World Environment Day 2020: three lessons from indigenous peoples and local communities on restoring our relationship with nature

World Environment Day is an opportunity to not only celebrate nature, but the peoples and communities who protect and steward it worldwide. Here, three lessons from indigenous and local communities in Colombia, the Day’s host, are highlighted: women’s knowledge is critical for protecting biodiversity; frontline communities’ efforts are defending their human rights and collective territories preventing further losses of biodiversity, and culture and traditional knowledge are vital for sustainable use and ecological restoration.

Right now we are halfway through what was meant to be a ‘super-year’ for global action on biodiversity. At various international meetings— now on hold or rescheduled — new goals were to be agreed  to replace the twenty Aichi Biodiversity Targets set under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010. The Aichi targets aimed to address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss and promote sustainable land use, production and consumption, but have not been met by the international community. Vital ecosystems like tropical forests are being lost at an accelerating pace in many countries with devastating consequences for the climate, biodiversity and the communities who depend on them for their livelihoods and ways of life. Social movements worldwide have intensified calls on governments and business to stop mass species extinction.  

In the midst of these social and ecological crises, an intergovernmental plan for moving towards ‘a world living in harmony with nature’ by 2050 was to be negotiated. Yet, while these global policy processes have been disrupted by COVID-19, the pandemic has brought into ever more stark relief the myriad consequences of the continued destruction of biodiverse landscapes, and the need to take urgent action to protect them and ensure sustainable resource use.

In doing so, indigenous peoples and local communities around the world have much to teach the international community: it is on their lands and territories that much of the world’s remaining biodiversity exists.

Women’s knowledge is key to protecting biodiversity

Gendered divisions of labour have led to women and men, in many contexts, holding different knowledge about the use and management of natural resources. While women’s knowledge has not been recognised to the same extent as men’s knowledge, it is key to protecting biological and cultural diversity.  

This is evident in Zenú communities in northern Colombia, whose ancestral territories have been fragmented over the last three centuries, and whose leaders have been killed for reclaiming territorial rights. Despite the signing of the Peace Accords in 2016, the Zenú  continue to face displacement as a consequence of ongoing violence  in the region . Despite these challenges, women continue cultural traditions that support the wellbeing of Zenú people and support local biodiversity: they grow food in gardens that provide food security and function as ‘reservoirs of biodiversity’; they cultivate and harvest wild medicinal plants, and they help to conserve wild palms which are used for a range of purposes from firewood to weaving, which forms a pillar of Zenú culture.

Read more about gendered knowledge in Zenú communities.

Frontline communities’ efforts are preventing further losses of biodiversity

Many indigenous peoples and local communities are active in claiming and  defending their rights to lands, terrritories  and natural resources. Through their actions challenging harmful development projects and confronting the encroachment of agribusiness and extractive industries like logging and mining, often literally putting their lives on the line in doing so, they play a vital role in maintaining sustainable land use and preventing loss and damage to large, biologically diverse areas.. The lesson is clear: empowered communities can be highly effective in asserting their collective rights and preventing the further loss of habitats.

Their se efforts, however, are not always recognised nor supported. Rather, many communities on the frontlines — like the Indigenous Reserve of Cañamomo Lomaprieta— face intimidation, criminalisation and violence and little to no protection. In defiance of threats, intimidation, racism and discrimination,  the Embera Chami communities and their own Governing Council are developing a range of initiatives, from native tree-planting and the preservation of agrobiodiversity through local seedbanks to local awareness campaigns, aimed at recovering, protecting and conserving the environment.

International support for frontline communities must be a critical component of any global strategy to shift the needle on biodiversity loss and stave off the loss of biological and cultural diversity. This is especially important now: not only has violence against communities defending their lands and territories been increasing in recent years but, in seeking to stimulate economic recovery from COVID-19, deregulation and the roll-back of protections and safeguards will likely intensify these risks.

Read more about the Indigenous Reserve of Cañamomo Lomaprieta’s efforts to protect and conserve their lands and territories.

Ecological restoration needs to account for culture, too

2021 will see the start of the UN Decade on Restoration; as we head towards it, it is essential that the ongoing efforts of indigenous and local communities to restore and steward degraded environments are supported, not side-lined. While at present there is insufficient evidence to determine how much funding is available to support indigenous and local communities’ efforts, it is very likely that it is far less than the contributions that they make, which are key to supporting biodiversity and mitigating the severity of climate change.

To make restoration efforts effective, it will also be important to foreground indigenous and local knowledge. Despite growing awareness of the usefulness of this knowledge — demonstrated in part by the fact that lands in the hands of communities have lower rates of deforestation and forest carbon emissions and maintain higher levels of biodiversity — it continues to be undervalued. Changing this, however, requires a shift in perspective about conservation: culture and nature are intertwined; activities that support cultural diversity will also help to support biological diversity.

This interconnectedness is apparent in the efforts of the Network of Weavers of the Indigenous Reserve of Ipiales, located in the Nariño Department, which began originally to revitalise a local fabric based on the knowledge of indigenous Pastos communtiies. Over time, the Network has helped to recover knowledge about weaving, medicinal plants, traditional foods and spiritual ceremonies – and in doing so, reviving cultural traditions that help to conserve and protect the environment.

Read more about the Network of Weavers of the Ipiales Indigenous Reserve.

This piece draws from three stories that will be highlighted in the forthcoming second edition of Local Biodiversity Outlooks. Find out more about the project and sign up to be notified when the second edition is published.