Essay on National Parks and Indigenous Communities

In developing countries, national parks have become the subject of international conservation policies (Mombeshora and Le Bel, 2009). A national park is a region set aside by a national government to protect the natural resources for recreation and enjoyment purposes or its historical or scientific significance (Britannica, 2019). In these parks, the habitats and their associated plants and animals are maintained in their natural condition; however, it is essential to acknowledge that national parks worldwide will differ significantly in their effectiveness in protecting the natural environment. This difference occurs, considering that in certain instances, governments can provide their parks with enough financial support to strictly enforce regulations while others may not have enough capital available.

The expansion of the national park network has allowed biodiversity and habitat protection, but the acquisition of large areas into the park system has also been accomplished by the displacement of local residents and entire communities. This displacement contributes to these communities being subjected to various threats, such as impoverishment (Mombeshora and Le Bel, 2009), which negatively impacts their livelihoods and creates hostility towards national parks. This paper highlights the concept and history of national parks, the relationship between indigenous communities and nature, how the parks impact local communities’ livelihoods, and compensation strategies that can be implemented to minimize the effects national parks have on these communities.

In over ninety countries, there are nearly four hundred and seventy-six million indigenous people worldwide; however, they make up more than six percent of the world’s population and fifteen percent of the extremely poor (The World Bank, 2020b), indicating that a large majority of the global population relies on the natural environment to survive and sustain their livelihood. Indigenous people worldwide face several challenges regarding their land and traditional integrity, considering that most people acknowledge the detrimental impacts of extraction, logging, and construction, among other development programs and processes. However, we tend to neglect or ignore the negative impacts indigenous communities face due to national parks’ development to ensure the natural environment’s conservation.

Indigenous people own, inhabit, or use a quarter of the earth’s land area; they safeguard eighty percent of the remaining biodiversity (The World Bank, 2020b). However, despite the importance of indigenous people and their contributions to safeguarding biodiversity being acknowledged, governments and states chose to build and develop national parks and protected areas, which often involve the removal of indigenous communities, depriving them of their traditions, customs, and their only source of survival that is the natural resources in the area they inhabit. Most of the land inhabited by indigenous peoples is customarily owned, but only a fraction of the land is recognized by certain governments as officially or lawfully belonging to indigenous people (The World Bank, 2020a), which is a main reason for the development of national parks without the involvement of the indigenous communities who inhabit the areas where the national park is to be developed, ultimately impacting the livelihoods of several individuals and communities across the globe.

Concept and History of National Parks

National parks and conservation are recent concepts; however, separating nature from regular human use has been a long-established cultural practice in human societies worldwide. For example, sacred groves were of spiritual and social significance for African cultures and served ecological roles such as plant and wildlife protection (Jacobs, 2008). In India from the fourth and third centuries BC, forests were set aside for elephant conservation as they were seen as a tool to be utilized in warfare (Redford, 2003). In communities around the world, the ancient game reserves of the Middle East and the feudal game parks or royal forests of the European tradition have a long tradition of the enclosure of nature for individual or social delight (Allsen, 2006); however, this is only two examples out of several. These enclosures were always conducted by the highest authority of the political body concerned, and there were undeniable continuities, such as between the classification of ‘Crown property’ in medieval and early modern Britain and the creation within the British Empire of game reserves and national parks (Neumaan, 1996). These previous examples of the separation of nature and man indicate that in March 1872, when the United States Congress formally “set aside a certain tract of land near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park” (Curtin, 1998), it was merely an innovative spin on an ancient notion.

Since the late nineteenth century, the most critical nature protection instrument has been national parks and similar types of protected areas (Gissibl et al., 2009). The principle of entrusting nature to a park and granting it the status of national heritage has been transferred to a wide and varied variety of political, social, and ecological settings since the U.S created the label of a ‘national park’ to protect Yellowstone’s natural wonders in 1872 (Gissibl et al., 2009). The national park concept is a distinctive commitment to world conservation by the U.S citizens (National Research Council, 1992). In creating parks or similar reserves to conserve places of environmental, historical, or cultural significance, more than a hundred nations have followed the lead of this region (National Research Council, 1992), indicating the majority of these nations have studied the U.S. method as a guide for national park management.

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Since the setting up of the world's first national park, subsequent protected areas adopted the conventional approach in Yellowstone in 1872, where several protected areas were produced and operated by an exclusive top-down method whereby local people had little to no role in creating and maintaining protected areas (Pretty and Smith, 2004). The western concept of national parks, according to Colchester (2004), included violating the rights of indigenous peoples, evicting them from their homelands, and provoking long-term civil tensions, which became the core idea and blueprint for worldwide conservation policy. Therefore, one can conclude that it is because of this western view of national parks and conservation policy that nations began to evict and exclude indigenous communities not only from decisions regarding the development of the park but from the park itself, ultimately impacting the livelihoods of these communities whether within or surrounding the area covered by the park. The example that the establishment of Yellowstone has set for the world has led to negative attitudes towards environmental policies thereby weakening conservation priorities by tensions between park administrators and local populations

These conflicts are prevalent in developing countries where two-thirds of protected areas are based (Zimmerer, 2006) and where many locals depend on forest services for their livelihoods and have been able to harvest various forest products free of charge in areas that were later declared as national parks or reserves (Pote et al.,2006). However, indigenous people are located across the globe and not only in developing countries.

Impacts of National Parks on Local Communities

According to the World Bank (2016), aboriginal people are distinctive social and cultural communities that share mutual ancestral relations with the territories and natural resources where they live or from the area they have been displaced. Their origins, traditions, livelihoods, and physical and spiritual well-being are inextricably connected to the land and natural resources on which they rely. They also adhere to representation from their traditional leaders and organizations separate from those in conventional society or culture (The World Bank, 2016a). Indigenous people and communities believe that human beings and the environment are closely linked to each other as equal and interdependent.

For example, New Zealand’s Maori people believe in preserving and maintaining the environment to honor their ancestors and ensure the future (United Nations, 2017). Their beliefs and belief systems also indicate that they have a great reverence for nature. Most indigenous people believe that the natural world is sacred, find themselves to be one part of the natural world, and the environment the other, which for future generations, must be preserved and protected. Therefore, in some cases, they consider themselves the natural environment protectors that provide them with life necessities. One may say these people are against development, but they are against development that harms the environment instead they support eco-friendly development. Therefore, one can conclude that these individuals and communities want to live in harmony with nature and not exploit it for personal gain, indicating that these individuals are not against conservation or national parks but rather the unfair treatments they encounter due to being displaced from their homes, excluded from decision making and in some instances the park itself.

Indigenous cultures have preserved biodiversity on Earth for thousands of years, but their rights are gradually undermined, and numerous challenges face them when national parks are developed (Global Forest Coalition, 2018). One of the reasons for indigenous people being mistreated is because they are seen as individuals of a lower class-leading people to believe that they are helpless and easy to take advantage of. The land-based cultures of indigenous people make them stand out from most of the population resulting in these individuals being regarded as the minority (Amhed, 2018). Moreover, identity politics’ intensification has contributed to cultural intolerance, fundamentalism, and systemic abuse of minority rights (Amhed, 2018). Some indigenous cultural identity rejections took on violent manifestations in many African countries (Barume, 2017 cited in Amhed, 2018). Cultural packaging of violence is marked by violent (specifically gendered) human rights abuses and significant ecological destruction (Amhed, 2018). When indigenous people are seen as the minority, they become prone to exploitation and discrimination by those who feel they hold a superior position in societies such as park owners and managers. Thus, these individuals are likely to face eviction from their native territories, deprivation of the right to share their religion, violent assaults, and abuse. Indigenous groups are often oppressed and face injustice in countries’ justice structures, leaving them far more vulnerable to harassment and abuse.

Since the 19th century, the Sengwer indigenous people have lived in Kenya’s Embobut Hills. Under the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) is forcefully expelling the Sengwer from the forest; as the authorities suspect the Sengwer of destroying the habitat, but the government has no evidence. They burn the Sengwer’s houses and use abuse and threats against members of the group. However, indigenous people treat their lands as sacred grounds indicating that they do not promote the environment’s destruction. Instead, they preserve the environment as it provides them with necessities; thus, they understand and acknowledge the environment’s importance. Therefore, this can indicate the Sengwer people are being subjected to unfair treatment by authorities, possibly to use the area for resource extraction. When authorities succeed in removing indigenous people from their lands, they no longer have a way to sustain their lives and their families’ lives, and they become homeless, forcing these people to move to another area, which can be resource-poor. Removing these individuals from their land also impact their health as they get their medication from plants and herbs around them; they may also feel detached as they often share a physical and spiritual connection with their lands. When communities are deprived of their assets, evicted from their homelands, and denied access to sacred or cultural sites, cultural values crumble, causing them to lose vital cultural practices that preserved their well-being and make them who they are.

Compensation

Human populations such as indigenous communities that have co-existed with plant and animal communities within an ecosystem are not considered an essential element of biodiversity to be preserved during the creation and maintenance of national parks (O’Riordan and Stoll-Kleemann, 2002), indicating these communities are not treated fairly, exposing them to forced removals and impoverishment. In reaction to anthropogenic stresses on national parks, decisions to help neighboring park populations’ livelihoods frequently come as an afterthought. The relation between local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation is intrinsic and should ideally be managed together, considering the national park’s effect on local livelihoods.