Human Habitation and Culture
The area of the national park has been inhabited for more than 25,000 years. The forests of Lorentz encompass the traditional lands of eight indigenous ethnic groups, including the Asmat, Amungme, Dani, Sempan, and Nduga. Estimates of the current population vary between 6,300 and 10,000.
It is widely acknowledged that conservation management strategies for the park will have to incorporate the needs and aspirations of these peoples if the park is to succeed in protecting biodiversity. Moreover, cultural diversity is another important measure of success for the park.
Read more about this topic: Lorentz National Park
Famous quotes containing the words human, habitation and/or culture:
“We all ask ourselves the question why is it that some of us are killed while others remain. The only answer is our faith in the wisdom of a supreme being. If he has chosen us to live there must be a reason. I have tried to reckon out why. Perhaps he has saved us because we are needed as witnesses to remind each other, and our folks, and folks everywhere that war is too full of horrors for human beings.”
—Michael Blankfort. Lewis Milestone. Dickerman (Jack Webb)
“We have seen when the earth had to be prepared for the habitation of man, a veil, as it were, of intermediate being was spread between him and its darkness, in which were joined in a subdued measure, the stability and insensibilty of the earth, and the passion and perishing of mankind.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)