Indigenous peoples live and work in the lands they protect – and have been found to be the most effective guardians of the world's forests. ... Using their extensive knowledge of the forest ecosystem, these communities are using sustainable practices to live in a way that protects – and even regenerates – the land.
From an early stage till today the forest has had an important role in the survival of man. Man still depends on forest products even in the most technologically advanced places. Hence this congress theme, forest source of life, pointing to the usefulness of forest.
Indigenous people who live in and around forests are dependent on the forest to a significant degree. Over the centuries they have developed strategies to sustain and conserve forest, some of these strategies have in turn influenced the culture of these people.
Have indigenous peoples of the forest been the reason for its deforestation around the world, as has been emphasized in the media?
The greatest devil, loggers, have made friends in high places, friends that have helped to suppress negative publicity. To anyone who sees it fit to give forest conservation a closer look will see that the pressure in forest has vastly increased due to outside influences.
I like to think of nature as our supermarket: it produces the grass we use to feed livestock, the food we eat, the water we drink, and also the medicine we need.
But nature is more than that: it inspires our culture, our traditions, our science and our identity.
For instance, traditional knowledge based on observing nature, such as birds, bugs and trees, helps nomad communities to define their seasonal migration.
When you’re in a city checking the weather forecast via an app on your smartphone, try to imagine my people, in Chad, far away from any network, anticipating the rain or the wind by looking up at the sky.
This is why we indigenous people are on the front line of nature conservation. Preserving the balance of the ecosystem has always been the indigenous way of life. Even in the tropical forests of Africa,where some communities use wood products to build settlements, they do so without negatively affecting the nature around them.
A model that integrate indigenous people and forest consideration, must go beyond cosmetics, politics, lip service and "sloganisation". Indigenous people and their culture/ religion should be considered and involved in the conceptualization, designed, implementation and evaluation of any global initiative that hence to protect, conserve and manage forests.
There is something unique about indigenous people which the world have refused to thoroughly learn from.