Local voices in land use decisions: Co-producing spatial knowledge on ecosystem services with indigenous and tribal communities in intact forest regions

Abstract

The relatively undisturbed tropical forest regions offer unique opportunities to mitigate climate change and the loss of biodiversity. The global importance of their management by indigenous and tribal communities for the conservation is widely understood. Despite this, the rapid expansion of external pressures (e.g. logging, agri-business, mining and infrastructure) far into these lands, with various consequences for local livelihoods, is challenging the ability of local communities to sustainably manage these lands. It is therefore urgent to involve them in the land use decision making that affects them, as well as to consider the entangled social and ecological transformation processes that they undergo upon the arrival of external pressures. However, tools and approaches that enable their engagement are not yet sufficiently available. Moreover, our scientific understanding of how external pressures affect the spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem service use by local communities and how these dynamics affect the conservation of intact forest areas is still limited. This doctoral thesis addresses this pressing gap through spatial knowledge co-production involving 1108 indigenous and tribal community members from three intact forest regions, one in the Colombian Amazon and two in Suriname. Two main conclusions stem from this doctoral thesis. First, that co-produced spatial knowledge is useful to understand the patterns of ecosystem service use by indigenous and tribal communities in intact forest regions and to respond to complex and multiple realities in the field. Second, practical application of the results of this thesis suggests that the engagement of an inspired local champion and broker is a crucial factor to foster the usability of co-produced spatial knowledge in land use decision-making. This doctoral thesis in particular contributes to filling the current deficit of local spatial knowledge in regional and global scenarios of land use planning in intact forest regions, as highlighted in the latest IPBES Global Assessment Report of ecosystems and biodiversity.