Understanding and building wilderness management partnerships with indigenous peoples and communities

Abstract

Learning about, understanding, and working with native cultures can be rewarding as well as enlightening. Such endeavors can also be time consuming, difficult, and even frustrating in certain instances. However, if coordinated carefully and managed properly, at the end of the day such efforts can ultimately result in innumerable benefits to native communities, land managers, and to the enduring resource of wilderness. Indigenous people have survived thousands of years of oppression, prejudice, and abuse. Yet today, some land management agencies and non-governmental organizations are beginning to realize that native people - the original keepers of the earth - have a great deal to offer, not only in terms of understanding and caring for the land in general, but more specifically, in caring for wild places. This paper will provide unique insights into how wilderness-benefiting, cross-cultural collaborations can be achieved and sustained by offering a simple-to-follow partnership development framework that has been ground-truthed and proven highly successful in many parts of the world. Furthermore, this indigenous partnership model will be supported by field-tested program examples in an attempt to provide wilderness managers with the basic tools and knowledge required in building and maintaining meaningful and productive wilderness management partnerships with indigenous people and communities.

Parent Publication

• Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Ninth World Wilderness Congress symposium; November 6-13, 2009; Merida, Yucatan, Mexico

Citation

Hansen, Gregory F. 2011. Understanding and building wilderness management partnerships with indigenous peoples and communities. In: Watson, Alan; Murrieta-Saldivar, Joaquin; McBride, Brooke, comps. Science and stewardship to protect and sustain wilderness values: Ninth World Wilderness Congress symposium; November 6-13, 2009; Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Proceedings RMRS-P-64. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 45-49.