(Montecatini, Italy) Controversial proposals made by some governments and conservationists to finance conservation via extractive industries, bio-prospecting, debt-for-nature-swaps, carbon-trading and payments for so-called ‘ecosystem services’ have been challenged by Indigenous Peoples. The proposals, presented during a week-long UN meeting dedicated solely to the issue of protected areas, were strongly criticised on conservation and ethical grounds by members of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) who attended the international gathering.

Indigenous Peoples, whose traditional practices sustain many of the world’s critical ecosystems and highly diverse areas, have long protested against the operations of large-scale mining, oil and gas industries within fragile environments. They point out that these industries are not compatible with conservation and cannot be characterised as ‘sustainable’ because they damage ecosystems and undermine indigenous livelihoods and cultures. As Arlen Ribeira of the Huitoto people of the Peruvian Amazon and a representative of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP) and member of the Coordinating Body of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) explains:

“In Peru’s Amazon region the Camisea gas pipeline and associated drilling activities are seriously affecting the Kugapakori Reserve set aside for uncontacted indigenous peoples. These activities have brought disease, river pollution and destruction of game and fish stocks, which all threaten to cause the forced contact and ethnocide of the Nahua and Nanti peoples. Indigenous Peoples cannot accept any proposals from governments or anyone else to open up our territories, sacred sites and conservation areas to damaging extractive industries. We call on governments to recognize indigenous peoples’ land and livelihood rights and to support our own initiatives for conservation and sustainable use based on truly sustainable sources of funding that maintain the cultural integrity of our peoples and the rich biological diversity of our territories and conservation areas.”

In more recent years, Indigenous Peoples have questioned the ethics and sustainability of new forms of extraction from biologically and culturally rich areas undertaken by bioprospecting companies and research institutions that seek to patent and market genetic materials and traditional knowledge about the medicinal and agricultural values of plants and animals. Such companies have been condemned as ‘biopirates’ who violate cultural and traditional resource rights, create inequality and unjustly privatise the collective patrimony of Indigenous Peoples without their knowledge or consent ­ in contravention of the Convention Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD is a global conservation treaty under which governments have committed to protect customary resource use and associated traditional knowledge in their official policies for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources.

After much lobbying, members of the IIFB who attended the CBD protected area meeting, were able to eliminate some of the more controversial finance proposals, but not all of them. They remain concerned that troublesome financing options like debt-for-nature swaps, payments for ecosystem services and carbon sinks are still being considered by some governments that are parties to the CBD. In their closing statement to meeting last Friday (17th), IIFB members expressed their bitter disappointment that language on indigenous peoples’ participation and rights was weakened at the last minute by some governments, meaning that the controversial conservation finance plans may go ahead without guaranteed space for them to register their concerns and objections. After the meeting ended, Jannie Lasimbang, of the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) said:

“After making a great deal of effort to contribute to this international meeting we have been frustrated yet again by some governments that have sought to undermine progress on the treatment of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and participation. We will not give up our struggle for recognition of our rights. We will continue to campaign within the CBD and outside it for more equitable approaches to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”

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Contact: Miriam Anne Frank.   Email: reachmiriam@earthlink.net