By Chris Lang,
Indigenous People in Montreal for the UN biodiversity meeting, COP15, are demanding that their rights be included in any agreement. Meanwhile negotiators from the EU, Norway, and Australia are arguing that the words “indigenous territories” should be kept out of the Global Biodiversity Framework.
Chris Chapman, Amnesty International’s Adviser on Indigenous Rights, comments that,
“Any 30×30 deal being negotiated in the final days of COP15 must recognize that conservation is more effective on Indigenous lands than in state-run protected areas. States must include Indigenous peoples’ territories and customary lands and waters as a category of conservation area in any agreement, as called for by the Indigenous Biodiversity Forum.”
Chapman is referring to a statement put out by the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity on 10 December 2022:
International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity IIFB Public Statement on Target 3 CBD COP 15 Montreal, 10 December 2022 The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) underscores the importance of ensuring a rights-based approach in the implementation of Target 3 of the global biodiversity framework, specifically including “protecting and respecting” our rights.
We reiterate that Target 3 will not be fully realized if our contributions to conservation are not included as the most effective measure for the protection of Mother Nature. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates that our territories, lands and waters exceed the conservation outcomes of protected areas and other state-centric conservation approaches.
Thus, the IIFB urges parties to include Indigenous Peoples territories and customary lands and waters as a third pathway to recognition beyond protected areas and OECMs.
We urge parties to consider this position in their negotiations of Target 3.
Amnesty International’s Chapman continues by saying that,
“States must also ensure that any agreement addresses human rights violations in protected areas and requires states to respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, including by obtaining their free, prior and informed consent for all actions.
“Negotiators on the 30×30 deal at COP15 should also remove the requirement for a significant proportion of protected areas to be ‘strictly protected’, as the wording could lead to ‘fortress conservation’ methods that forcibly evict human populations from these areas, including Indigenous peoples and other traditional land users who have cultivated the land for generations.”
Earlier in the negotiations in Montreal, The Guardian reported that,
The EU was accused of trying to water down the target by arguing that extractive industries such as mining and drilling should be allowed in protected areas, provided they did not negatively affect biodiversity.
The EU argued for 10% of the 30×30 target to be under “strict protection”, while allowing extractive industries to take place in the remaining 20%. This would be the worst possible outcome – excluding Indigenous Peoples and local communities from vast areas of their lands, allowing extractivism (which is a major driver of biodiversity loss) to take place on an even larger area, and failing to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights and territories.
But none of this is a “watering down” of the 30×30 target. Mining is a major threat to protected areas and governments often turn a blind eye to the destruction of protected areas by extractivism. But while protected areas do not protect much, they far too often do exclude Indigenous Peoples. Far from a “watering down”, this is exactly what 30×30 set out to achieve: the biggest land grab the world has ever seen.
(Sources: REDD)
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