Indigenous people – The forgotten people?

The consequences of deforestation are often tied to global warming, ozone layer depletion and many more slow yet serious environmental impacts. Many of the times, this causes the indigenous people to be less prioritised, though they are the ones who are directly affected by deforestation. As logging practices became widespread, indigenous people who originated from forestry territories, had stood up against logging practices in attempt to protect the forests but their love for nature had failed to pass onto others. One of the main factors that drove the decline of rainforests in Southeast Asia was precisely due to failure of adopting the indigenous way of forest management (Poffenberger, 2006). With the nationalization of forests, indigenous people came to lose their rights to continue staying in the forests where they had depended on for a living, of some even had resided in forests for generations. Natives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam were forced to leave the forests in the 1960s and 1970s (Poffenberger, 2006), whereas in India, natives are prohibited by law from harvesting in the rainforests with the penalty of imprisonment (Dauvergne, 1994). Indigenous people deserves all the care we can give as they are amongst the ones with the strongest place identity and place attachment to tropical rainforests. When forced to leave the forests, many committed suicide while others sunk into depression (Woodman & Grig (Ed.), 2007). Others had to struggle to live in the society, in order to survive.

Here is a link of publications to find out more about indigenous people in Southeast Asia: http://www.iwgia.org/publications/publications-by-region-/asia

(Photo Credits:http://500photographers.blogspot.com/2011/06/photographer-308-jake-verzosa.html)