Population, territory and sustainable development

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Indigenous peoples of these areas are redefining the options for settling these areas and
demanding specific rights and attention from the nation State. These communities were ignored and
looked down on during State-driven settlement processes. Often, they were at the receiving end of
violence and deception at the hands of actors interested in the natural riches of their territories. Now, just
being organized makes these peoples relevant stakeholders. And treatment by the State is changing,
driven by actors and mechanisms at the international level, such as International Labour Organization
(ILO) Convention No. 169 and the United Nations declaration of collective rights. In Latin America, good
examples of the new stance taken by States in recognizing the heritage and historical rights of indigenous
peoples vis-à-vis their territories are Ecuador's new constitution 2 and recent Basic Zoning, Autonomy and
Decentralization Code acknowledging the collective rights of Amazonian peoples over the Amazon
ecosystem. Since this is being done in the framework of yet-to-be-drafted legislation, the scope of such
recognition cannot be gauged until the final wording is in place.
As mentioned when discussing the Magallanes region in Chile to illustrate the pressure that local
communities can exert for continuation of special treatment for peripheral areas that were settled with
encouragement from the State, there are several examples of the more forceful role that indigenous
communities are taking on in shaping the destiny of territories they have inhabited since distant times. The
most recent is opposition in the Plurinational State of Bolivia to a government highway project through the
Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). This space is situated between Bolivia’s Beni
and Cochabamba departments and is doubly protected as a national park and as indigenous Moxo, Yukaré and
Chimane lands. As in Magallanes, the local indigenous community seems to be winning the battle (at least as
of the date of this report); the Government decided to put the project on hold and negotiate with the
community as to its eventual redesign. Similar conflicts are ongoing in other parts of the region. The reasons
for these conflicts are varied (dams, power plants, mines, dump sites, plantations, roads and other facilities),
but they are all driven by reaction at the local community level when people feel they are not being heard or
that their rights are being violated. This is key, because such operations often mean jobs and income for the
local population (except for compensations paid, which usually do not feed back into community
development) and so might be welcomed by the inhabitants and work in favour of sustainable development in
these areas. However, experience to date has been of disturbing arrogance on the part of investors and central
decision makers clinging to abstract discourse on huge profits and the needs of the country to justify projects,
forgetting that the local populace suffers the consequences and often does not share in the benefits.
The purpose of these examples is not to downplay the duty of the central power to ensure national
development, but just to spotlight an emerging scenario that rejects measures that do not take account of
the opinion, interests and worldview of communities in low-density areas.
The new approach to these territories attaches considerable importance to preserving them, citing
their role in biodiversity and global ecosystem balance, as seen in box XI.3. This means that at least at the
formal level there is specific concern as to the environmental effects of settling and exploiting these areas
—a far cry from previous settlement programmes that ran roughshod over these issues. It thus comes as
no surprise that the institutions created and the programmes and policies deployed for safeguarding,
compensating and restoring ecosystems are high on the list of good practices in the region identified
during national and international discussions leading up to the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development Rio+20 (see box XI.4). The fact that in the Brazilian Amazon these
achievements coexist with situations where environmental damage and expulsion or exclusion of the local
population is the norm is proof of the fractal nature of the relationship between population and
development. Government initiatives that have been successful at the national level should therefore be
enhanced locally where for a variety of reasons they have fallen short.
2
Article 57 in particular.