At the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2014 in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, the Executive Secretary of the Convention, Braulio Ferreira de Souza Dias, launched ICCAs and Aichi Targets: The Contribution of Indigenous Peoples' and Local Community Conserved Territories and Areas to the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–20 (http://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/ICCA-Briefing-Note-1-200-dpi.pdf). This publication describes, with examples, how community conservation is helping to implement the Convention's Strategic Plan, and how this could be enhanced with appropriate recognition and support.
Indigenous peoples' and local community conserved territories and areas (ICCAs) are found around the globe, and include many indigenous (including mobile) peoples’ territories, community forests, sacred natural sites, community-managed coastal and marine areas, wildlife roosting and feeding sites, pasturelands and others. They may cover as much or more of the world than official protected areas. ICCAs are embedded in territorial, resource, cultural and human rights, are the basis of survival and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people, and help sustain ecosystems, species, and ecosystem functions. Their primary motivations and objectives are ethical, economic, political, cultural, material, and/or spiritual; often they are simply a people's or community's way of life. They are recognized in international policy, including in the CBD, and by global organizations such as IUCN. The term ICCA is used as a convenient umbrella (much like the term indigenous people or local community), and is not meant to displace the diversity of local terms.
ICCAs contribute to the CBD Strategic Plan of Action (and specifically the Aichi targets, http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/) in many ways: they embody and help spread awareness of the values of biodiversity (Target 1), contribute to national development, sustainability, poverty reduction and biodiversity plans (Targets 2, 4, 17), involve systems of rules that combine incentives and disincentives for sustaining biodiversity (Target 3), contribute significantly to reducing natural habitat loss, sustaining fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, including coral reefs, and conserving threatened species (Targets 5, 6, 10, 12), are the world's best chance of achieving an increase in conservation coverage in ways that are equitable and effective (Target 11), encompass sustainably managed production ecosystems, including agriculture, aquaculture, forestry, and the domesticated and related wild diversity contained in them (Targets 7, 13), use innovative strategies to help restore and safeguard ecosystem functions, including through reducing or eliminating pollution and tackling invasive species (Targets 8, 9, 14), provide climate resilience through connectivity, migration corridors, mitigation and adaptation of various kinds (Target 15), are a powerful means of achieving equitable access and secure benefits for communities (Target 16), embody sophisticated and diverse forms of knowledge, including traditional and modern science and technology (Targets 18, 19), and present innovative means of financing and provisioning (including through non-financial, voluntary means) biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of biological resources.
Yet ICCAs face multiple threats from lack of tenurial security, the extractive industry and inappropriate development, imposition of inappropriate land uses, including government protected areas and industrial agriculture, internal inequalities and injustices relating to gender, class, caste, ethnicity, race and others, demographic and cultural changes eroding traditional cultural values, and incursion of external markets. These problems are often exacerbated, or occur, because of the lack of recognition of ICCAs, especially at national and sub-national levels. Despite 10 years of the existence of the CBD's Programme of Work on Protected Areas, which requires countries to provide recognition to ICCAs, most countries are yet to provide adequate and appropriate recognition to ICCAs. More recently, ICCAs are facing the threat of commodification from programmes such as REDD, particularly when these are implemented in the absence of tenurial security and recognition of community governance.
The contribution of ICCAs to conservation could be significantly enhanced through recognition of collective territorial and resource rights, customary governance institutions, and local/traditional knowledge and practices. They also need facilitation in documentation, assessment, outreach, capacity enhancement and public awareness, help in resisting threats, and support for appropriate livelihood activities, skills and new knowledge, in particular for the younger generation. In many situations the empowerment of women, landless people, minorities and other weaker sections of peoples or communities is required to allow them to play an equitable part in decision-making.
