Within the seaflower biosphere reserve by Marion W. Howard1, Valeria Pizarro2 and June Marie Mow1 Declared the SEAFLOWER Biosphere for the Sustainable Development of the strategies for its sustainable use, people must Reserve by the UNESCO program “Man Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence, be seen to be a major part of the solution and the Biosphere” (MAB) in 2000, the and Santa Catalina Islands, CORALINA, is rather then being regarded as the problem. Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence the regional government authority within the Biological diversity resulted from the and Ketlina is part of the World Network of national system of environmental manage- processes of natural selection and adaptation Biosphere Reserves. ment responsible for encouraging sustain- to the realities of the physical environment -- Of the total area of the archipelago, 1,600 able development and implementing envi- climate, geology, land and seascapes, food and square kilometres are dedicated to conserva- ronmental policies for the archipelago. water sources, etc. In the same way, cultures tion (core zones); 73,900 square kilometres Within the context of CORALINA, as in any adapted themselves in appropriate ways to are dedicated to conservation and programs environmental protection agency throughout survive and thrive within their environments. of low-impact sustainable use (buffer zones); the world, of paramount importance to our It is significant to keep in mind that homo the rest of the SEAFLOWER Biosphere work is preservation of the diversity of sapiens is the only land-based biological Reserve (approximately 224,500 square natural resources within the region -- in both species, either plant or animal, that lives in kilometres) are dedicated to the development biological and ethnic terms. every terrestrial geographic and climatic region of cooperative environmental management found on Earth. Humankind accomplished this activities that give rise to an alternative Ethnic diversity within the remarkable feat of single species adaptation sustainable development model (cooperation Archipelago Biosphere through the development of ethnic diversity. In or transition zones). Reserve human development terms, therefore, ethnic The archipelago of San Andres, Old Provi- a. The Convention on Biodiversity, which variations can be seen as comparable to an dence, and Santa Catalina is located in the Colombia ratified in the congressional expansion of biological diversity in other western Caribbean and covers approximately law 165 of 1994, stimulated the United species of the natural kingdom. 350,000 square kilometers of marine area. Nations Environment Program and the Global Recognition of the reality and significance Related to the Antilles in historical and Environment Facility to commission the of ethnic diversity is of the utmost importance ethnocultural terms, it has been an important Global Biodiversity Assessment (GBA) because part of the solution to the dilemma and strategic Colombian territory since the which was completed in 1996. The GBA of how to achieve sustainable development 1800s and gained the status of Colombia’s repeatedly emphasizes that the main impacts is contained within the traditional knowledge only oceanic department in article 309 of the on biodiversity are caused by human use of local ethnic groups. In addition, since National Constitution of 1991. The actual and management. This study, now a seminal environmental problems must be solved by landmass consists of three major islands, reference on the topic of biodiversity, also people, in order to mobilize local communi- five atolls to the north of the major islands, emphasizes that in questions of how to protect ties to act towards this goal, their societies and two atolls to the south. The Corporation biodiversity and develop socio-economic must be united around a common vision of San Andres Archipelago 1 has a Ph. D in Marine Ecology from the University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica. A former Executive Director of the Institute of Jamaica, she has been representing Jamaica at the international level in the area of Biodiversity since 1994 and chaired the national committee responsible for developing the country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. She is currently the Chair of Jamaica’s CITES. Scientific AuthorityHope Road, Kingston 5, Jamaica, E-mail: [email protected]. 2 has a Ph. D in Marine Ecology from the University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica. A former Executive Director of the Institute of Jamaica, she has been representing Jamaica at the international level in the area of Biodiversity since 1994 and chaired the national committee responsible for developing the country’s National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. She is currently the Chair of Jamaica’s CITES. 108 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ISLAND AFFAIRS 109 environmental protection and sustainable actualities, such as: populations of other English-speaking West development which grows out of a shared • the importance and meaning of land within Indian islands, the natives of the archipelago understanding of the cultural and ethnic reality the culture; have nonetheless developed a particular of their past, present, and future situations. • the system of property rights and actual ethnic identity within the Caribbean region as One of the first worldwide programs to land ownership; a result of adapting to specific environmental explicitly incorporate the concept of ethnic • religion -- particularly in regard to beliefs circumstances. Predominant among these diversity was the UNESCO Man and the about humankind’s designated role in the defining factors are: Biosphere (MAB) program. The World natural world, the creation, and sabbath or • the small amount of landmass within the Network of Biosphere Reserves protects holy day practices; archipelago (San Andres has 25 square both biological and ethnic diversity. Indeed, • methods of raising and gathering food kilometres, Old Providence has 20, and the a cornerstone is the belief that sustainable and animals; entire archipelago has approximately 52.); development can best be realized by combin- • systems for handling water, soil, and waste • the islands’ geographic isolation within ing traditional ethnic responses to the environ- products; the Caribbean; ment with appropriate new technologies, • ways that overall lifestyle have balanced and • scarcity of fresh water; understanding that local programs of sustain- restrained resource use and consumption. • the high rate of terrestrial biodiversity able development and ecosystem conserva- Not only will people respond better and relative to the smallness of the land area; tion need to be rooted in the realities and become more committed to programs which • access to a wealth of marine biological traditions of the local people. The Seville directly emerge from and appeal to their variation; Strategy for Biosphere Reserves of 1995 ethnic situations, but such programs, by being • an actual location to the southwest of the has as goal I: “Use biosphere reserves to based on tangible and practical realities, are major Atlantic hurricane path. conserve natural and cultural diversity.” far more likely to succeed. When a culture has emerged from a colo- This goal is further elaborated in objective nialist New World heritage (rather than being I.1 which reads: “Improve the coverage of b. The Environmental Action Plan for Latin indigenous per se), clearly its ethnicity has natural and cultural biodiversity by means of America and the Caribbean, adopted in also been profoundly affected and formed the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.” 1990 by 35 countries in the region including by outside cultural pressures and historical With the acceptance that the dominant Colombia, says: factors. Many such factors contributed to the quantitative growth model of development In Latin America and the Caribbean, there specific acculturation of the islander people. is not environmentally sustainable and that are at least 480 ethnic groups that have remark- Especially significant were the proximity development criteria must vary depending ably adapted to their natural surroundings and to Central America’s Miskito Coast, the on the specific environmental conditions, have traditional agrarian cultures endowed historical reality that the society of the the realization has come that much of the with precise knowledge of natural resources, archipelago did not grow out of a Caribbean damage done to environments, particularly consumption patterns, suitable work and, plantation society, and the fact that the island in this century, has resulted from the failure to above all, a concept of the environment that culture was left to develop on its own for acknowledge that local cultures have the know- is not antagonistic. The deterioration of this several hundred years with minimal outside how to manage local ecosystems. For example, invaluable cultural heritage is resulting in political interference or direction. since indigenous peoples unconsciously enormous ecological costs. These environmental and cultural realities functioned within natural boundaries, vital The Action Plan seeks to tap the environmen- contributed to forming a society that was still information relative to what we now call tal knowledge and management capacity that characterized as recently as 1960 by: carrying capacities can be found within the some ethnic groups of the region have achieved, • a high level of self-sufficiency and inde- collective