Today, the Environmental Law Institute® celebrates the addition of the well regarded Center for the Support of Native Lands to the Institute’s existing research and technical assistance program. Previously a small, independent organization, Native Lands will continue its unique and critical work as part of Institute. The expertise brought by Center staff will expand ELI’s ability to work effectively for the ecosystem. The Center is now based in ELI’s Washington, DC offices.
“Indigenous communities live in some of the most important natural ecosystems that the world community is trying to preserve,” said Mac Chapin, Director of Native Lands. “Helping them to preserve their cultures and lands is integral to global sustainability.”
Founded in 1987, Native Lands has worked with indigenous peoples to organize conferences, workshops, and exchanges that bring together indigenous peoples and conservationists to devise strategies for solving common problems. Originally created as the Central American Program of Cultural Survival, Native Lands has over the years extended its reach into South America, Africa, and most recently Indonesia. Chapin, an anthropologist with more than three decades of experience with indigenous peoples in Central America, geographer Bill Threlkeld and anthropologist Kenn Rapp joined ELI April 1st. The team will work actively with ELI’s existing Africa Program and Inter-America Program.
Native Lands has gained an international reputation for using maps to drive program objectives. It has collaborated twice with the National Geographic Society on mapping projects. The first was on a map entitled The Coexistence of Indigenous Peoples and the Natural Environment in Central America, published as a supplement to the scholarly journal Research & Exploration in 1992. Although this bilingual Spanish-English map had limited circulation, it had considerable impact among indigenous peoples and conservationists. The second was an update of the first map, with the addition of southern Mexico and the region’s coastal marine ecosystems, entitled Indigenous Peoples and Natural Ecosystems in Central America and Southern Mexico; it appeared in the February 2002 issue of National Geographic en Espa