11 Jan Sharing Power – The End Of ‘fortress’ Conservation? (Voxy News Engine)
Will conservation organisations finally take practical action to implement agreed commitments that recognise the rights of indigenous peoples in protected areas?
Over the last 10 years governments and conservation organisations have made significant commitments to uphold the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities in protected area policies and activities. However, on the ground, the impoverishment of indigenous peoples and the displacement from their ancestral homelands due to protected areas are still the hidden costs of conservation. Despite indigenous peoples gaining increasing recognition as the guardians of forests, wetlands, seas and other ecosystems they depend on, they continue to be left out of many conservation organisations’ discussions and projects concerned with preventing biodiversity loss and saving charismatic species and habitats. With the potential for dramatically increased funding for conservation, stemming from payments to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD), and the Convention on Biological Diversity’s targeted expansion of protected area coverage to 17% of the earth’s land surface and 10% of the marine surface by 2020, it is essential that states and conservation organisations immediately implement procedures and actions to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples across the globe.
The spotlight is now on a high-level dialogue between indigenous peoples’ representatives and the IUCN, the world’s oldest and largest international environmental network of governments, NGOs and scientists. This dialogue will take place on January 12th 2011 at the Sharing Power conference in New Zealand and aims to find concrete ways in which IUCN will effectively implement various resolutions and recommendations in favour of indigenous peoples, adopted at the World Parks Congress 2003 and the World Conservation Congresses 2004 and 2008. …Go to article.