Sociopolitical Dimensions of Indigenous Common Property Tenure in Southern Belize

Abstract

"The livelihoods of over 60 million indigenous peoples are today predicated upon the continued use of and access to forest-based common property resources and management systems. Research into traditional ecological systems has clearly demonstrated that they have a great deal to offer in terms of knowledge, practice and ethics to the challenge of sustainable resource management. Nevertheless, the sustainability of indigenous common property systems can often appear as precarious as the resources upon which they subsist, as a consequence of the broader sociopolitical dimensions in which they are situated.

"This paper considers how state tenurial systems, national societies and economies affect the long-term prospects of indigenous common property systems. Utilizing a case study drawn from southern Belize, where Mayan Indians have struggled for many years within an unaccommodating political and legal environment to have their rights to common property recognized, the process by which indigenous perspectives on common property resources can become modified by the experiences of advocacy and sociopolitical constraint will be explored.

"As the case study analysis will underline, common property systems do not exist in an ecological vacuum, but rather find their nature, integrity and long-term prospects greatly defined by the broader contexts in which they are situated. In particular, when state tenurial systems provide no space for recognition of indigenous common property systems, there are good prospects that these might become eroded as a result. In the interest of securing the longevity of indigenous common property systems, and safeguarding both their intellectual contributions to sustainable resource management, and the cultural and ecological institutions from which they stem, it is imperative that effective defense strategies built upon interdisciplinary experience and planning, as well as culture and opportunity, are devised. For indigenous peoples, this may entail forging new, non-indigenous partnerships, seeking mediated solutions, and appealing to multistakeholder interests through innovative, sustainable, economically viable, and culturally resonant land use planning and practice."