Packaging Indigenous Media: An Interview with Ivan Sanjinés and Jesús Tapia

An interview with two key figures in the indigenous video movement in Bolivia conducted at the Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival in New Mexico. In the interview, Ivan Sanjinés and Jesús Tapia describe the development of indigenous video centers and organizations in Bolivia, their work with video makers across Latin American, their goals during their 2002 U.S. video tour, their reactions to their audience's questions, and notions of authorship and collaboration as a process that extends from communities in which videos are made to hemispheric networks of media makers. I introduce the interview by situating indigenous video in Bolivia within the wider and significant historical shift toward indigenous politics in Bolivia in the 1980s and 1990s and draw from the interview new meanings for the term indigenous media that involve the ways video makers assemble and package a multiplex of technologies, resources, social organizations, cultural principles and imagery into a representational form that extends beyond the completed videotape.     

An Interview with Juan Jose García, President of Ojo de Agua Comunicación

This is an interview with Zapotec video maker Juan Jose Garcia, president of the award-winning media organization Ojo de Agua Comunicacion, in Oaxaca, Mexico. He presents a brief history of native video in Mexico and discusses issues such as indigenous video production and circulation, thematic content, communal practices, relation to indigenous communities, funding, and current projects of his group.     

From the Ground, Looking Up: Report on the Video nas Aldeias Tour

ABSTRACT  This report compares two recent media events centered on the iconography of Amazonian indigenous peoples to highlight the cultural activism of the collaborative video project, Video nas Aldeias. [Keywords: Amazonia, Video nas Aldeias, indigenous media, cultural activism]     

With or without the camera running: the work of Inuit film-making

This article argues for the critical evaluation of indigenous media, art, and aesthetic practices within local trajectories of meaning-making. Drawing on ethnographic research in Arctic Canada with a notable Inuit video and film production company, Igloolik Isuma Productions, I emphasize the value of focusing on locally defined processes of filmic production and on relational bounties accrued outside the camera's field of vision. Indigenous media-making emerges as a collaborative, adaptive, intercultural, and improvisational practice, one akin to Inuit traditions of hunting, carving, garment-sewing, tool-making, and story-telling, and celebrated for its ability to foster unique environmental relationships, material practices, and perceptual orientations. Exploring the compound and relational workings of indigenous media invites critical reconsideration of the generative potentials it holds for the practitioner-inhabitants of indigenous communities, anthropologists, and mainstream audiences more broadly.     

Have the Harmful Effects of Introduced Rats on Islands been Exaggerated?

Introduced rats are now being eradicated from many islands. Increasingly, these eradications are contested by activists claiming moral, legal, cultural, historic or scientific reasons and poorly documented evidence of effects. We reviewed the global literature on the effects of rats on island flora and fauna. We then used New Zealand as a case study because of its four-decade history of rat eradications and many detailed and innovative studies of how rats affect native species. These include use of exclosures, local manipulations of rat populations, video surveillance, and measurements of responses following eradications. The most intensive studies have been on the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans), a small South-East Asian species spread by Polynesians throughout the Pacific. These and the more recently introduced Norway rat (R. norvegicus) and ship (roof) rat (R. rattus) suppress some forest plants, and are associated with extinctions or declines of flightless invertebrates, ground-dwelling reptiles, land birds, and burrowing seabirds. On islands off France, Norway rats are also implicated in declines of shrews. Globally, ship rats were associated with declines or extinctions of the largest number of indigenous vertebrate species (60), including small mammals such as deer mice and bats. Effects of rats on forest trees and seabird populations are sufficiently pervasive to affect ecosystem structure and function. However, the data are patchy. Deficiencies in our knowledge would be reduced by documenting distribution and abundance of indigenous species before and after eradications. Comprehensive measurements of the responses of indigenous species to rat eradications would enable the development of testable models of rat invasion effects.     

Identifying predators at nests of small birds in a New Zealand forest

Time-lapse video equipment was used to film continuously at nests of two small passerines, the New Zealand Robin Petroica australis and the Tomtit Petroica macrocephala , in an indigenous broadleaf/hardwood forest in central North Island, New Zealand. The nests were illuminated with infrared light to allow night-time observations of predator and parent bird behaviour, and signs left at nests were linked to predator identity. Introduced Ship Rats Rattus rattus and the small native owl or Ruru Ninox novaeseelandiae were filmed preying on eggs or chicks on 12 occasions, and Ship Rats scavenged on eggs on two occasions. Parent birds sometimes altered the signs left at nests after predation, which confused identification of the predator, while Ship Rat scavenger and predator signs were indistinguishable. This suggests that attempts to identify predators from nest signs could be misleading and potentially a widespread problem. Time-lapse video filming with infrared illumination is potentially the least biased method of identifying predators, but it is expensive and so is best used in conjunction with simpler methods. This study found no evidence that filming altered predation rates or that the predators or parent birds reacted strongly to the camera or lights, so we believe that filming is a valuable and safe technique to guide management for the recovery of critically endangered species that are threatened by predators.     

Species richness of indigenous beetles in restored plant communities on Matiu-Somes Island, Wellington Harbour, New Zealand

Previous studies have shown that indigenous beetle diversity reflects indigenous plant diversity in modified and remnant habitats. This study examines the indigenous: introduced relationship at a locality where degraded pasture has been progressively revegetated. Pitfall traps were used to collect beetles from three revegetated sites of different ages (5, 17 and 100 years) and in a coastal Muehlenbeckia habitat on Matiu- Somes Island (25 ha), Wellington Harbour, New Zealand. A total of 78 morphospecies were found over 12 months. The indigenous: introduced status of 74 species were determined; 67 were classified as 'indigenous', and 7 as 'introduced'. A positive trend was found between the proportion of ground-dwelling indigenous beetle species collected and the proportion of indigenous plant species present at a study site. As the revegetated site matured, the proportion of indigenous beetle species increased. We collected 20 (83%), 37 (88%) and 48 (92%) indigenous beetle species from the 5-year scrubland, 17-year shrubland and 100-year forest, respectively.     

Women's absence,women's power: indigenous women and negotiations with mining companies in Australia and Canada

This article documents the agency of indigenous women in negotiations surrounding major resource projects on indigenous lands. The dominant view in the academic and activist literature is that indigenous women are excluded from negotiations, which helps explain their failure to share in project benefits. The author's experience as a negotiator for indigenous communities in Australia and his research in Canada reveals a different picture, indicating that indigenous women often play a central role in negotiations. The article seeks to explain the inconsistency between the findings reported here and much of the literature, in terms of a broader tendency in the latter to downplay the agency of women in relation to mining; and its failure to adequately recognize the multiple and complex ways in which indigenous women can influence negotiations, and the role of specific cultural, institutional and political contexts in shaping women's participation.     

Why conservationists should be concerned about natural resource legislation affecting indigenous peoples’ rights: lessons from Peninsular Malaysia

For conservation to be effective in forests with indigenous peoples, there needs to be greater recognition of indigenous customary rights, particularly with regards to their use of natural resources. Ideally, legislation regulating the use of natural resources should include provisions for the needs of both indigenous peoples and biodiversity. In reality, however, legislative weaknesses often exist and these can result in negative impacts, either on indigenous peoples’ livelihoods, their surrounding biodiversity, or both. Here, our case study demonstrates why conservationists need to pay greater attention to natural resource legislation affecting indigenous peoples’ rights. Apart from examining relevant laws for ambiguities that may negatively affect biodiversity and livelihoods of indigenous people in Peninsular Malaysia (known as the Orang Asli), we also provide supporting information on actual resource use based on questionnaire surveys. In order to address these ambiguities, we propose possible legislative reconciliation to encourage policy reform. Although there are positive examples of conservationists elsewhere adopting a more inclusive and participatory approach by considering the needs of indigenous peoples, greater recognition must be afforded to land and indigenous rights within natural resource laws for the benefit of indigenous peoples and biodiversity.     

Protecting Indigenous Values in Water Management: A Challenge to Conventional Environmental Flow Assessments

Although environmental flow assessments and allocations have been practiced in Australia for nearly 20 years, to date they have not effectively incorporated indigenous values. In many cases, even though indigenous people rely substantially on aquatic resources, environmental flows have been assumed to be an acceptable surrogate for the protection of indigenous interests. This paper argues that the need to adapt flow assessments to account for linkages and dependencies between people and rivers is equally applicable to developed world indigenous contexts such as Australia as it is to developing countries where there has been some attempt to address indigenous or subsistence water requirements. We propose three challenges to conventional environmental flow assessments that, if met, will improve the ability of water resource planning to address indigenous interests. The first challenge is to recognize that in an indigenous context a different suite of species may be considered important when compared to those valued by other stakeholders. Although conservation status or rarity may be important, it is common and widespread species that make substantial contributions to indigenous household incomes through customary use. The second challenge is to accommodate a different set of management objectives in environmental flow allocation. Environmental flows will need to meet the requirement of hunting and fishing activities at rates that are socially and economically sustainable. The third and arguably most theoretically challenging task is for environmental flow assessments to take into account indigenous worldviews and the quality of people–place relationships that are significant in indigenous cultures. Meeting these three challenges to environmental flow assessment will assist water management agencies and other practitioners to protect indigenous interests as water allocation decisions are made.     

Horizontal transfer of catabolic plasmids in the process of naphthalene biodegradation in model soil systems

The process of naphthalene degradation by indigenous, introduced, and transconjugant strains was studied in laboratory soil microcosms. Conjugation transfer of catabolic plasmids was demonstrated in naphthalene-contaminated soil. Both indigenous microorganisms and an introduced laboratory strain BS394 (pNF142::TnMod-OTc) served as donors of these plasmids. The indigenous bacterial degraders of naphthalene isolated from soil were identified as Pseudomonas putida and Pseudomonas fluorescens. The frequency of plasmid transfer in soil was 10(-5)-10(-4) per donor cell. The activity of the key enzymes of naphthalene biodegradation in indigenous and transconjugant strains was studied. Transconjugant strains harboring indigenous catabolic plasmids possessed high salicylate hydroxylase and low catechol-2,3-dioxygenase activities, in contrast to indigenous degraders, which had a high level of catechol-2,3-dioxygenase activity and a low level of salicylate hydroxylase. Naphthalene degradation in batch culture in liquid mineral medium was shown to accelerate due to cooperation of the indigenous naphthalene degrader P. fluorescens AP1 and the transconjugant strain P. putida KT2442 harboring the indigenous catabolic plasmid pAP35. The role of conjugative transfer of naphthalene biodegradation plasmids in acceleration of naphthalene degradation was demonstrated in laboratory soil microcosms.     

Monitoring small and arboreal mammals by camera traps: effectiveness and applications

Camera trapping has been widely applied to studies of medium to large terrestrial mammals, but its application to small arboreal mammals has hardly been tested. We employed camera trapping and other conventional monitoring methods during a mammal survey in a Site of Community Importance located within the Adda North Regional Park (Lombardy, Italy). Camera trapping was particularly successful for monitoring arboreal mammals, allowing the first detection of presence of the invasive grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) in an area occupied by indigenous red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) and the collection of a large amount of data on squirrels and common dormice (Muscardinus avellanarius). When triggered, cameras were set to record short video clips (10 to 40 s). More than 400 events were recorded and analysed, mainly from the autumn and winter months. The daily activity pattern of both species displayed a trend from two to three activity peaks in summer to a unimodal pattern in winter, with the peaks of the two species temporally separated. Camera trapping could be a useful method also when applied to monitoring small mammals, particularly endangered arboreal or invasive alien species. For instance, the monitoring of the spread of S. carolinensis is particularly important, where the early detection of new population can be crucial for the conservation of indigenous European species. Camera trapping can be an effective addition to traditional survey methods. It provides a simple non-invasive technique for collecting a large amount of data per device with limited human effort.     

Shamans versus Pirates in the Amazonian Treasure Chest

This article explores how the recent rise of shamans as political representatives in Brazil addresses tensions and contradictions associated with the internationalization of indigenous rights movements. Identity politics and transnational organizational alliances concerning issues of environmentalism and human rights have greatly expanded the political leverage and influence of indigenous activism. However, some transnational environmentalist discourses collide with Brazilian discourses of national sovereignty, and the 1990s witnessed a nationalist backlash against Indians, whom politicians, military leaders, and media commentators have frequently portrayed as pawns of foreign imperialists. Opponents of indigenous rights also seized on apparent contradictions between rhetoric and action to discredit indigenous claims to environmental resources. The analysis examines how the shift to redefine knowledge as the core of indigenous identity circumvents some of these liabilities by shifting the basis for indigenous rights claims from environmental practices to environmental knowledge. As shamans mobilize and speak out against the threat of biopiracy, they blunt the nationalist backlash, repositioning indigenous peoples as defenders of the national patrimony and solid citizens of the Brazilian nationstate. [Keywords: Brazil, indigenous peoples, identity politics, shamans, biopiracy]     

滇池土著鱼类现状

于2000年4月－12月对滇池区域的土著鱼类进行调查发现,滇池土著鱼类由20世纪60年代的26种减少到目前的11种,这11种滇池土著鱼类中,仅有4种生活于滇池湖体,其余7种均生活于滇池湖周一些溪流的上游或溶洞中,通过对土著鱼类及其栖息地的实地调查并结合文献资料,分析了滇池土著鱼类多样性的历史变化,各种类在空间上的变化方式以及滇池土著鱼类多样性迅速降低的原因,并就保护滇池土著鱼类提出具体的解决方法和途径。     

Post-Sandinista Ethnic Identities in Western Nicaragua

The meanings of the ethnic labels Indian and mestizo in Latin America are often treated as stable, bounded, and clearly marked by anthropologists, nationalists, and indigenous intellectuals alike. In Nicaragua, the post-Sandinista emergence of a discourse of indigenous identity in the western region, where successive state elites have considered that identity erased, underscores the dynamic mutability of both indigenous and mestizo ethnicities. This reconsideration derives from dialogue between anthropological analysis and an indigenous intellectual involved in organizing in the western region.     

Beetle assemblages of kahikatea forest fragments in a pasture- dominated landscape

Fragments of kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides) forest provide a major opportunity for conservation of indigenous biodiversity in the heavily deforested landscape of the Waikato Basin, New Zealand. However, there is little documented information on what indigenous fauna survives in these fragments. Using Malaise traps set 20 m and 50 m into fragments and 20 m and 50 m into the adjacent pasture, we analysed the beetle (Coleoptera) assemblages associated with two such kahikatea forest fragments in the south Waikato Basin in order to determine the scope of biotic invasion by adventive species and use of the surrounding pasture by indigenous species. A total of 3706 beetles were caught, encompassing 37 families and 206 recognisable taxonomic units. The forest fragments had a sharply defined edge, and were dominated by indigenous beetle species, with only a few adventive species present. Beetle assemblages sampled in the surrounding pasture were numerically dominated by adventive species. Despite no indigenous plant species being present in the pastures, 55 indigenous beetles species (61% of total species sampled in the pasture) were recorded in this habitat. Traps in the pasture of greatest floral diversity caught the most indigenous beetle species. Beetles of the detritivore guild dominated the samples from forest, but in samples from pasture, detritovores and predatores were co-dominant. Indigenous herbivore species were poorly represented in samples from pasture compared to other guilds. The kahikatea fragments have a rich indigenous beetle fauna and represent important refuges in the pastoral landscape of the Waikato. Many indigenous species are utilising the pasture to some degree, although their abundance and species richness declines with distance from the forest edge. This may have implications for successful dispersal to new patches. Species that could potentially be used as indicators of kahikatea forest fragment community structure and its resistance to invasion are suggested.     

Indigenous Burning as Conservation Practice: Neotropical Savanna Recovery amid Agribusiness Deforestation in Central Brazil

International efforts to address climate change by reducing tropical deforestation increasingly rely on indigenous reserves as conservation units and indigenous peoples as strategic partners. Considered win-win situations where global conservation measures also contribute to cultural preservation, such alliances also frame indigenous peoples in diverse ecological settings with the responsibility to offset global carbon budgets through fire suppression based on the presumed positive value of non-alteration of tropical landscapes. Anthropogenic fire associated with indigenous ceremonial and collective hunting practices in the Neotropical savannas (cerrado) of Central Brazil is routinely represented in public and scientific conservation discourse as a cause of deforestation and increased CO₂ emissions despite a lack of supporting evidence. We evaluate this claim for the Xavante people of Pimentel Barbosa Indigenous Reserve, Brazil. Building upon 23 years of longitudinal interdisciplinary research in the area, we used multi-temporal spatial analyses to compare land cover change under indigenous and agribusiness management over the last four decades (1973–2010) and quantify the contemporary Xavante burning regime contributing to observed patterns based on a four year sample at the end of this sequence (2007–2010). The overall proportion of deforested land remained stable inside the reserve (0.6%) but increased sharply outside (1.5% to 26.0%). Vegetation recovery occurred where reserve boundary adjustments transferred lands previously deforested by agribusiness to indigenous management. Periodic traditional burning by the Xavante had a large spatial distribution but repeated burning in consecutive years was restricted. Our results suggest a need to reassess overreaching conservation narratives about the purported destructiveness of indigenous anthropogenic fire in the cerrado. The real challenge to conservation in the fire-adapted cerrado biome is the long-term sustainability of indigenous lands and other tropical conservation islands increasingly subsumed by agribusiness expansion rather than the localized subsistence practices of indigenous and other traditional peoples.     

内源微生物驱油及其对油藏微生物活动的影响

【目的】新疆油田六中区为典型水驱普通稠油油藏，水驱效果较差，油藏具有丰富的内源微生物，本研究通过分析内源微生物驱油对油藏微生物活动的影响，确定内源微生物驱油技术在该类油藏的应用潜力。【方法】采用高通量测序及分析化学技术，系统研究实施内源微生物驱油技术后油藏细菌群落结构组成、细菌总数和功能菌群的浓度以及采出液的流体性质，总结内源微生物驱油对油藏微生物活动的影响。【结果】现场试验注入激活剂和空气后，内源微生物被显著激活，细菌群落结构发生明显变化，细菌总数及功能菌群浓度普遍提高了2–3个数量级；各种内源微生物代谢活动显著增强，与地层流体相互作用后，原油明显被乳化，最终石油采收率提高5.2%。【结论】对于内源微生物较为丰富的水驱普通稠油油藏，内源微生物驱油技术对油藏微生物活动的影响显著，具有显著的技术优势和较大的应用潜力，微生物群落结构、功能菌群浓度及其相关代谢产物可以作为评价内源微生物驱油现场激活效果的重要指标，为其他内源微生物驱油现场试验提供技术参考。     

Precarious Alliances: The Cultural Politics and Structural Predicaments of the Indigenous Rights Movement in Tanzania

Since 1990, over one hundred indigenous nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have emerged in predominantly Maasai areas in Tanzania, attempting to organize people around diverse claims of a common "indigenous" identity based on ethnicity, mode of production, and a long history of political and economic disenfranchisement. Despite attempts to foster unity and promote common political agendas, the indigenous rights movement has been fractured by sometimes quite hostile disagreements over priorities, competition over resources, and tensions over membership and representation. This article explores the complicated causes and consequences of these tensions by focusing on the discussions, disagreements, and silences that occurred during a recent attempt to reconcile indigenous groups in Tanzania. The workshop offers a unique window on the cultural, political, and historical dynamics of the indigenous rights movement in northern Tanzania, the principles and practices of inclusion and exclusion that have defined and shaped the movement, and the internal and external stresses that have made alliances within and among the INGOs, donors, and the government precarious, at best. [Keywords: indigenous peoples, social movements, cultural politics, Maasai, Tanzania]     

Land-snail faunas in indigenous rainforest and commercial forestry plantations in Kakamega Forest, western Kenya

We examine the diversity and structure of land-snail faunas in indigenous rainforest communities and three types of forestry plantation in Kakamega Forest, western Kenya. Using plot-based, standardized sampling consisting of fixed-time direct searching and fixed-volume litter sieving we estimated molluscan diversity and abundance in monoculture plantation plots of the exotic, non-African tree species Bischofia javanica and Pinus spp., and the central African tree Maesopsis eminii which is an indigenous component of the Kakamega rainforest. Overall, 41, 39, 41 and 34 mollusc species were recorded in indigenous forest, Maesopsis, Bischofia and Pinus plantations respectively. The mean number of species and mean number of specimens per plot were 15–49% and 6–54% lower respectively in the plantations relative to indigenous forest. Abundance and species number were suppressed the most in the Pinus stands, and the least in the plantations of indigenous Maesopsis. Species per plot, Shannon index and abundance were lowest in the Pinus plantation and highest in the indigenous forest. Snails were more abundant in Maesopsis than in Bischofia, but mean species per plot and total species number did not differ significantly between these plantation types. Shannon evenness indices showed that the indigenous forest faunas were more uniform in terms of species abundance, whereas the three plantation types were dominated by a small number of species. Several species were confined to the indigenous rain forest. Although most species were present in both indigenous forest and plantations, many species were significantly more abundant in the rainforest communities. The potential use of groups of these species as indicators of forest conditions is discussed. Overall, the Maesopsis and Bischofia plantations support a substantial proportion of the indigenous rainforest's mollusc fauna. This maybe partly because of the relatively close proximity of indigenous stands to plantations, which can facilitate recolonisation. However, the finding illustrates that plantations hold the potential, at least in some circumstances, to provide alternative habitats for forest molluscs where indigenous rainforest has been cleared.