Dr Dario Novellino, PhD in environmental anthropology at Kent and Research Fellow in the Centre for Biocultural Diversity, has won the very prestigious Darrell Posey Fellowship 2014-16 from the International Society for Ethnobiology.
Dario has been working in the Philippines for many years among the Batak of Palawan Island, conducting research and organizing and supporting campaigns for land rights, and against logging, mining, oil palm and other intrusions. He writes ” The work waiting for me in Palawan will be particularly intensive this year. In fact, in addition to ongoing advocacy against mining and oil palm encroachment on indigenous ancestral lands, we are also lobbying for the local government to withdraw the ban against upland agriculture with slash-and-burn technology, which is impoverishing local indigenous communities to an unprecedented level. We have recently constituted a Batak Federation that will incorporate all existing Batak local groups and, hopefully, give them better means of confronting external forces and making their voices herd. By my arrival in March, the Federation should be legally registered and able to plan the new agenda for 2014-2015. The funds provided by the ISE will be pivotal in supporting all these actions.”