ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role that indigenous peoples (IP) or local communities play, or could play, in conserving biodiversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognizes the importance of traditional ecological knowledge for the protection of biological diversity and the role that IP and local populations can play in its conservation. Biodiversity is a western scientific and political construct that is influential at the international and national levels. Johnson looked at biodiversity assessment criteria and found that in general, priorities are set on the basis of a small number of criteria: species richness of an ecosystem, rarity, threat, species representativeness, and function. The present-day practice of environmental impact assessments has begun to give more explicit consideration to traditional knowledge in parallel with scientific knowledge. The tale of the peccary, collected by one of the authors from a community member of Ipeti, Bonifacio Flaco, illustrates the ecological role and significance of a wandra.
