From the Amazon Alliance.

[on "the unsupported belief that indigenous peoples cannot be trusted to take care of their own resources"]

I would like to commend World Watch for its courage in publishing Mac Chapin's article, "A Challenge to Conservationists" and for taking on the contentious issue of conflict between large conservation organizations and indigenous peoples. Working for an organization that is charged with sustaining a coalition between indigenous peoples and environmentalists, I feel that this is an issue that deserves as much attention now as it did in 1990, when indigenous organizations and environmentalists agreed to work together to protect the Amazon through the legal recognition and defense of the territorial rights of indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples still believe strongly in this goal. They are less convinced, however, of the commitment of the largest conservation organizations to help them achieve it, particularly as they face growing threats to their territories from oil and gas extraction, mining, roads, and agricultural expansion. They now see conservationists advocating the formation of national parks on their traditional lands, providing technical assistance to logging companies that harvest timber where there are uncontacted tribes, and partnering with oil companies--in effect giving a green seal to drilling in the most culturally and environmentally sensitive places in the world.

Nonetheless, there have also been some valuable alliances between conservationists and indigenous communities on campaigns against destructive mega-projects such as the Camisea gas pipeline in the Peruvian Amazon. These few examples show the power that coalitions can have in challenging international companies and financiers to protect biodiversity.

Large imbalances in economic and political power naturally weaken alliances between indigenous and conservation organizations, but more troubling is the persistence of the unsupported belief that indigenous peoples cannot be trusted to take care of their own natural resources. I find it much more plausible that indigenous peoples should distrust governments and NGOs with ties to oil and timber companies to safeguard their ancestral territories.

This debate deserves much more attention in order to bring about more socially responsible conservation and I hope that it will continue not just in closed NGO meetings, but also in communities and always with indigenous peoples present at the table.

PETER KOSTISHACK

Co Director, Amazon Alliance for Indigenous and Traditional Peoples of the Amazon Basin