Overview
Background
Indigenous Peoples’ territories span many of the last remaining biodiversity-rich wilderness areas and most of the major conservation priorities for this century. Outside parties such as conservationists and environmental NGOs routinely carve protected areas out of Indigenous territories without notice to or consultation with the inhabitants. In many cases the Indigenous Peoples are involuntarily removed from their ancestral land to create “pristine” (people-free) protected areas.
As their lands are stripped, their sources of food, trade and medicines are taken away, and their livelihoods threatened by outside interests Indigenous Peoples are at increasing risk of poverty, disease, social unrest, and, in some cases, cultural extinction. It is absolutely imperative to the survival of Indigenous Peoples that the effects of external biodiversity conservation efforts be stopped and reversed, and addressing this issue is a priority for First Peoples Worldwide.
First Peoples believes that Indigenous Peoples’ traditional management systems are based in valid principles of biodiversity conservation. Traditional knowledge is invigorated and validated by continued application and adaptation, but without a contemporary operating context, traditional knowledge is in danger of dying out. First Peoples will help to hardwire traditional knowledge into biodiversity conservation programs by helping Indigenous communities codify cultural and traditional stewardship practices and incorporate them into natural resource management plans.
Purpose of the Initiative
First Peoples has developed the Indigenous Stewardship InitiativeSM to help build the capacity of Indigenous Peoples through technical support and training and to establish and manage protected 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.
The Indigenous Stewardship Initiative strives to protect the rights to subsistence hunting and gathering, access to sacred sites, and traditional and cultural practices—all with an understanding of how to balance biodiversity protection with sustainable economic development in Indigenous territories.
The Initiative calls for conservation initiatives to be held legally accountable to international human rights standards: no evictions, no forced relocation, and no torture in the name of conservation. Ongoing research and advocacy will demonstrate the success of the Indigenous Stewardship model, which will be used to advocate for equitable conservation funding for Indigenous communities. Initial analysis by the Indigenous Stewardship Initiative suggests that less than one percent of the billions of dollars spent annually on biodiversity conservation goes to Indigenous Peoples.
The Impact
The convergence of significant, biodiversity-rich areas and indigenous territories presents an enormous opportunity to expand efforts to conserve biodiversity beyond any of our 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 amount of the entire world’s land surface under conservation protection.
The Indigenous Stewardship Initiative will advocate that Indigenous communities receive equitable funding for conservation efforts on their own territories.
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First Peoples Worldwide - A Tides Center project
3307 Bourbon St · Fredericksburg, VA 22408 · (540) 899-6545
info@firstpeoplesworldwide.org
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