Human Rights and Biodiversity

There is an intimate relationship between human rights and biodiversity, and the relationship is one of mutuality. While these connections have been part of the world views of many indigenous peoples for generations, they are also increasingly recognised in international law. In 2021, the UN Human Rights Council reiterated this: 

Recognizing that degradation and loss of biodiversity often result from and reinforce existing patterns of discrimination, and that environmental harm can have disastrous and at times geographically dispersed consequences for the quality of life of indigenous peoples, local communities, peasants, and others who rely directly on the products of forests, rivers, lakes, wetlands and oceans for their food, fuel, and medicine, resulting in further inequality and marginalization,

Recognizing also that sustainable development and the protection of the environment, including ecosystems, contribute to human well-being and to the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, to an adequate standard of living, to adequate food, to safe drinking water and sanitation and to housing, and cultural rights.

The passage of the Global Biodiversity Framework (2022) under the Convention on Biological Diversity underscored this recognition again, placing human rights references at the centre of that landmark environmental agreement. 

Working in collaboration with like-minded allies, FPP has co-produced a series of briefing papers intended to influence the negotiation of that Framework, and continue to work in the same collaboration to advance understanding of a human rights-based approach in environmental policy making and implementation.

From Agreements to Actions.

Click on the links below to read: 

• Paper 1: Human Rights in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework: Options for integrating a human-rights based approach to achieve the objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity
• Paper 2: How to Integrate Human rights into Biodiversity Conservation in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
• Paper 3: Implementing a human rights-based approach to biodiversity conservation
• Paper 4: A Rights-based Path for People and Planet – proposals for realising human rights in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
• Guide: From Agreements to Actions - A guide to applying a human rights-based approach to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
• Guide 2: Guide to Area Based Conservation: Advancing Human Rights-based Approaches to Target 3 Implementation

Relevant across all areas of biodiversity and environmental decision-making, human rights are particularly relevant and key in territorial actions: conservation, restoration, sustainable use.