will be distributed unevenly within and between Aboriginal populations necessitating place-based and regional level studies to examine how these broad factors will affect vulnerability at lower levels. The study also supports the need for collaboration across all sectors and levels of government, open and meaningful dialogue between policy makers, scientists, health professionals, and Aboriginal communities, and capacity building at a local level, to plan for climate change. Ultimately, however, efforts to reduce the vulnerability of Aboriginal Canadians to climate change and intervene to prevent, reduce, and manage climate-sensitive health outcomes, will fail unless the broader determinants of socio-economic and health inequality are addressed.     

Quitovac Oasis: A Sense of Home Place and the Development of Water Resources

Agricultural development at Quitovac, a Sonoran Desert oasis that is an ancestral home of the Tohono O’odham people, was first interpreted in the literature as a typical example of an indigenous community succumbing to the economic pressures of industrial society. However, a humanistic analysis of the cultural and historical context and the results of ethnographic fieldwork leads to a radically different interpretation of recent community actions. Community‐initiated institutional and economic changes can be understood as creative and resilient adaptations, and perhaps a resolution, to a complex social and religious challenge to the community's identity. Notwithstanding the economic failure of part of the development efforts, the overall effects are interpreted as strengthening the residents’ sense of their home place and ensuring the continuation of religious rites associated with this sacred place.     

SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF WORLD BANK/IMF-FUNDED ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING IN BOLIVIA: AN ANALYSIS OF ENRON AND SHELL'S HYDROCARBONS PROJECTS

With the spectacular financial collapse of Enron in 2001, Enron and Shell's Rio San Miguel‐Cuiabá gas pipeline gained international notoriety for degrading the last, most intact dry tropical forest in the world, Bolivia's Chiquitano forest. The paper uses specific case studies, including the case of the Cuiabá pipeline, to examine how economic restructuring sponsored by the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Inter‐American Development Bank (IDB) facilitated the entrance of multinational oil corporations that have caused significant social and environmental impacts in Bolivia. The paper explores the influence of international financial institutions and multinational oil corporations on Bolivian state institutions, particularly their ability to regulate and address impacts caused by developments in the hydrocarbons sector. It concludes that neoliberal policies, which resulted in partial privatisation of the state oil company and in expanded control over natural resources by multinational corporations (MNCs), were detrimental to sensitive ecosystems and indigenous inhabitants.