FAO and Indigenous Groups

Abstract

"Many local communities, including a significant number of indigenous groups, live in and around forest areas. They are primary users of forest products and they often create their own, locally adapted and accepted rules for how to use the forest part of what is often referred to as local institutions. Support for increased local access to and control of forest resources for these groups, thus legimizing their role as responsible forest managers, has proved to be a constructive strategy to achieve sustainable forest management. This article provides two examples from Latin America illustrating how FAO's Forestry Department is exploring new ways of working together with forest-dwelling indigenous communities - a collaboration that has proved to be mutually fruitful for both FAO and the various indigenous groups involved. The first example describes an experience of technical cooperation with an indigenous group living along the Chapare River in Bolivia, while the second example depicts the consultative process with indigenous groups in Central America leading up to the Fourth Central American Forestry Congress, held in San Pedro Sula, Honduras in September 1995."