There is an urgency to recognize the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) and to ensure protection of fundamental rights of marginalized peoples, with particular emphasis on women and children within the vulnerable groups.
Land rights issues and the recognition of proactive involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the protection and conservation of important natural landscapes and biodiversity sensitive areas around the world feature strongly in almost every forum on environment and human rights at the inter-continental and global platforms.
Similarly focused as in several other forums, a recent technical report of the Rights and Resource Initiative (RRI), titled as ‘Rights-Based Conservation: The path to preserving Earth’s biological and cultural diversity’, calls upon Governments cutting across differences to implement culturally appropriate legal, institutional, and regulatory reforms to recognize and protect the customary land and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPLCs).
The RRI report specifically called upon States to “Establish and finance national accountability and reparation mechanisms” to address past and present human rights violations in state-sanctioned protected areas as well as privately managed conservation areas.
The call focuses on the urgency to recognize the rights of IPLCs and to ensure protection of fundamental rights of marginalized peoples, with particular emphasis on women and children within the vulnerable groups, over existing protected areas and in important biodiversity conservation areas.
The suggestion for States is to work with organizations representing these groups to develop culturally appropriate frameworks for rights-based conservation regimes, and to uphold the distinct and differentiated rights of the IPLCs, including their right to self-determination, locally adapted governance institutions, and culturally appropriate land use priorities.
The Rights and Resource Initiative specifically calls for States to ensure that Indigenous and community conservation efforts are counted in post-2020 global biodiversity strategy targets. This, the organization says, will enable the integration of Indigenous land rights into national conservation plans and provide recognition for the conservation contributions of these groups.
Land rights issues is a major concern across the globe specifically in those areas where IPLCs thrive in natural landscapes, generations after generations, in what is best described as their ‘traditional territory’ or ‘territories of life’ within which they exist in harmony with Nature.
The intervention by States, and business communities with nexus to power and money, for so-said developmental projects and other schemes often than not result in conflicts of interest between local people and the States, sometimes prolonged for years on end without coming to any sort of amicable solutions.
In Manipur, a typical case study is the years of conflict of interest between local fishing community and State over issues on rights to life and rights to resource use of the freshwater Loktak Lake, a major wetland in the central Manipur valley which has been in the centre-stage of intense violation of human rights over the local fishers who traditionally access the water spread of the lake to eke their living by fishing as their primary and only occupation.
Filtering over from Loktak is the emerging concerns of local communities settled around Pumlen wetland in Kakching District of the State, again over issues on land rights and the question on limitation of the locals from resource use of the wetland as is traditionally practiced by the locals through generations. Similarly is a recent case with local people utilizing the resources of Ungamel wetland which is adjacent to Keibul Lamjao National Park, in the southern tip of Loktak.
Cases on land rights and concerns on deprivation of basic rights to resource use by local communities are also reported from few locations in the uplands of Manipur. A prominent case study is the local people’s objection to the stalled final proclamation of the Shirui-Kashong National Park in Ukhrul District, pending for around three decades to date. Few sites proposed as wildlife sanctuaries by the State in the hill districts, too, are facing objections from the local communities on similar grounds.
Looking deeper into these emerging issues and understanding the IPLCs’ statement on their rights is the focus area of the global platform ICCA Consortium, an initiative of several individuals and community organizations spread across the globe – ranging from the Canada Arctic to the Americas, Africa, Asia-Pacific and Australia.
The ICCA – Indigenous Territories and Community Conserved Areas – Consortium is broadly recognized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as an emerging entity represented by IPLCs who have governed and managed their ancient territories whereupon they largely depend for their living, livelihood and sustenance.
In further explaining ICCAs, the RRI technical report states that, “Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendants steward the lands and waters of their territories as a matter of survival, health and the collective wellbeing of all life co-inhabiting areas. These ‘territories of life’, abbreviated as ICCAs, embody the multitude of complex relationships, values, and beliefs that conserve biological and cultural diversity. ICCAs formally entered international discourses through the IUCN World Conservation Congress 2008 held in Barcelona and are at the heart of IPLCs’ identities, cultures, histories and livelihoods”.
The United Nations had also broadly acknowledged that natural landscapes and biodiversity sensitive areas where Indigenous Peoples thrive in harmony with Nature are better managed and well protected by the local people as compared to protected areas under States’ governance.
This assertion rises from the bare facts that for the Indigenous Peoples their survival are intricately related to the natural surroundings upon which they primarily depend much for all of their basic needs – from food and medicine to shelter and clothing.
Elaborating on the face value of IPLCs’ contribution towards conservation, the RRI report says, “Both existing protected areas and proposed conservation areas are inhabited by large numbers of IPLCs who are estimated to customarily manage at least 50 percent of the planet’s terrestrial area. Forty percent of existing protected areas and 36 percent of intact forest landscapes are estimated to overlap with Indigenous territories. When local communities’ and Afro-descendants’ claimed lands are included, these overlaps could be as high as 80 percent”.
“A common interest exists between IPLCs claiming customary ownership and governance rights over their traditional lands and conservation actors attempting to conserve the biodiversity held within these ‘territories of life’. However, if historical patterns of protected area formation are followed for proposed expansion, IPLCs who inhabit high-conservation-value landscapes will be deeply affected by centrally applied conservation efforts that displace, exclude, or limit access to land and natural resources”.
The RRI defines ‘Indigenous Peoples’ as per the broad definition of the International Labor Organization (ILO)’s Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, wherein, ‘Indigenous Peoples’ are those ‘tribal and traditional peoples whose social, cultural, and economic conditions distinguish them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations, and whose livelihoods are closely connected to ecosystems and their goods and services’.
The Rights and Resources Initiative is a global Coalition of more than 200 organizations dedicated to advancing the forestland and resource rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, local communities, and women within these communities.
(The writer is a media professional working on environmental issues. He can be reached at [email protected])