International Institute for
Indigenous Resource Management

Course No. CRM-11
Developing a Comprehensive Cultural Resources Management Strategy

Recent developments, nationally and internationally, are challenging tribal efforts to manage their cultural resources. The Navajo Nation wants to protect the San Francisco Peaks by having it designated a World Heritage Site. Changes have recently been made to the regulations of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. New procedures, including the Tower Construction Notification System, for expediting construction of telecommunications towers and facilities have been implemented by the Federal Communications Commission. Title V of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 creates a new lease negotiation regime that allows tribes to negotiate and enter leases or business arrangements for energy exploration, extraction, processing or development of energy on tribal land without the approval of the Secretary of Interior. All these developments affect tribal cultural resources management. Some tribes have responded to these challenges by enacting cultural resources management codes and building up their language and cultural preservation programs. Other tribes are looking to international forums such as UNESCO for assistance.This Workshop will provide updates and practical instruction on recent developments in cultural resources management in national and international arenas and will outline legal and administrative strategies for protecting tribal cultural resources.

Indigenous People's traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and management systems continue to be the subject of attention by developers and conservationists in the developed world. TEK is a cumulative body of knowledge and beliefs handed down from generation-to-generation by cultural transmission, concerning the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another and with their natural and social environments. Societies that apply TEK tend to have historical continuity in resource use practices. Many of these societies tend to be indigenous, tribal, or peasant. This workshop will introduce participants with the basic tenants of TEK and their associated management systems by addressing such topics as community-based resource management, natural law and collective wisdom, transmission of local knowledge, integration of TEK and environmental impact assessment, common property, methods of TEK documentation, intellectual cultural property rights, and implications for resource management planning and policy development. Several case studies from the U.S. Southwest, New Guinea, Fiji, Australia, Canada, Nepal, Indonesia, Solomon Islands, Tanzania, Palau, and New Zealand—involving examples from the terrestrial and marine environments—will be used to illustrate many of these concepts.