Resources

A public hearing was held for the writ of amparo lawsuit filed by the Puerto Franco Kichwa community, who sued the Peruvian State and the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) for failing to title their traditional lands, the imposition of an exclusionary conservation model and the generation of profits from the sale of car

Organizations of the Kichwa people issued the following statement on 18 January 2023 following the breakdown of dialogue with the State Protected Natural Areas Service (SERNANP) and the Center for Conservation, Research and Management of Natural Areas (CIMA) in the Technical Working Group that was established in September 2022 to address more than 20 years of exclusion by the conservation model imposed by the Cordillera Azul National Park in their traditional territories.

This report aims to show how the implementation of the Cordillera Azul National Park (PNCAZ) and the Cordillera Escalera Regional Conservation Area (ACR-CE), created in 2001 and 20

A new report published today shows how the creation and implementation of two State protected areas in Peru threaten the continuity of the Kic

The UNFCCC Climate Conference (COP27) begins on November 6 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. COP27 comes at a critical point in the fight against climate change, and many Indigenous Peoples and Local Community representatives will be attending.

The first Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) took place in Kigali, Rwanda from 18-23rd July, 2022.

The Indigenous Guard of the Shipibo people in Peru through a recent statement challenges the paradigm of exclusionary conservation in the Ucayali region, where the Regional Conservation Area (ACR) Lago Imiria has cut off access to various livelihood strategies of local communities.

Representatives of Indigenous Peoples-led conservation organisations and networks in Africa convened in Nairobi, Kenya on 15 – 16 June 2022 under the auspices of the Alliance Rights, Inclusion and Social Equity in Conservation (ARISEC), to plan for their meaningful participation in the first IUCN’s Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) schedule

Kigali, Rwanda On the opening day of the Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Kigali, Indigenous Peoples from East Africa call on the IUCN to put their rights front and center in any conservation efforts being proposed, including an immediate end to illegal evictions from areas where people have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. 

Reflections on conservation, natural resources and territory from 16 Baka and Bakwele communities in the vicinity of the proposed Messok Dja protected area, Sangha Department, Republic of Congo.

A book originally published in 2014 by Forest Peoples Programme, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)

Forest Peoples Programme, Rainforest Foundation UK and Minority Rights International have viewed a draft concept note for a proposed EU flagship intervention in Africa aimed at addressing biodiversity loss and expanding protected areas, the NaturAfrica initiative.

This statement was published by the indigenous Kichwa organisation CEPKA. It is a response to actions by the Peruvian Ministry of the Environment to consolidate the power of private actors in the management of the country's protected areas, at the cost of the rights and livelihoods of their inhabitants and traditional owners: the indigenous peoples.

The Kichwa people of the San Martin region have traditionally occupied the upland forests which since 2005 were classified as the Regional Protected Area - Cerro Escalera by the regional government of San Martin.

Best practices around indigenous peoples and the establishment, expansion, governance and management of protected areas was the focus of a discussion at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Conservation Congress.The event, organised by Forest Peoples Programme, brought together 14 people at a knowledge café to discuss implementation of elements of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Plan of Action on Customary Sustainable Use.

Indigenous organisations in Peru have exposed an initiative of the Peruvian protected areas authority (SERNANP) to modify the specific legal regime that regulates the governance and administration of Communal Reserves (RC) within Peru. They are demanding the immediate suspension of the process and their participation.

Since its inception at the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) ‘Sharing Power’ conference in Whakatane, New Zealand, in January 2011, the Whakatane Mechanism has been piloted in two places: at Mount Elgon in Western Kenya and most recently in the Ob Luang National Park in Northern Thailand.

In January, indigenous peoples’ organisations sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Thailand, Yingluck Shinawatra, asking her to take immediate action to redress the forcible expulsion of Karen people from their ancestral territory in north-western Thailand, which is now overlapped by the Kaeng Krachan National Park. According to sources that have visited Kaeng Krachan National Park and collected information, the harassment of Karen villagers has been going on for some time and became severe in May, June and July 2011, when many of the villagers’ houses and rice stores were burned and money, jewellery, fishing and agricultural tools were stolen by a group comprising National Park wardens and military forces. As a result, some of these villagers moved away and are now staying with relatives elsewhere and a number of them (allegedly around 70 people) are hiding in the forest in fear of meeting government officers, and are without sufficient food and shelter.  

The following article was published by IUCN here: http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/ceesp/?8772/Indigenous-peoples-rStefan Disko (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs), TILCEPA member Helen Tugendhat (Forest Peoples Programme)

Two peer-reviewed studies published recently show that strict conservation is less effective in reducing deforestation than community forests that are managed and controlled by Indigenous Peoples and forest-dependent communities within multiple use systems (e.g. IUCN categories V and VI)One study, by Porter-Bolland et al. from CIFOR, is a statistical analysis of annual deforestation rates as reported in 73 case studies conducted in the tropics. They find that deforestation is significantly lower in community-managed forests than in strict protected forests.The other study on forest loss undertaken by the World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (authored by Nelson and Chomitz) finds that some community-managed forests are located in areas with higher deforestation pressures than strict protected areas. Taking this into account, they find that community-managed forests are much more effective in reducing deforestation than strict protected areas (cf. summary table, p9). Where there is data, they find that forest areas managed and controlled by Indigenous Peoples are even more effective.