Conserving Forests through Indigenous Heritage: The UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape, Alternative Sovereignty and Semai Life Projects in Peninsular Malaysia’s Last Surviving Rainforests

Descrizione del progetto

Proteggere le foreste indigene attraverso il patrimonio e i diritti

Il termine «seraaq», che significa foresta nella lingua indigena dei Semai, sottolinea la sacralità delle foreste e il dovere di proteggerle. Le tradizioni agricole del popolo Semai sono fondamentali per la conservazione forestale. Sostenuto dal programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, il progetto SERAAQ metterà in connessione la protezione del patrimonio culturale con la garanzia dei diritti indigeni alle foreste e alle risorse allo scopo di sostenere i mezzi di sussistenza indigeni, nonostante le politiche statali restrittive. Il progetto, secondo cui il patrimonio indigeno è una parte vitale dei sistemi socio-ecologici e non costituisce solo un elemento culturale isolato, valuterà il meccanismo WHCL e documenterà la dipendenza dalle foreste dei Semai e il patrimonio abitativo contemporaneo attraverso analisi di economia politica, indagini sul campo, PhotoVoice e pianificazione di scenari.

Obiettivo

Seraaq, the project acronym, means ‘forest’ in the Indigenous Semai language, connoting the sentience and sacredness of forests, and the moral calling to forest stewardship. The project highlights the importance of Semai (agri)cultural heritage in forest conservation, and the need for a blueprint to achieve, at minimum, alternative sovereignty: could the UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape serve as a tool of empowerment for the minority Semai people of Peninsular Malaysia? SERAAQ’s originality lies in linking cultural heritage protection to securing Indigenous rights to forests and resources, and by identifying ways to support Indigenous forest livelihoods as a purposeful community development option within and in spite of prohibitory state structures. SERAAQ also demonstrates that Indigenous heritage resources are real, functioning parts of Indigenous social-ecological systems rather than free-standing, unidimensional cultural heritage elements. I will assess the potentialities of the WHCL mechanism, and gather documentation of contemporary Semai forest reliance and ‘living’ heritage, by using political economy analyses and field-based survey, PhotoVoice and scenarios planning approaches. This will produce quantifiable, evidence-based data, to persuade and effect change at the decision-making/governance levels. This evidence will take into account Semai articulations of their own self-determined ‘life projects’ or forest-based futures, ideas of forest protection and community empowerment outcomes, e.g inclusion in forest governance processes; public recognition of the Semai homeland; and legal rights to their customary forestland. An MSCA fellowship will help me innovate my oral tradition research background, to work expertly on political/socioeconomic topics in the heritage and forest conservation fields, especially in regard to the exigencies of Indigenous poverty and disadvantage.