Interview with Julie Garnier on indigenous peoples and biodiversity

Brut America

80% of the richest ecosystems on Earth are inhabited by indigenous peoples. Julie Garnier, co-founder of the NGO Odyssey Conservation Trust, is helping them protect this biodiversity.

Transcript

00:00You cannot conserve biodiversity and wildlife and threatened ecosystems

00:04if you do not consider the health and livelihood of the people who live in there.

00:24They have been there before anybody else. It is their land.

00:27Sadly, because of historical reasons and background,

00:32they have been destituted from their rights to manage their natural resources.

00:37And because of that, we have a situation where actually biodiversity has been degraded.

00:44Because in many areas where you still have local and indigenous people,

00:49biodiversity is still there because they know how to use it.

00:51They know how to respect it.

00:57In Mozambique, we realized that local fishermen actually knew exactly

01:10where the fish were the most abundant.

01:12They used to call it the fish bank.

01:15And the elders knew exactly that this area in the reef was the most productive.

01:21And this was confirmed later on by marine biologists that came from other places.

01:26It's now become a hot hope spot for biodiversity,

01:30simply because we helped the communities to regain the rights to manage their coral reefs.

01:45So these communities are actually the poorest of the poor.

01:48And how can you help them to protect their biodiversity and natural resources

01:54when actually their struggle is just to feed the children every night,

01:58just to protect the crops against elephants,

02:01or protect their families against predators?

02:05So you have to address these risks which are coming from the environment

02:11and reduce poverty levels, reduce malnutrition,

02:15and improve food security, improve livelihoods.

02:19All these activities have got a cascade of effects,

02:22which is why we're calling it One Health,

02:24because every time it benefits the health of animals,

02:26health of people and their families, health of the environment.

02:30We have realized that women play a key role in managing natural resources.

02:36Obviously, they have specific roles.

02:40They collect water, they collect firewood,

02:42they produce the food that is going to feed their families.

02:47And through them, you can really bring change in these communities

02:53and improve the livelihood.

02:55If you want to improve things, working with women has got incredible repercussions.

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