IIFB Press Conference: “Islands of nature in a sea of decline – Indigenous & local knowledge, action and contributions key to the global agreement to save nature”

• Tues 15 Mar 2022
• 10:00 CET
• Join us: https://bit.ly/3t8kBqz

Summary

Join us on 15 March 2022 (International Conference Centre), Geneva, Switzerland (or online) to hear from an expert panel on the critical role of IPLCs in a new agreement to save nature, the Global Biodiversity Framework. 

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities are key actors in the conservation of nature. It is no coincidence that the world’s last remaining forests and 80% of the biodiversity of the planet are found in territories that are managed, owned and under the control of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. 

A UN report found that “nature managed by indigenous peoples and local communities is under increasing pressure…but declining less rapidly than in other areas of the world.”

Increasingly, these ‘islands’ of great biological and cultural diversity found on indigenous and local community lands are being surrounded by declining resilience in vast tracts of the earth. This difference in biodiversity directly correlates with the value systems through which societies view nature.

“Indigenous peoples don’t see nature as separate from people, and neither should the Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Joji Carino, member of International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, speaking at the Geneva Meetings. 

“Government can no longer treat biodiversity and humans as separate if we are to really advance negotiations. We are so closely interrelated,” she said. 

Lakpa Nuri Sherpa of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and member of IIFB said “We [Indigenous Peoples] interact with nature every day – we have spiritual and sacred relationships with our natural resources, we manage our lands in a sustainable way so we can pass it on to the next generation."

“We must continue to fight for our rights to our lands, territories and resources – if we don’t have rights, if we are attacked, we cannot protect our forests – they take the resources from our lands, but we care for these lands,” said Nuri Sherpa.

“Without security for our collective land [and resource] rights, the land can be exploited, nature loses out, and there’s nothing to pass on to the next generation,” he said.

A Human Rights Based Approach is crucial to a successful negotiation

“A human rights based approach is crucial to a successful Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Lucy Mulenkei, Co-Chair of the IIFB. 

“Such an approach would mean that biodiversity policies, governance and management do not violate human rights, and those implementing such policies should actively seek ways to support and promote human rights in their design and implementation,” she said. 

The effective implementation of a real human-rights-based approach requires a more holistic approach than currently suggested in the draft of the framework. It requires strengthening and improvements across all aspects of the framework but especially regarding: goals, targets, monitoring framework, enabling conditions, National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs). 

“The future of any successful framework requires the integration of human rights across all issues - not just in environmental agreements, but more holistically, in agriculture, fisheries, tourism, and our entire ways of life,” said Mulenkei. 

A new report by the Human Rights Working Group, released this week at the Geneva meetings, stated that: Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ ways of life and territories are part of the solution to our global crises and must be identified and supported across the framework. This must include recognition of rights over lands, territories and resources, in area-based measures, in customary sustainable use, in traditional knowledge and in full and effective participation.

In this press conference, Indigenous and Local Community representatives of the IIFB will present their views and proposals for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.

“The UNGA adopted the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007,” said Anne Nuorgam (IIFB Member, and Member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues). 

“We must remind the member states that this needs to be implemented in these biodiversity negotiations, and adopted as a part of the human rights based approach to the [Global Biodiversity] Framework,” she said.

The Framework will set the global agenda for the next 30 years (2020-2030 to 2050), and the participation and the respect of Indigenous Peoples rights is crucial to ensure the protection of nature by protecting rights as Indigenous Peoples.

Note to media outlets

Panellists from this session will be available for interview throughout the Geneva CBD March Meetings. Images are available on request. Please contact:

• Tom Dixon, Communications Manager, Forest Peoples  Programme. 
• [email protected] +44 7876 397915

Key spokespeople

Ramiro Batzin (IIFB)

Lakpa Nuri Sherpa (AIPP, IIFB)

Jennifer Tauli Corpuz (IIFB, Nia Tero)

Viviana Figueroa (IIFB)

Anne Nourgam (IIFB, UNPFII)

ENDS