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65 Theresia John, Patricia John, Louis Bugiad and Agnes Lee Agama
Box 1: The Ulu Papar BCP training
session 10th–11th March 2010
The first training session consisted of informative
presentations, role play and group discussions:
i. Presentation on international legal instruments,
such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the Convention
on Biological Diversity (CBD) that support indigenous
peoples’ rights to manage their resources
ii. Role-play: participants divided into three groups.
In each group, five pairs of participants were given
different ‘stakeholder’ roles. Each pair had 30
minutes to prepare a position and strategy based on
a fictional scenario. They then returned to the group
to negotiate and arrive at a consensual and
constructive ‘way forward’, which included strategies
such as developing a protocol, collecting more data,
improving inter-agency communication, raising
awareness amongst community members and
conducting more training for community researchers.
Then an overall evaluation discussion was held to
comment on the negotiation process, explore the
challenges involved in arriving at a group decision
and distil lessons learnt for the community.
iii. Presentation on biocultural community
protocols, drawing on the role-play to explore
situations in which community protocols may be
useful. This included a discussion in which concerns
and questions from the community were addressed.
iv. Field update from the first Ulu Papar BCP
workshop (see Table 1). Participants then carried out
group discussions on the main themes of importance
to the community (Kaiduan Dam, customary land
inside the park, the need for improved education
materials and buildings and for better local
infrastructure, and the possibilities for tourism in the
area).
v. Planning and next steps: in two groups,
participants discussed priorities, strategies and shortand mid-term actions. They developed a six-month
plan to facilitate community consultations and datagathering to develop the protocol. This plan
incorporated a selection of techniques, such as a
collaborative data gathering expeditions to villages
in the uppermost reaches of the valley, travelling
roadshows, further training of community
researchers in community outreach approaches, and
interviews using participatory videos. They agreed
that the plan should be evaluated and revised after
six months. In the longer term, priority was placed on
raising the profile of Ulu Papar as an important
cultural landscape. Tentative plans included
launching a Ulu Papar community and conservation
campaign as the principal vehicle to structure the use
of the protocol (along with the participatory videos,
photography galleries and maps) to engage with
government agencies and raise public awareness.
Following this, subsequent community
workshops were held to flesh out the
contents of the Ulu Papar protocol and seek
feedback from all participants. Community
researchers played a pivotal role in designing the community consultation activities
that enabled them to compile information
needed for the protocol, from workshops
and discussions and drawing upon the
significant corpus of data gathered during
the Darwin Initiative projects to support the
viewpoints asserted in the protocol. For
example, geo-referenced maps were used to
show locations of important resources and
cultural sites, while ethnobiological data
displayed in charts and graphs demonstrate
the interrelationship between the community and the natural landscape they rely on.
During the follow-up workshops, participants were given the opportunity to discuss
with each other, give information and share
their views on the framework draft protocol that was beginning to take shape.
In the earlier stages of drafting the
protocol, participation was somewhat
unsatisfactory due to remote locations of
villages. Difficult journeys prevented
community members from far-flung
villages from attending. The community
researchers decided to design and conduct
a travelling workshop – which became
known as the Ulu Papar Roadshow – to visit
each of the villages, sharing the same information regarding the protocol drafting
process in each, while collating feedback
from all community members to finalise the
draft protocol. To review the protocol text,
community researchers chose to embark on
a lengthy word-for-word process that examined each section and sub-section of the
protocol with each of the villages they
visited. Although tedious and demanding,
the roadshow format permitted more
women and elderly community members to
participate in the consultation process,
whilst also ensuring ownership and
commitment from each village. At the end
of each roadshow, the community
researchers improved and revised the draft