New Straits Times

September 21, 2021
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is one of the foremost global organisations advocating the protection of nature.

Governments and civil society organisations convened in 1948 to create the IUCN to protect nature, encourage international cooperation, and provide scientific knowledge and tools to guide conservation.

IUCN played a fundamental role in creating the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971), the World Heritage Convention (1972), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, (1974) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992).

Today, with more than 1,300 members, including states, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and indigenous peoples' organisations, and thousands of supportive experts, IUCN continues to champion nature-based solutions, such as he United Nations' Paris climate change agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

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Path To Scale

September 16, 2021
Launch Announcement: Today an informal network of donors and financial institutions launched Path to Scale which aims to scale-up funding and other enabling factors to secure the land and resource rights, conservation, and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant Peoples to the levels necessary to meet 2030 global climate and biodiversity targets.

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France 24

September 10, 2021
The world's most influential conservation congress passed resolutions Friday calling for 80 percent of the Amazon and 30 percent of Earth's surface -- land and sea -- to be designated "protected areas" to halt and reverse the loss of wildlife.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which is meeting in Marseille, does not set global policy, but its recommendations have in the past served as the backbone for UN treaties and conventions.

They will help set the agenda for upcoming UN summits on food systems, biodiversity and climate change.

- Saving the Amazon -

An emergency motion calling for four-fifths of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025 -- submitted by COICA, an umbrella group representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations -- passed with overwhelming support.

"Indigenous Peoples have come to defend our home and, in doing so, defend the planet. This motion is a first step," said Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, general coordinator of COICA and a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela.

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Campaign for Nature

September 10, 2021
Members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature meeting in France for the World Conservation Congress approved today a much-anticipated motion to protect at least 30% of land and ocean by 2030, known as 30x30. Motion 101 calls on IUCN members to support:

• recognition of “the evolving science, the majority of which supports protecting, conserving and restoring at least half or more of  the planet is likely necessary to reverse biodiversity loss, address climate change and as a foundation for sustainably managing the whole planet.”

• “at a minimum, a target of effectively and equitably protecting and conserving at least 30% of terrestrial areas and of inland waters … and of coastal and marine areas, respectively, with a focus on sites of particular importance for biodiversity, in well-connected systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) by 2030 in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.”

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Mongabay

August 31, 2021
In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030 via protected areas, other effective conservation measures (OECMs), and Indigenous- and community-led conservation. One of the products of that commitment is the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to turn that 30×30 target into a reality.

The Director of Campaign for Nature is Brian O’Donnell, who previously headed the Conservation Lands Foundation and worked as the Public Lands Director of Trout Unlimited. O’Donnell told Mongabay that in the three years since its launch, more than 70 countries have endorsed the “30×30” goal, ranging from G7 nations to Costa Rica. Those endorsements have been supported by the development of sub-initiatives and alliances, including the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and Global Oceans Alliance.

And critically, says O’Donnell, one of the key tenets of the campaign — centering conservation efforts around the rights of Indigenous Peoples — has continued to gain traction and prominence in 30×30 discussions.

“Campaign for Nature seeks to ensure that Indigenous and local community rights are advanced in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, as Indigenous peoples and local communities have demonstrated that they are incredibly effective stewards of biodiversity and success for a Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will rely on this,” O’Donnell told Mongabay.

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Conservation International

August 9, 2021
Nature is in crisis: Nearly 1 million species face extinction due to human activities and climate change.

To help prevent widespread ecological collapse, many world leaders have rallied around a common goal to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030 — a target informally known as the “30 by 30" initiative.

However, the environmental movement has a complicated past when it comes to working with the world’s Indigenous peoples. Though they are custodians of more than a quarter of Earth’s land and seas and protect 80 percent of global biodiversity, Indigenous peoples have frequently been sidelined from environmental efforts — in some cases, even removed from their territories in the name of conservation.

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One Earth - Commentary

July 23, 2021

The territories of Indigenous peoples and local communities contain 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity and intersect about 40% of all terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 global assessment stressed the important role of these communities in biodiversity conservation by noting that 35% of the areas formally protected and 35% of all remaining terrestrial areas with very low human intervention are traditionally owned, managed, used, or occupied by Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous peoples sustain nature because we know we are a part of nature. We realize that trying to bend nature to our will would harm us as well as the animals, plants, and ecosystems we all depend on. Instead, Indigenous peoples have a reciprocal relationship with our territories. We know that if we take care of the land, the land will take care of us. And so, we honor our cultural responsibility to be careful stewards. When these relationships are respected and when the rights and responsibilities of Indigenous peoples are recognized and supported, the entire planet will benefit. Our territories span massive, vibrant areas that serve as sanctuaries for humans, animals, and plants; hold massive amounts of carbon; and ensure the health of our water and air. These lands—and the Indigenous relationship to them—have global significance, especially as governments seek ways to achieve increasingly urgent biodiversity and climate goals.

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Landscape News

June 24, 2021
Even though Indigenous communities protect some of the most critically important forest ecosystems, conserving a wealth of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage, they remain woefully shortchanged with aid money for climate mitigation, receiving less than 1 percent of such earmarked funding. While development aid for climate mitigation is more than USD 30 billion annually across the globe, support to Indigenous communities for tenure and forest management adds up to an annual USD 270 million, according to a new report put out by Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN).

What’s more, the amount Indigenous communities receive directly is even less, as most of that funding flows through large organizations. Only a little over USD 46 million a year goes to projects that include the name of an Indigenous or local community in the project implementation description. This is an indication, says RFN senior policy advisor Torbjørn Gjefsen, of how few climate mitigation projects are done in direct cooperation with Indigenous peoples.

“It’s an appalling mismatch between the needs, opportunities and resource commitments from donors,” says Alain Frechette, executive director of the Rights and Resources Institute. “Donors and governments need to shift the balance in favor of rights-based actions.”

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Vox

June 11, 2021
In a lush swath of tropical forest on the eastern coast of Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines, you can glimpse the brilliant plumage of the rare rufous-lored kingfisher or — if you’re lucky — hear the shrill cry of the large Philippine eagle, a critically endangered species.

Wildlife is abundant here, but not because the region was left untouched in a protected area, or conserved by an international environmental organization. It’s because the territory known as Pangasananan has been occupied for centuries by the Manobo people, who have long relied on the land to cultivate crops, hunt and fish, and gather herbs. They use a number of techniques to conserve the land, from restricting access to sacred areas to designating wildlife sanctuaries and an offseason for hunting, owing in part to a traditional belief that nature and its resources are guarded by spirits.

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Eco-Business

June 8, 2021
From forest fires raging across five continents to glaciers melting faster than ever before, the world looks increasingly apocalyptic. The good news is there is a simple solution, and I witness it daily in my conservation work: invest in indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) living in and around our wild places to conserve 30 per cent of our planet’s land and water by 2030.

Protecting one-third of the Earth is the magic fraction global scientists have identified will avert what looks increasingly like the end of the world. By setting aside the planet’s last wild places for biodiversity, they can sustain the other two-thirds we as a global community require for drinking water, a stable climate, and our agricultural needs.

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Mongabay

June 4, 2021
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Canada’s McGill University, most tropical forested countries looking to benefit from these markets still need to define the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples over carbon in their customary lands and territories.

If these rights are not meaningfully recognized, the researchers argue, the viability of these nature-based solutions will be fundamentally threatened.

RRI has tracked the land rights of Indigenous communities throughout the world for two decades. This latest research is in the context of a global task force established to rapidly expand voluntary carbon markets. Major international corporations like Amazon, Unilever, Salesforce, Airbnb and Nestlé, as part of the LEAF coalition, are pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion using Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.

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