Sustainability Assessment in Indigenous Communities: A Tool for Future Participatory Decision Making

Abstract

Developing an adequate set of indicators and a more consistent methodology to assess sustainability in a community is a task that requires understanding the level of viability of the systems involved and their contribution to sustainable development. The objective of this research was to design and apply an index to estimate the sustainability of rural indigenous communities characterized by intercultural processes. Three communities inhabiting the arid zones of Baja California, Mexico: Pa Ipai, Kumiai, and Cucapá are the study cases. To develop such an index, a review was made of the most common indicators used worldwide for measuring sustainability in rural communities. The method to reduce and focalize the list of indicators consisted in identifying indicators from the answers given to questionnaires applied to 166 individuals chosen at random in the three studied communities. The answers were analyzed applying the content analysis qualitative tool. The responses were assigned a weight ranging from 0 to 1 according to the remoteness (0) or proximity (1) to sustainability of response. The results depicted, in a spider graph, that the Pa Ipai community has the highest values towards sustainability, while Kumiai is on average and, the community of Cucapá with the lowest values and, therefore, far from achieving sustainability. For the particular case of the indigenous communities’ native to Baja California, the complexity of social and economic problems that arise can be attenuated if project proposals emanate from the same community, respecting the traditional social organization and family organization during their implementation. Our results provide elements to design and evaluate public policies on indigenous issues at the local level, so it is suggested that the indicators proposed in this research be contrasted with other rural indigenous communities of the drylands.