Protects Human Rights
We cannot have human rights without protection and support for cultures.
We cannot have indigenous people's cultures without Traditional Knowledge.
Traditional Knowledge provides strong kin-based social safety nets for
families, family cultural values, and teaches environmental and
conservation values and ethics. Rejecting or marginalizing Traditional
Knowledge and excluding indigenous people from their heritage or from
helping to determine their future denigrates human rights. Indigenous
people are often excluded from discussions that profoundly affect their
lives. Gadgil, Berkes, and Folke (1993) discuss ways to include indigenous
people and protect their rights.
Merculieff (ND) describes ways native cultures are diminished in countless
and subtle ways by not acknowledging the Traditional Knowledge and
experiences that define cultures and how persons in those cultures
understand themselves. If the teachings of indigenous elders are rejected
or ignored in the society where young indigenous people must make their
future, traditional wisdom is lost through punitive enforcement. Thus,
cultural and human rights are not honored. Indigenous youth are often
caught between teachings and values of their elders and laws from "outside".
Spring waterfowl hunting in the North American Arctic and fur seal pup
harvest on the Pribiloffs are examples. Should indigenous youth be treated
as "criminals" or should harvest be "legalized" and
youth be required to be accountable for their actions and active players
in conservation?
Human rights are eroded in other ways. Destructive biodiversity
prospecting occurs (Reid, et.al, 1993). Alcorn (1993) stated: "In the
real world, conservation of forests and justice for biodiversity cannot be
achieved until conservationists incorporate other people into their own
moral universe and share indigenous people's goals of justice and
recognition of human rights." These are important ethical and human
rights questions.
Strengthens Cultural Diversity
Cultural diversity strengthens human society. Most Alaska Native cultures
express strong family, environmental, ethical and moral values, based on
cultural traditions passed on by Traditional Knowledge. These are virtues
that the human society would be wise to conserve, strengthen, and
encourage. Ben Stevens an Athabascan from Arctic Village Alaska (personal
communication:1996) said: "You don't dis-respect that which keeps you
alive." Salina Everson, a Tlingit elder, (personal communication:
1996) said: "The Traditional Knowledge of our elders kept our natural
resources from being depleted."