The 30x30 Pledge
After two years of delays, the dates of the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) were finally confirmed last week. Senior politicians, ministers, businesses, press and civil society from across the world will meet in Montreal this December to agree new pledges and commitments that will protect and promote biodiversity - the ‘Paris Agreement for nature’.
At the top of the list of expected agreements for COP 15 is the ‘30x30’ pledge - a commitment to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. Over 50 countries including the UK have so far joined the pledge to expand protected areas for nature, in order to reverse the global trend of biodiversity loss.
And though groups like the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, Campaign for Nature and the Rights and Resources Initiative stress the indisputable role that Indigenous peoples will play in this work, as well as the need for countries to take a rights-based approach in their efforts to protect 30% of their territories, PBI joins our allies across the human rights world in expressing fears that expanding traditional methods of conservation will cost Indigenous and local lives.
Violent conservation: Maasai land in Tanzania
On June 10th, land disputes in Loliondo, Tanzania led to a violent confrontation between the Maasai communities and the police, killing one person and injuring over 30 others. Thousands more were forced to flee their ancestral lands, fearing arrest for protesting attempts to forcibly evict them from their land for conservation projects and game reserves. The Maasai community are a semi-nomadic tribe that live mainly in Tanzania and Kenya and move seasonally with their cattle. Their access to their land has been restricted as part of a series of conservation laws and land ordinances dating back to colonial times. The continual insecurity of their land tenure has created an environment of fear, restricting their movements and prohibiting crop cultivation and livestock grazing.
However, the Maasai communities are not alone in facing forced evictions and displacements in the name of conservation.
30x30: conservation by coercion
Activists around the world are concerned that these incidents will increase with the 30x30 worldwide initiative, with claims that meeting the 30x30 pledge could directly displace and dispossess 300 million people, with many more indirectly affected. The field of conservation (like human rights and many other noble struggles) has a long, bloodied, colonial history which must be recognised and redressed if the 30x30 campaign is to succeed.
As seen in Tanzania and Honduras, those claiming to protect land sometimes do so at the expense of Indigenous peoples and local communities who have sustainably owned, managed, and occupied biodiverse lands peacefully for generations. Indigenous, local, and Afro-Descendant communities currently manage over half of the world’s land, but tenure is rarely legally protected, leaving the door open for land grabs and abuse.
It stands to reason that the 30% of the world which we should prioritise protecting is the most biodiverse 30%. The challenge, according to Kanyinke Sena, director of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee, is “to conserve [this] biodiversity with people in” rather than shutting out the rightful owners and protectors of the Earth. Doing so would not only violate the rights of indigenous communities across the world, but also go against a large body of evidence that points to Indigenous people as the principle and most effective protectors of the environment, responsible for safeguarding 80 percent of Earth’s remaining biodiversity.
Earlier this year the UN Food and Agriculture organisation published a report showing that deforestation rates were significantly lower in areas where there was formal recognition of collective Indigenous land rights and that, in countries such as Guatemala, community-managed forest concessions have better conservation outcomes than protected areas.
Moreover, indigenous and local knowledge and agriculture practices are essential to understanding and protecting the environment. Indigenous communities’ long standing relationship with the land means that their knowledge is context-specific and embedded in their institutions and practices, and that it is particularly useful in areas where there is limited formal data collection. For centuries this knowledge has been used to predict natural disasters, identify longer-term climate changes and sustainably harvest forests. Their knowledge should be at the heart of any plan to protect the environment.
Protecting and supporting Indigenous peoples is paramount to confronting the climate crisis. The IPCC has recognised that, in order to combat the climate crisis, the voices of those indigenous communities and environmentalists already beginning to suffer its consequences must be heard. Yet many live in fear of speaking out. More than four land and environmental defenders have been killed every week since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. PBI accompanies Indigenous, land and environmental defenders across eight countries, who are working in the face of threats against them and their families. We are working hard to protect them and ensure that their voices are heard. It is high time that decision-makers listen.
