Whilst writing my last blog post, it became apparent to me that one barrier in particular has inhibited to the uptake of Indigenous-led solutions in biodiversity policy - the insufficient recognition of Indigenous land rights and the need to decolonise global conservation policy.
Indigenous communities and protected areas
Indigenous communities live in areas with up to 80% of the world's biodiversity, particularly in Central and Southern America and Africa as demonstrated by the infographic below. These regions also contain many of the world's biodiversity hotspots.
Indigenous groups have been historically dispossessed of land under the 'guise' of conservation through the establishment of many of the world's 6,000 national parks and 100,000 protected places. The forcible displacement of the Maasai under British colonial rule from the area that became the Serengeti National Park was fuelled by racist beliefs that they were degrading the land. The colonial legacies of modes of preservationist conservation reverberate across the globe to this day and continue to harm Indigenous communities; in 2009, over 3,000 Maasai members were forcibly moved and made homeless.
Indigenous land rights are being increasingly secured through policy changes like the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and by legal changes including the IUCN revision in 1994 that allowed them to manage protected areas and not just the state. However, there is still evidence of the continuing erosion of Indigenous peoples’ rights due to a lack of meaningful participation in the development of conservation plans and severe land restrictions which force Indigenous communities to change their livelihoods.
More recent research has been conducted into how protected areas could be made more beneficial for Indigenous communities by incorporating customary and Indigenous tenure and resource use, and control systems into their management plans. Looking forward, how can biodiversity policy better address Indigenous land-rights?
The Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework: hope for the future?
2020 is an important year for biodiversity as the 2011-2020 Strategic Framework for Biodiversity and its Aichi Targets expire. There are now talks underway of a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which is due to be agreed in 2021 in Kunming, China. In its provisional report, it seems that the OECD will include specific goals relating to the needs of women and people in poverty. However, it has already been speculated that the zero draft does not sufficiently recognise the rights and roles of Indigenous communities.
Insufficient recognition of Indigenous land and resource rights in environmental policy is an ongoing barrier to the uptake of Indigenous-led solutions. In an IPBES report, it was outlined that, despite customarily owning more than half the world’s lands, Indigenous people and local communities have legal ownership rights to only 10%. Ironically, Indigenous communities are often better at protecting biodiversity than state-governed protected areas, yet are criminalized for defending land rights and forests.
Ultimately, until biodiversity governance specifically addresses Indigenous "customary laws, governance systems and management practices" as the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework has been called to do, the future of biosphere integrity is still very much up in the air.
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