Living in one of the world’s most pristine tropical rainforest areas, and depending on natural resources for almost all their needs, the Asmat people retain most of their cultural traditions. The woodcarving of the Asmat is renowned around the world, and the integrity of this art is tied to cultural cycles and festivals. Biodiversity and culture are closely linked in Asmat. Indeed, in many ways Asmat culture and local biodiversity are two sides of the same coin: if the forests are destroyed, traditional culture will lose its moorings. Conversely, if their society loses its traditional culture and systems for managing natural resources, the forests aren’t likely to remain intact. Adapting culture to new realities is important and inevitable, but the loss of key core values can have tragic consequences for people and the environment. Because of this, IPCA’s program is geared to achieving conservation in ways that also support elements of Asmat culture and society that the communities themselves identify as important.

IPCA works through the Asmat Traditional Council (Lembaga Musyawarah Adat Asmat, or LMAA) and Sub-Councils (Forum Adat Rumpun, or FAR; click here to see a PDF map of FAR areas , 336KB). Our goal is to empower local communities to actively and sustainably manage their natural resources at a time of rapid change, when these globally important ecosystems are increasingly threatened by destructive resource extraction. To carry out that vision, IPCA facilitates community-driven conservation efforts by providing tools and training to build local capacity, document and map natural, social, and cultural resources, resource-use monitoring, and environmental education.

Basic information about the biodiversity of the Asmat region is very fragmented and incomplete. Although it is easy to guess how many “outsiders” perceive of Asmat resources in terms of economic value, local cultural, economic and social values are much more challenging to pinpoint. In addition, although the biodiversity of Asmat is a major global conservation priority area, the flora and fauna has hardly been documented — no significant scientific surveys have ever been conducted there.

Furthermore, little is known about local indigenous knowledge regarding species and habitats, traditional medicines, the collection of wild plants and animals for food, or the materials harvested for Asmat carvings. There are probably gender differences in the social valuation of biological resources and habitats, but about this nothing is known. This information is critical to successful conservation, but requires a concerted, integrated effort to gather it and generate it in a form that can be used to illustrate the social and economic dependence of the Asmat on the “natural capital” value of their biodiversity.

For example, communities identify forest areas that are important for hunting, sago cultivation, or woodcarving resources, but also areas that, based on Asmat cultural traditions, are considered sacred areas. These core areas, combined with biological information, will be used to generate a map of critical habitat areas. This map will be used in dialogue with the government to define spatial development planning in ways that are consistent with the important cultural and biological priorities in Asmat.

The programmatic collaboration between IPCA, LMAA and FARs in Asmat aims to help stakeholders make appropriate decisions about the development, management and conservation of their natural resources. The primary objective of the survey is to reveal local perceptions of natural resources as a tool for their empowerment as owners of those resources. At the same time, the results of the surveys will help other stakeholders (government, conservation and community-based NGOs, private sector) to more clearly understand Asmat priorities. This will also build greater appreciation among adat communities of the economic and social value of their ecosystems and the biodiversity within them.