around the world was motivated by a desire
to simplify the administration of native com-
munities. Through officially designated
‘native authorities’ it became possible for
colonial administrators to negotiate legally
binding agreements with heterogeneous
communities of people without having to
grapple with the complexities of this hetero-
geneity. The outcomes of such an arrange-
ment are clearly visible at Pine Ridge,
where the administration of Badlands
National Park claims to have a legally bind-
ing agreement with a tribal government,
which many of its constituents refuse to
recognise as legitimate.^18
Significantly, such arrangements are out of
step with global trends in conservation,
development, and governance. Since the
collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been
a new global imperative to build civil society
through the promotion of a vibrant NGO
sector. While the idea of building civil socie-
ty certainly predates this collapse, prior
imperatives focused more centrally on con-
taining communism (or capitalism) through
state-centered development and conserva-
tion. Since 1990 there has been an explo-
sion of NGOs on a global scale.^19
Indigenous NGOs are not a panacea for
community-based conservation. As with trib-
al governments, there is a risk that they will
privilege certain cultural voices at the
expense of others. Like tribal governments
they can also become the stake of cultural
struggles. In best case scenarios, however,
indigenous NGOs allow diverse groups of
people to participate in conservation and
governance. As such, they create the possi-
bility that marginal groups might gain
access to resources that would allow them
to make their voices heard, not just locally
but even on a global scale. In short, a
vibrant NGO sector has the potential to
institutionalise the complexity of the cultural
debates surrounding the meaning and direc-
tion of conservation in specific local con-
texts.
An important indigenous NGO success story,
from the perspective of western conserva-
tionists, is an organisation of the Kuna
Indians called PEMANSKY (Study Project for
the Management of the Wildlands of Kuna
Yala – translated from Spanish). While
PEMANSKY was never officially registered as
an NGO, it operated like one. In spite of
numerous internal problems, the organisa-
tion succeeded in invoking Kuna cultural val-
ues to mobilise the Kuna to protect the
boundaries of their reservation in the 1980s.
It also succeeded in capturing substantial
sums of donor money so that these efforts
resulted in the creation of the Kuna Park.
Although PEMANSKY is more or less defunct
at this point, it inspired the creation of
other Kuna NGOs now working to promote
local conservation initiatives, as well as
instilling a general conservation ethic
amongst the people of Kuna Yala.^20
Most of the Maasai NGOs I worked with in
Tanzania also claimed to promote conserva-
tion. However, the majority of these organi-
sations held that community-based conser-
vation needed to begin by giving local peo-
ple more control over land and natural
resources. Furthermore, they argued, that
conservation for the Maasai would need to
build on traditional Maasai resource man-
agement practices. One organisation in par-
ticular, however, cooperated with the
Tanzania National Parks Authority and the
African Wildlife Foundation to promote com-
munity-based conservation programmes
that most local people perceived as inimical
to their interests. As a result, cultural
debates concerning conservation in Maasai
communities began to revolve around: i)
the costs and benefits of working with these
outsiders; and ii) which organisations pos-
sessed the legitimate authority to speak for
the community.^21
Indigenous NGOs in the United States have
History, cculture aand cconservation
