Costa Rica
Snake bites and chocolate: Costa Rican women teach tourists jungle secrets
By: Sophie Hares
Thomson Reuters Foundation News
June 18, 2018
Key words: Costa Rica, (eco)tourism, rainforest, ecology, food, teaching, sharing, wildlife, women, Bribri
http://news.trust.org/item/20180618150011-uq9ee
Most ecotourism does not directly and financially offer much benefit to indigenous Costa Ricans although their traditional cultural practices are put on display and they share their homes with tourists for overnight stays. An organization of Bribri women is seeking to change that. They have organized in order to share their own culture (including forest remedies and foods) on their own terms and to have access to work and income which is otherwise hard to find.
Honduras
Agency for the Development of the Mosquitia (MOPAWI), Honduras
By: Joseph Corcoran, Editor in Chief
United Nations Development Programme: Equator Initiative Case Study Series
2012
Key words: Honduras, Misquito, Tawahka, Pesch, Garifuna, biodiversity, rainforest, cocoa, mining, agro-forestry
https://www.equatorinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/case_1348163357_EN.pdf
The organization works to respect TEK and incorporate other knowledge systems to encourage conservation of the indigenous Hondurans’ rainforest biodiversity. These efforts include forest management including indigenous land-use rights, sustainable organic cocoa production, promoting eco- and ethno-tourism in ways that have low impacts on the environment and encourage cultural continuity. Sustainable agriculture and agro-forestry are particular interests of the organization, the efforts of which have encouraged crop diversity, increased forest cover, and lessened soil erosion. By working with indigenous communities to sustain indigenous lifeways, environmental threats like mining, ranching, and deforestation are held at bay while cultural and biological diversity are maintained.
Nicaragua
Establishment of Seagrass Decline and Causative Mechanisms in Pearl Lagoon, Nicaragua through the use of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Sediment Coring and Direct Visual Census
By: Monica J. Schuegraf
Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University
January 2004
Key words: Nicaragua, seagrass
https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/18083
This series of papers looks at how a community in Nicaragua is using their traditional knowledge along with science to help save the seagrass growing in their lagoon and the species that rely on the seagrass to survive. Through the use of traditional knowledge gathered from the indigenous peoples of the area, was able to map out where historically seagrass was found and the changes that the indigenous population has seen in the ecosystem as a result of its loss.
Last updated: July 31, 2019