Bridging the needs of communities

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COP) in Cali, Colombia, COP16, provides an opportunity to move closer to achieving the world’s biodiversity conservation goals. From Oct 21 to this Friday, this year’s CBD COP follows both the UN Climate Change and Desertification COPs as the last in a triad of “super” COP events taking place in close succession. It follows from the watershed CBD COP15, where the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted.
With a vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050, the Global Biodiversity Framework is historic. It includes a 30 by 30 target — 30% of land and water to be under biodiversity protection by 2030 — and calls for the adoption of innovative modalities for conservation. Given the realities of land use, achieving these ambitious goals to scale up conservation cannot rely on traditional strategies of declaring new national parks and protected areas. “Other Effective Conservation Measures” or OECMs are among the conservation approaches being considered and actively promoted by the global community.
The OECM concept is distinct from the “Protected Area” or PA concept. While conservation is a primary objective of PAs, with OECMs, conservation is not necessarily a primary objective but rather an outcome. Within the OECM framework, land or marine environments not already protected via traditional biodiversity conservation mechanisms can be more formally acknowledged for their biodiversity protection role. This opens up the possibility of a range of existing land management options being folded into the protection and conservation spheres. Depending on national-level standards and interpretation of OECMs, community forests, indigenous community conserved areas, private parks, marshes, and other areas may be designated as OECMs.
Since COP15, countries have advanced efforts to develop more detailed national-level criteria and policy guidance as to what areas may qualify as OECMs. In Asia, these discussions are at various stages, with Japan, the Philippines and Thailand being more advanced in the development of their national OECM criteria.
These efforts are taking place in the context of a world grappling with mounting biodiversity challenges. Globally, 96% of mammal biomass comprises humans and livestock, with wildlife making up only the remaining 4%. Biodiversity levels have plummeted since 1970, with the average size of wildlife populations declining by 73%.
The biodiversity crisis is a global crisis, and one that is inseparable from other looming challenges such as climate change. In economic terms, biodiversity loss could reduce global gross domestic product by an estimated US$2.7 trillion annually by 2030.
It is important to remember that in some countries, the term “biodiversity conservation” continues to be associated with ‘fortress conservation’ approaches that have led to the evictions of indigenous peoples and a raft of other human rights violations. While there is still important progress to be made, attitudes have shifted significantly over the last 30 years. The biodiversity value and contributions of lands and waters traditionally used and managed by indigenous peoples and local communities are better understood and acknowledged in most countries. However, there are still complex and sometimes opposing views in the context of OECM designation. Lessons learned from the fortress vs inclusive protected area debate are relevant here and should inform our way forward.
Indigenous and ethnic minority cultures around the world have a deep and multi-generational understanding and respect for biodiversity. Management practices have been adapted and refined over centuries to reflect highly specialised approaches to living in harmony with natural systems. Is it always a perfect model of co-existence? Certainly not. However, in broad strokes, evidence supports the sustainability and effectiveness of the forest and biodiversity management approaches of indigenous peoples and local communities when land tenure is secure.
However, in Asia, in countries where indigeneity may still not be recognised, indigenous peoples are often categorised as “hill tribes” or “ethnic minorities”. They represent some of the most excluded and persecuted groups that have gone through forced resettlement, removal of children, and systematic repression of indigenous languages and cultures.
Indigenous peoples and local communities, despite being stalwart guardians of biodiversity, are also facing the challenges associated with its potential loss. Indigenous peoples and local communities, no less than the rest of global citizens, depend on the ecosystem services the earth’s biological diversity provides — from pollination, water regulation, microclimate and soil fertility to the cultural and spiritual values deeply rooted and embodied in our natural environs.
The OECM approach could be a powerful mechanism through which indigenous peoples and local communities can have their important role in biodiversity conservation more formally recognised.
Recognition of qualifying areas as OECMs would strengthen the acknowledgement of both the biodiversity occurring in these areas as well as the effectiveness of these communities’ management practices, bringing much needed validation of their indigenous land management practices. OECM designation might also open up ecotourism, national recognition and investment opportunities.
Areas such as community forests, community-managed wetlands and marshes, and Indigenous Community Conserved Areas all hold the potential for being recognised as OECMs. It is important to remember that historically, these areas are also among some of the world’s most tenure-insecure. In many countries, indigenous-managed lands have too often been subject to fortress conservation approaches that have seen indigenous land expropriated and gazetted as national parks.
It is understandable that many indigenous peoples and local communities may approach the establishment of OECMs with suspicion and concerns about what the designation of community-managed lands might actually imply in practice.
The conservation and social justice sectors have long operated in isolation. This is the moment when it is no longer feasible or acceptable to maintain this separation.
As national dialogues on OECMs proceed and the charting out of what OECMs will look like on a country-by-country basis takes place, indigenous peoples and local communities must be a central part of these discussions.
If indigenous peoples and local communities are not engaged, this would be a huge lost opportunity for the global community, which is in deep and existential need of not only protection but also recovery of biodiversity.
Equally, stakeholders must have concrete and meaningful answers to these fundamental questions: How are existing community-based land rights and claims going to be fully protected?
And given the additional insecurity and potential higher degrees of effort associated with ensuring OECM designation, another question that demands multiple practical and tangible answers also emerges: How will local land managers benefit?
It behoves the international community and national OECM bodies alike to think extremely carefully about just how to develop targeted and compelling responses to these fundamental concerns.
Failure to take action could spell failure for the Global Biodiversity Framework, which is one of the most potentially effective tools we have ever had in our fight to preserve the Earth’s fragile ecological life support systems.
Regan Pairojmahakij leads the Climate Change Programme at RECOFTC.