[Easttimorstudies] Seminar on Customary Resource Management in Timor Leste

[Jennifer Drysdale]

Seminar on Customary Resource Management in Timor Leste (School of 
Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies Seminar Series)

Presenter: Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho (Universidade da Paz and 
Haburas Foundation, Timor Leste)

Seminar Title: 'Tara bandu as Timorese ecological wisdom'

Wednesday September 13
1-2 pm

Theatre 1 (Basement)
School of Anthropology, Geography and Environmental Studies
The University of Melbourne
221 Bouverie St, Carlton

  A former resistance leader during the Indonesian occupation, de 
Carvalho is largely credited for spearheading the progressive 
inclusion of environmental justice tenets in East Timor's 
constitution. These are the right to a healthy environment; respect 
for traditional customary law; prioritisation of sustainable 
development; and natural resource management. In 1998 de Carvalho 
founded the Haburas Foundation to tackle an environmental crisis 
following more than two decades of Indonesian occupation and the 
willful destruction of East Timor's natural resources. Current 
economic hardships have again put enormous strains on the country's 
natural resources with communities around Dili forced to cut down 
trees for firewood to survive and raise income. De Carvalho and 
Haburas are leading efforts to give environmental management a high 
priority in the new nation, promoting community reforestation and 
watershed management programs to reduce forest and land degradation. 
In recognition of this role, in 2004 De Carvalho was awarded the 
world's largest environmental prize, the Goldman Environmental Prize 
( http://www.goldmanprize.org/node/95).