Forest populations participated early on in the exploitation of forest resources for the benefit of areas beyond their territory, for local trade or international networks. There is therefore no reason why they should now be excluded from decisions and activities relating to the forest -they can be much more than a source of labour... All the more so when projects try to set up long-lasting development processes.
Getting swidden cultivators to participate and listening to them would enable westerners to benefit from the ancestral knowledge they themselves cruelly lack and from the enthusiasm of these populations who feel concerned with their future.
- Swidden cultivators, as do nomad hunter-gatherers, belong to the forest ecosystem that they have contributed to shape over the last few thousand years (phytogeographically and ecologically speaking).
- It is therefore ecologically incorrect to suggest that there might be 'virgin equatorial forests' that would have to be protected from human beings, who, of course, could only be destroying it.
- These people represent a variety of life-styles, of different economic systems compatible with the preservation of the forest's biodiversity, of a rich forest canopy and of the ecosystem, thanks to rational and diversified exploitation of natural resources.
- Thanks to their economy, these people maintain low population densities : bearing in mind that these are countries with very high rates of population growth, low birth rates ought to be encouraged (they are often deliberately kept low) and these populations should be protected against the invasion of other expanding groups. It is both a model for the rest of mankind and a fundamental right of human beings : populations that have low population densities should be allowed to maintain these low rates and one ought to protect their right to do so.
- Nowadays, forest groups in different parts of the world are fighting, not to preserve a unique way of life, but to provide guarantees for minimum vital areas for future generations and preserve the cultural values which they recognize as their own ; it is also a question of obtaining the right to decide for oneself and make one's own choices for the future.
