ABSTRACT

Indigenous traditional knowledge refers to nonmaterial benefits arising from the intrinsic relationship between indigenous peoples and nature, which is responsible for providing livelihood, cultural identity, beliefs, spirituality, knowledge, ethical values, among other important contributions to human well-being. For that reason, it can be recognized as a kind of cultural ecosystem service, one which will enable these peoples to benefit from the ecosystem services theory, its ways of assessment and valuation and the way it can influence the planning, management and decision-making. However, to overcome the failures and gaps left behind by the economic valuation methods in the ecosystem services theory, we propose here a new conceptual and methodological framework for ecosystem services valuation, one which embodies a multimethod and multi-criteria approach, participatory and deliberative techniques and methodologies arising from anthropology, sociology and ethics, in addition to quantitative and qualitative methods analysis, flexible and adaptive management and participation structures. Extending the active participation of indigenous peoples to the environmental planning, management and decision-making processes, in turn, will provide a more effective, legitimate, democratic and socially acceptable realization of these processes, and, consequently, will significantly improve the effectiveness of the Environmental Law.

INTRODUCTION

The regions of the world considered to be the most significant to the conservation of biodiversity are home to approximately 370 million indigenous belonging to 5,000 different indigenous peoples, according to the United Nations. Thanks to their traditional knowledge, these peoples live in a traditional way of life that does not threaten natural resources and environments, which is why their territories show a higher degree of conservation and an increase in local biodiversity, despite their economic, political and historical limitations. For this reason, the present chapter aims to advocate the environmental legal protection of indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) as well as their active participation in the planning, management and decision-making processes as a means to increase the effectiveness of Environmental Law.

To this end, we have developed our study based on three main objectives. Our first objective has been to consider the environmental legal protection of ITK by recognizing them as cultural ecosystem services, so that it will enable these peoples to benefit from the ecosystem services theory, its ways of assessment and valuation and the way it can influence the planning, management and decisionmaking process.