Indigenous Peoples and Forests - by Mitsuo Ichikawa (Paperback)

About the Book

"African tropical rainforests are in rapid decline, and their conservation is an urgent priority. However, forest conservation efforts have typically neglected the rights of people like pygmies, who have long and strong connections to the forests on which they depend. The forests that they have long inhabited have been designated as protected areas, the people have been forcibly removed, and their customary livelihood activities are now illegal. This book addresses the negative impacts of conservation policies on the Pygmy people of the central African rainforests with respect to their lifestyle and culture. Based on half a century of field research, this book presents a clear picture of the relationship between indigenous peoples and forests, and explores the use of non-timber forest resources - "using forests without cutting them down" - as an integrated solution to the two major issues surrounding forests today: forest conservation and improving indigenous peoples' well-being through the use of forest resources"--

Book Synopsis

African tropical rainforests are in rapid decline, and their conservation is an urgent priority. However, forest conservation efforts have typically neglected the rights of people like pygmies, who have long and strong connections to the forests on which they depend. The forests that they have long inhabited have been designated as protected areas, the people have been forcibly removed, and their customary livelihood activities are now illegal. This book addresses the negative impacts of conservation policies on the Pygmy people of the central African rainforests with respect to their lifestyle and culture. Based on half a century of field research, this book presents a clear picture of the relationship between indigenous peoples and forests, and explores the use of non-timber forest resources - "using forests without cutting them down" - as an integrated solution to the two major issues surrounding forests today: forest conservation and improving indigenous peoples' well-being through the use of forest resources.

Review Quotes

"Mitsuo Ichikawa is an outstanding internationally recognized scholar and uses his half a century of field experiences and wisdom to provide detailed background and creative solutions to incorporating indigenous peoples into forest conservation. Ichikawa uses his amazing African fieldwork stories to make complex historical, political, ecological, and ethnographic issues accessible to the general public. He describes the devasting impact of logging on the daily lives of forest peoples and provides novel insights into how local people think and feel about the forest. The book will be a vital resource for any international, national, or local agency dealing with indigenous peoples and forest conservation."

--Barry Hewlett, Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University.

"With almost 50 years of first hand research in the Congo Basin, Professor Ichikawa brings a unique perspective to our understanding of the interdependencies between the forest and the indigenous forest hunter-gatherer people or Pygmies that have inhabited these regions for millennia. Weaving the critical evaluation of a wide range of evidence with personal account, the book describes how the opposing modern forces of development and conservation have impinged on this forest world. Professor Ichikawa guides the reader to appreciate the rich bio-cultural heritage and consequent diversity of the region, but also the threats and the challenges it faces. Applying three complementary approaches of cultural ecology, historical ecology and political ecology this book combines human perspectives with those of the fauna and flora as they interact, each changing the other over time. Combining critical analytical evaluation of policy, politics and existing scholarship, with his own and that of other researchers from the Kyoto School of African Studies at Kyoto University, Professor Ichikawa produces one of those rare multi-perspectival diachronic syntheses only achievable at the end of a long career dedicated to understanding these entangled issues first hand."

--Jerome Lewis, Associate Professor of Anthropology at University College London.

About the Author

Mitsuo Ichikawa is professor emeritus at Kyoto University, specializing in anthropology and African area studies. Since 1974, he has conducted fieldwork in hunter-gatherer societies in central Africa.