Give Indigenous Folk a Seat at the Conservation Policy Table
Indigenous people need to be given legal rights over the land they occupy and need to be an active part of environmental policy making
More than 50 countries have made a commitment to reserve 30% of land for conservation by 2030. A welcome move which may ring hollow given that the effectiveness of such policy is questionable in isolation since protected areas contain only a fraction of the world’s biodiversity, are still vulnerable to human activity and their status can be changed at anytime (the ruling government in India de-notified 1000 sq km of protected land and has cleared 278 infrastructure projects through reserves so far).
Indigenous activists in particular have expressed concern over the ’30 by 30’ commitment because indigenous groups’ contribution to conservation goes unrecognised and protected area based conservation efforts in the past have led to mass evictions across the world. (such evictions are being carried out in India in Kashmir and Uttarakhand right now, during a pandemic).
The ICCA Consortium, a membership based association of organisations representing indigenous and local communities (they define these groups as those whose culture and livelihood are embedded in the land) recently released a report that estimates that at least 32% of land on the planet is occupied by these groups. Most of this land, they argue, is in good ecological condition because the spiritual, culture and economic lives of local communities tend to be tied to the ecological balance of the places they live in.
Academic research backs this claim — a study has found that indigenous managed lands in Brazil, Canada and Australia have as much if not more biodiversity than the protected areas. Another found that at least 36% of the world’s intact forests are on indigenous lands.
Instead of ignoring or diminishing the ways of living of those who have managed some semblance of balance with the earth, what we ought to do is to celebrate and at the very least give their approaches some room to thrive. What we need is to formalise their access to their lands and ensure representation in policy formulation so that when the leaders of the world make conservation plans they can look to those who have real world experience.
Sources: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09640568.2013.875463
https://www.vox.com/22518592/indigenous-people-conserve-nature-icca
