Human actions to conserve the Earth’s biodiversity have a deep history, in which the main actors are Indigenous Peoples and local communities who have stewarded lands and resources across generations as part of their cultures and ways of life. This local conservation, which is inseparable from customary lands and resources, is distinct from the formal national and international conservation enterprise that took shape in the context of nineteenth-century colonialism, but has been greatly affected by it.
Expropriation and exclusion Conservation protected areas began to be established in an era of broader colonial conquest and expropriation of the lands and territories of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Colonial administrations around the world claimed land, especially common land, for the state, without regard for the existing rights of ownership and use under customary tenure. This expropriated land was then allocated to new owners and for new uses, such as settlement, exploitation, and conservation. In establishing the first “modern” protected area in 1872 (Yellowstone National Park), and another shortly after in 1890 (Yosemite National Park), the United States government violently expelled the Native Americans who lived in and depended on the natural resources in those areas. These actions were influenced both by views of parks as pristine “wildernesses,” devoid of human occupation and use, and by the interests of powerful lobbies such as the railway industry, which wanted to develop parks for tourism; native peoples were seen as incompatible with both these interests.
The exclusionary “fortress” approach to protected-area management quickly spread across North America, to Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, and through colonial administrations in the rest of Africa, and in parts of Asia and Latin America. It remained the dominant model of protected-area management for more than a century, well beyond the colonial era, and remains influential today, although new approaches have also emerged since the 1980s. Protected areas covering 8.7 million km2 were established between 1911 (when global data began to be collected) and 1980. In a 2006 global overview of evictions from protected areas, Brockington and Igoe hypothesized that most protected areas in which physical relocations have occurred were established before 1980. In addition to the direct impacts of eviction, restrictions on access to and the use of vital resources, as well as restrictions on access to cultural and sacred sites, have led to the impoverishment of customary rights-holders and the erosion of traditional cultures.
New frameworks and initiatives in the 1970s and 1980s – such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Man and the Biosphere Program, the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, and the 1980 World Conservation Strategy – reflected emerging ideas about the environmental foundations of economic development and the impacts of poverty on the environment, and articulated the concept of “sustainable development.” In practice, changing views of the relationship between people and protected areas led to an increased emphasis on the participation of local people in protected-area management. Integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs), which sought to develop economic activities that were compatible with strict protection in core areas – to reduce pressures on protected areas and/or compensate Indigenous Peoples and local communities for restrictions on use – became a dominant approach in the 1980s and 1990s. But these new approaches did not fundamentally disrupt assumptions about the legitimacy of state control of lands and resources in protected areas or about people as threats to nature. For the most part, “participation” meant only superficial involvement in state-owned and managed protected areas, while ICDPs sought to provide compensation for the impacts of protected-area exclusions but often maintained assumptions about rights to land and the incompatibility of people and nature that gave rise to such exclusions.
An overlapping wave of change in the relationship between protected areas and community land rights was driven not by developments in the conservation sector but by human-rights reforms, particularly concerning the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous and traditional peoples’ movements increasingly mobilized in the 1970s and 1980s and were able to assert the primacy of their customary rights over state claims. States, in turn, began reforms to legally recognize some of these rights, especially in South America. Under Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, for example, the recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples to their traditional lands set the stage for the formal titling of large areas of the Brazilian Amazon to customary rights-holders. Indigenous advocacy at the international level resulted in the adoption of International Labour Organization Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in 1989, and the launch of negotiations on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which was adopted in 2007. A central feature of these international legal instruments is recognition of the customary rights of Indigenous Peoples to lands, territories, and resources, as well as to the restitution of lands taken without their prior, informed consent. In the conservation policy context, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD, adopted in 1992) primarily reflected these developments in terms of protections for traditional knowledge (Article 8j) and the customary use of biological resources compatible with conservation requirements (Article 10c); it also provided space for indigenous leaders to participate in and influence policy discussions.
As national struggles for the legal recognition of customary land rights advanced, the issue of protected-area infringements on indigenous lands gained prominence. A study published in 1992 estimated that around 50 percent of protected areas worldwide up to that time had been established on lands traditionally occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples; this proportion was 80 percent in the Americas. Related studies sought to estimate the extent to which Indigenous Peoples and other customary rights-holders had been displaced by conservation protected areas.16 New global fora for the discussion of Indigenous Peoples’ rights enabled indigenous leaders to voice their long-standing conflicts with protected areas and conservation actors. For example, one indigenous delegate described conservation as the newest and biggest enemy of Indigenous Peoples at a United Nations meeting to discuss UNDRIP in 2004. In the same year, delegates at an indigenous mapping conference signed a declaration stating: “conservation has become the number one threat to indigenous territories.”
In parallel, and sometimes intersecting with these developments, the formal conservation sector began to increase its support for community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) by Indigenous Peoples and other local communities. This support was strongly influenced both by common property theory and by evidence of the significant spatial overlap between the territories of indigenous and other traditional peoples and high-biodiversity areas.CBNRM initiatives have generally been grounded in some degree of formal state recognition of community rights to manage and benefit from natural resources – whether forests, wildlife, or coastal or inland fisheries – although often in areas still lacking broader land-rights recognition. Major CBNRM movements include community-based wildlife management in southern Africa (e.g. the “CAMPFIRE” program in Zimbabwe and Namibia’s national CBNRM program), community forestry (e.g. in Mexico and Nepal), and locally managed marine areas in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.20 While often outside the traditional conservation paradigm of “protected areas,” these experiences provided growing evidence that community-based management could make valuable contributions to the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity.
The area of protected areas nearly doubled in the last two decades of the last century, from 8.7 million km2 in 1980 to 16.1 million km2 in 2000. But the nature of protected areas had begun to change to include an increasing proportion of protected areas that integrate cultural and sustainable-use objectives when compared with strict protected areas. Protected areas designated as International Union for Conservation of Nature Category VI (managed resource protected areas) increased during this time, from representing 9.5 percent of protected areas in 1980 to 14.6 percent in 2000. In this same time period, Category II (national parks) decreased in relative proportion, from representing 32.1 percent of all protected areas in 1980 to 24.4 percent in 2000.
By the time of the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa, strong participation from Indigenous Peoples and community leaders consolidated these directions of change into a “new paradigm” for protected areas. This paradigm, as articulated in the Durban Accord, recognizes the importance of cultural diversity and the conservation successes of local communities and Indigenous Peoples, and calls for the full incorporation of the rights, interests, and aspirations of local peoples in protected areas, mechanisms for participation and benefit-sharing, and support for community conservation areas.
The Durban Action Plan, which was developed based on the Durban Accord, included the following targets focused on securing the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in relation to natural resources and conservation :
Target 8. All existing and future protected areas are established and managed in full compliance with the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including mobile Indigenous Peoples and local communities by the time of the next IUCN World Parks Congress.
Target 9. The management of all relevant protected areas involves representatives chosen by Indigenous Peoples, including mobile Indigenous Peoples and local communities proportionate to their rights and interests, by the time of the next IUCN World Parks Congress.
Target 10. Participatory mechanisms for the restitution of Indigenous Peoples’ traditional lands and territories that were incorporated in protected areas without their free and informed consent are established and implemented by the time of the next IUCN World Parks Congress.
These outcomes of the World Parks Congress were used to influence the results of the 7th Conference of the Parties (COP 7) to the CBD in 200425 which (in its Decision 7.16, Section C, 15-18) notes that:
Parties should be encouraged, in accordance with national domestic law and international obligations, to recognize land tenure of indigenous and local communities, as recognized rights and access to land are fundamental to the retention of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices. Subject to national legislation and international obligations, Parties should be encouraged to pursue the fair and equitable resolution of land claims as an essential element of efforts to facilitate the retention and use of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices. Indigenous and local communities should, where relevant, be actively involved in the management of protected areas. The rights of indigenous and local communities should [be] given due respect when establishing new protected areas.
Convention On Biological Diversity(CBD) COP 7 also adopted the CBD’s first Programme of Work on Protected Areas, including a section (“Element 2”) on governance, participation, equity, and benefit-sharing.26 The goals and targets of Element 2 included new commitments on equity and benefit-sharing and the involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the management of protected areas “in full respect of their rights.” Land rights and restitution were not mentioned explicitly, however, and nor were the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities beyond the context of participation.
In 2010, CBD COP 10 adopted the Aichi Targets on Biodiversity, among which Target 11 refers to both protected areas and “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECMs) as ways to safeguard ecosystems, species, and genetic diversity, opening a discussion on whether indigenous and community lands could be considered as OECMs.28 The 2012 IUCN World Conservation Congress adopted a set of governance categories for protected areas which recognizes that protected areas may be governed by communities and private actors and through co-management arrangements, and not only by governments. The Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas Consortium, meanwhile, has documented and promoted recognition of the large area of land that is already governed effectively by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in ways that contribute to conservation, regardless of whether they are part of formal protected-area systems.
These global policy shifts have significantly increased recognition of the rights and roles of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in conservation, and global data indicate that protected areas are becoming more diverse in their aims and governance. IUCN Category VI protected areas more than doubled in extent, from 2.36 to 4.96 million km2 between 2000 and 2010, overtaking Category II as the protected area category with the greatest spatial coverage. Nevertheless, the active integration of community land-tenure reform in the global conservation agenda has been limited. At the national level, conservation protected-area policies and management practices remain strongly shaped by national tenure and governance regimes, which vary widely in their respect for, and protection of, community land rights. Sections III–V assess the implementation of the “new paradigm” in terms of spatial overlaps and conflicts, the recognition of community rights in national legal frameworks, and the range of community tenure situations within and beyond protected areas.
Community land rights remain a significant issue in protected-area management (and broader conservation practice) worldwide. One indicator of this significance is the persistence of large areas of spatial overlap between customary community lands and high-biodiversity areas, including areas under formal protection. A 2010 study in South America, for example, determined that 214 (27 percent) of the 801 national protected areas on the continent overlap to some degree with indigenous territories; in Central America, the proportion is as high as 90 percent.While a wide range of conflictual or collaborative relationships may exist in these overlapping spaces, in all cases overlaps indicate the presence of peoples whose rights must be respected and protected.
Another indicator of the significance of community land rights in protected-area management is the documented evidence of continued widespread conflict over human-rights infringements associated with protected areas. As part of their work on human-rights standards for conservation, for example, the organizations Natural Justice and IIED compiled a list – not intended to be comprehensive – of recent or current conservation conflicts in which communities have made some form of complaint or are seeking redress; the cases span 18 countries in Africa (eight countries), Asia/Pacific (seven) and the Americas (three). Many of these conflicts are specifically associated with land rights, indicating that this is an issue that requires more attention from protected-area managers and supporters.
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