Keepers of the Earth ProgramSM
Indigenous Peoples have generations of experience in the sustained productivity of protected environments. Today, as the global environment and Indigenous cultures both whither away from short-term exploitation and misguided conservation, Indigenous Peoples are trying to restore the relationship between the sustained protection of natural resources, and their sustainable productivity.
For centuries, their natural resource assets have been productive because the Keepers of the Earth, Indigenous Peoples, protected their environments. But today, the long relationship between protection and production has been overwhelmed by the asset-stripping and short-term economic exploitation of almost every environment on earth. Once more for emphasis: Indigenous Peoples are trying to restore the relationship between the sustained protection of natural resources, and their sustainable productivity.
Indigenous Peoples inhabit more than 85 percent of the earth's protected areas; their territories span most of the last remaining, biodiversity-rich, conservation priority areas of the new century; and they maintain traditional land claims on 18 to 24 percent of the earth's land surface.
This convergence of significant, biodiversity-rich areas on Indigenous territories presents an enormous opportunity to expand conservation beyond any current strategies, and on a scale to save the planet.
If only half of Indigenous territories became Indigenous Stewardship Areas, it could place an additional 12 percent of the world's land surface under protected status. These protected areas, combined with the over 12 percent of the earth's land surface already under conventional protected status, would double the world's land surface under conservation protection – almost one quarter of the globe would be protected from environmental degradation, and much of it would still be available for sustainable productive use.
Indigenous communities have substantially increased their own investments in conservation over the past decade. They have done so, in most cases, not because they have extra resources to invest, but because they know they will have no natural resources whatsoever if they don't protect their environments.
Keepers of the Earth advocates equitable funding for the conservation efforts of Indigenous communities on their own territories.
Purpose of Keepers of the Earth
First Peoples Worldwide has developed the Keepers of the Earth Program and Fund to help build the capacity of Indigenous Peoples through technical support and training. The ultimatum goal is for them to establish and manage Indigenous Stewardship Areas on their own homelands. Immeasurable human costs, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative costs, could be saved by empowering Indigenous Peoples to practice biodiversity conservation and sustainable land use on their homelands, rather than evicting them in favor of outside management. In the process, Indigenous Peoples will restore the relationship between sustained protection of natural resources, and their sustainable productivity – a contribution of incalculable value to conservation and the global environment.
The Keepers of the Earth Program strives to protect Indigenous rights to subsistence hunting and gathering, access to sacred sites, and customary cultural practices—all within a balance of biodiversity protection and sustainable economic production on Indigenous territories.
Keepers of the Earth calls for conservation projects and initiatives to be held legally accountable to international human rights standards: no evictions, no forced relocation, and no torture in the name of conservation. Under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, their free prior and informed consent to outsider plans for them must become standard. Ongoing research and advocacy is demonstrating the success of the Indigenous Stewardship model, which will be used to advocate for equitable conservation funding for Indigenous communities. Initial analysis within the Keepers of the Earth Program suggests that less than one percent of the billions of dollars spent annually on biodiversity conservation goes to Indigenous Peoples.
The Keepers of the Earth Fund supports Indigenous communities and organizations in meeting their asset-based development goals. To read more about these funding opportunities, please visit the Grants page.
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First Peoples Worldwide
857 Leeland Road • Fredericksburg, VA 22405 • USA
info@firstpeoples.org • (540) 899-6545
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| © Copyright 2007-2011, First Peoples Worldwide
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