Recognizing and Supporting International Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) and Other Community Conservation Initiatives within the Convention of Biological Diversity

Street Art, Montreal, Canada

Natural Justice’s Cath Traynor recently joined Global Forest Coalition (GFC), the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Area (ICCA) Consortium, and the Community Conservation Resilience Initiative (CCRI) at the Twentieth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), 25-30 April and the First meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) 2-6 May, Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, Canada.

Both SBSTTA and SBI considered a range of agenda items relevant to indigenous peoples’ and community conserved territories and areas and other forms of community conservation. Position papers were produced for both meetings and for each key agenda item the papers highlighted key issues and additional documents and identified how to strengthen the draft recommendations to more appropriately recognise and support ICCAs and other forms of community conservation. During both meetings GFC, ICCA Consortium and CCRI members actively followed key items, presented statements, and submissions to the Secretariat and hosted a Side Event. An important item under consideration was the mainstreaming of biodiversity and ahead of the meetings GFC released a Briefing Paper on ‘Mainstreaming Biodiversity and the Resilience of Community Conservation’ which outlines how mainstreaming requires reforming a diverse range of sectors and processes that are currently harming biodiversity and the peoples and communities who depend directly upon biodiversity for their survival, livelihoods and culture. The paper illustrates how ICCAs and other forms of community conservation can play a key role in the process and considers challenges, the importance of governance, mainstreaming in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors and provides recommendations.

Both SBSTTA and SBI produced recommendations which will be considered at the Thirteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will take place 4-17 December, 2016, Cancun, Mexico.

International Meeting of the ICCA Consortium

The Indigenous Peoples' and Community Conserved Territories and Areas (ICCA) Consortium held its annual international meeting, including its General Assembly from the 4th-6th of October, in Valdeavellano de Tera, Spain. 

Natural Justice is a founding member of the ICCA Consortium and Holly Shrumm (Natural Justice) and Lesle Jansen (Natural Justice) are its International Policy Adviser and Co-ordinator for Southern and East Africa respectively. 

During the 3 days, members of the Consortium from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe shared their experiences on work with ICCAs. Among the discussions were experiences from Philippines and Europe in which communities have been able to successfully protect their ICCAs.

Video Repository on Forest Commodification

Forests are facing immense challenges from the increased commodification of their resources. Some incoming policies may worsen these challenges dramatically. To highlight the lived experiences of communities affected by forest commodification, the Global Forest Coalition has launched a repository of videos gathered from a variety of organisations and contexts. The repository has been launched as government representatives gather for the 18th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to highlight the results of commodification and the dangers of policies that ignore or intensify commodification processes. The repository organises the videos into three key thematic areas: exporting commodities; carbon: schemes, scams & cowboys; and rights and resistance.

The repository can be accessed here.