Control Models of Tourism Development and Conservation Management with Respect to Indigenous Culture - Restorative Redevelopment of Devastated Ecocultural Landscapes - page 37

is based on working with the local community to reduce the conflict. Many discus-
sions have begun to recognize the importance of local knowledge and the necessity
of cooperation between the local community and the conservationist (Western and
Wright 1994). This is the start of a new type of conservation management model.
This co-management concept does not have a rigid definition, and it describes
a wide range of possibilities based on the degree of local participation and control
power involved. It marks the transition from the traditional central control model
to the entire indigenous control model. The objectives of the traditional park plan
try to identify what parks can do for the environment and local people. And the co-
management strategy shifts the attitude to how the local people can be part of the
control power and what they can do. In the past decades, cases of environmental and
cultural conservation working with indigenous communities have happened around
the world (Stevens 1997). The difficulty lies in co-managing the same resource with
different meanings and definitions of natural resources. When these two groups, the
central government and local community, co-manage the land, the group that gets
more power will have more authority on the decision making. In the co-management
process, indigenous people can be consulted and negotiated, and be treated as an
autonomous entity from a different degree of power involvement. This is similar to
the “co-management ladder” that Sneed has mentioned, which ranges from virtual
nonparticipation at the bottom to almost full local control at the top (Sneed 1997).
Consultation by the conservationist and government marks the beginning of the
involvement of indigenous people. In this stage, the indigenous people act as the
local information source for decision making, but they do not have the real author-
ity to change the decision. At the best-case scenario, the indigenous people form a
subgroup in the central government organization. The purpose of this subgroup is to
bring the local voice into the decision-making process and to show goodwill to the
indigenous community. To the indigenous people, this type of co-management offers
them some protection of their indigenous culture and environment, and promise of
involvement in policy making. In reality, however, the involvement of the indigenous
people is limited since not many of them are engaged in the process and they do not
have an equal political position with the central government.
When indigenous people and government have equal power in management,
negotiation will take place which will result in a strong, unified voice in environ-
mental management. The case of co-management in Australia is one of the most
influential models in this negotiation process, and it draws significant attention from
the world's indigenous communities as an experience to learn from. One significant
step in this case is the legislation of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act passed in 1976.
It established the land trust system for indigenous people in Australia, and the indig-
enous people can claim their land back based on this land trust (Hill and Press 1994).
Another important component during the negotiation process in Australia's case is
the detriment clause, which permits indigenous people to terminate the co-man-
agement relationship if they feel their rights have been ignored (Lawrence 2000).
This is a critical mechanism to force the negotiation process to keep running. The
negotiation process involves the handing back of the national park land to the indig-
enous community, and the indigenous people in turn lease it back to the national
park authority. This allows the indigenous people to continue to have their lives and