The Department of Environment and Traditional Ecosystems of Martin Luther Christian University yesterday organized a talk with the eminent expert Dr. Ashish Joshia Ingty John, who is the Community Conservation Management Advisor for Wildlife Conservation Society, Cambodia on “Involving Communities in the Conservation of Species”.
The program was attended by the Vice-Chancellor of the university, the Deans and Officers, as well as faculty and students from different departments.
During his talk, Ashish stressed that the Indigenous communities are to be respected for their wisdom and that there are a number of similarities between them and the indigenous communities of North East India. He spoke on the history of Cambodia, the Civil wars, and the major conflicts such as the Khmer range where about three million people were killed, and how such incidents in the past brought tension and mistrust between the communities and the government.
He spoke on ways to involve the community in conservation efforts. Through their projects, the first important step is to first clarify land- where all types of land and activities carried out on them should be clearly identified. The next step is to provide the schemes where it is to be stressed that these schemes are implemented by the people themselves. The next important step is to work hand in hand with the communities because only through the participation of the people, conservation efforts and the protection of wildlife species in the area will be possible. One of the most significant ways to ensure community participation is to instill in them a sense of pride and ownership of the species that belong to that area so that they feel the need to protect them.
Ashish who was born and brought up in Shillong, worked with the UNDP Decentralized Governance Program in Cambodia, to assist local and indigenous communities to map their traditional resource use and the Royal Government of Cambodia’s pilot Indigenous Land Registration and Community-based Natural Resource Management (1998-2005).
He joined WCS in 2006 to assist protected area managers to develop procedures for cooperating and communicating with communities in an atmosphere of mutual respect. He helped WCS, with schemes like the Cambodia Program pilot Payment for Environmental Services (PES), which directly links conservation results to financial benefits focused on conservation management by communities. Some of these schemes are being replicated in Myanmar.
The talk concluded with a question-and-answer session where both faculty and students participated.
