Pinto, Eufemia Felisa. Contesting Frontier Lands in Palawan,Philippines: Strategies of Indigenous Peoples for Community Developmentand Ancestral Domain Management (unpublished).

A thesis submitted inDecember 1999 to the Faculty of Clark University, Worcester,Massachusetts, USA.This thoroughly written thesis analyses the trajectory of the indigenous peoples’ struggle for land and resource use rights in the Philippines, particularly within the scope of a shifting national environment and development policy agenda, and the institutional arrangements that operate in practice.

It contains 1.3 kg of up-to-date information, which may be highly interesting to some of the readers of ‘Voices from the Forest’. The first part of the book explains the provisions of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) on access and benefit-sharing, national laws to implement them, and material transfer agreements. The second part – in fact the core of the book – comprises seven chapters, each of which takes as its theme a major industry sector which requires access to genetic material for research and development. The thesis asks two critical questions:
Are the indigenous peoples positioned strategically within the existing political and legal space in order to move decisively towards their desired goal of self-determination and equitable development?
In attempting to meet their objectives, what are the barriers that indigenous peoples encounter, and the strategies that they adopt in order to leverage greater political space at various levels in the institutional landscape?
The thesis addresses these questions through a case study analysis of NATRIPAL (United Tribes of Palawan), the indigenous federation in the island of Palawan, Philippines.

For further information please contact Eufemia Felisa Pinto at femy@bigpond.com.kh