ABSTRACT
The Introduction presents an overview of the essays included in the volume, and in turn offers a perspective on the environmental degradation of the indigenous habitats in various continents. It argues that the indigenous rarely succeed in getting their voices heard and respected. From Paraguay to Malaysia and from Canada to Australia - west, east, north, south - the story of conquest of the natural resources of the indigenous peoples by the “civilized” (read exploitative economies and industrial technologies) has been with us as commonplace for the last few decades. An unending environmental degradation of the habitats of the indigenous has been the norm, not an exception, implied in the massive movement of capital across countries. Exploitation of the natural resources has left the traditional habitats of the indigenous people devastated. This situation is not peculiar to any single country or continent; it is the general condition of the indigenous all over the world. A community’s environment and its belief patterns are deeply interconnected. The ideas of what is sacred and deserving of worship are shaped by the environment defining the life conditions of a given community. Similarly, the manner in which a community perceives the elements in nature is determined by the belief system it inherits. The two are not only interdependent; together they form a cognitive continuum, an extended and seamless knowledge, a world view, mostly nascent and occasionally expressed in songs and stories in oral traditions.
