IUCN WCPA publishes new guidelines on Indigenous peoples, local communities, and protected areas

Recognising territories and areas conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities (ICCAs) overlapped by protected areas was developed by the WCPA’s Specialist Group on Governance, Equity and Rights with strong participation by members of the ICCA Consortium.  A companion volume to be published by the ICCA Consortium will provide additional case studies and other resources.

The volume provides guidance on appropriately recognising, respecting and supporting ICCAs as conserved territories and areas, protected areas, ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs) and in situations in which they are overlapped by protected areas.  Overlapped ICCAs include traditional territories, lands, and waters; collectively managed commons such as community forests, rangelands, marine areas, and inland waters; sacred places; and Indigenous and community protected areas.

Many protected areas worldwide overlap with ICCAs.  This is both a major challenge and an opportunity for realising rights-based conservation.  In many cases pre-existing ICCAs have been ignored or undermined when protected areas have been superimposed on them.  But overlap situations also provide opportunities to recognise, respect, and support ICCAs through appropriate protected area establishment, governance, and management.  Appropriate recognition and respect can strengthen conservation, affirm rights and advance equitable protected area governance.

This volume responds to calls to develop such guidance from both IUCN and the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).  It draws on worldwide experience and eight in-depth case studies to provide good practice guidance on how ICCAs can be appropriately recognised, respected, and supported as conserved territories and areas, protected areas and “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) as eligible and in accordance with their custodians’ wishes.  The Guidelines highlight six different key approaches/pathways and 20 good practices that can be implemented when ICCAs are overlapped by existing, new or expanded protected areas.

Appropriately recognising and respecting overlapped ICCAs through these pathways and practices can strengthen conservation and equitable governance in protected areas of all four of IUCN’s protected area governance types (governance by governments, shared governance, private governance and governance by Indigenous peoples and local communities).  Many of these approaches and good practices can also be applied where ICCAs are overlapped by OCEMs.

Recognition of ICCAs, including overlapped ones, is vital to implementing IUCN’s 2016 policy on overlapped ICCAs and to achieving the goals of the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).  Recognising and respecting overlapped ICCAs is particularly important for achieving 

GBF targets 3 and 22.  Target 3 calls for expanding the global area that is effectively conserved through “equitably governed systems of protected and other effective area-based conservation measures,  recognizing indigenous and traditional territories … [and] recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories”.  Target 22 calls for ensuring Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ participation in decision-making while “respecting their cultures and rights over lands, territories, resources, and traditional knowledge”. The pathways and good practices presented in this volume provide a repertoire of means to realise these rights-based conservation goals.

Download the publication at: https://doi.org/10.2305/RSLY2962