Indigenous Peoples and Conservation Organizations

14 Conservation Partnerships
indigenous peoples and local communities participate
in determining the criteria for measuring sustainability.
If they understand the reasons for
changing behaviors, they are more likely to make
the changes.
There is no blueprint for working with indigenous
peoples. Each situation is different, not
only culturally but socially, politically, economically,
and geographically. While WWF’s
involvement is based on a clear set of principles,
a solid understanding of the links between biological
and cultural diversity, and a genuine
appreciation for indigenous peoples’ contribution
to biodiversity conservation, its operational
approach should be sensitive and flexible in order
to maximize the input of its partners.
2.2 Why Human Rights and
Self-Determination Should Matter
to Conservationists
Indigenous organizations repeatedly and forcefully
insist that development and the environment
must be approached from a human-rights perspective.
The conservation movement has often
responded that human rights are beyond its mission
and mandate. Increasingly the difference
between these two viewpoints is narrowing.
Environmental human rights—the right of present
and future generations to enjoy a healthy life in a
healthy environment—are implicitly at the heart of
the environmental agenda, and will become more
explicitly so in the future. Environmental human
rights are linked to the right to a decent quality of
life and to other related rights recognized in the
International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights. WWF and other conservation
organizations recognize that indigenous groups
cannot be expected to commit themselves to conservation
if their livelihoods are in peril from lack
of secure tenure to land and resources. Indeed, it is
the strength of their claim to the land, coupled with
long histories of managing it wisely, that make
them attractive potential partners for environmental
stewardship. They cannot play this role under conditions
of political oppression and marginalization.
The more people’s basic needs are met and their
rights respected, the more they will be willing and
able to engage in biodiversity conservation because
they understand it is in their own interest to do so.
For indigenous peoples, the question of human
rights is bound up with the struggle for selfdetermination,
which involves control of traditional
resources and cultural autonomy within
existing nation states. WWF acknowledges
indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination,
and has built its own policies on it. When
indigenous peoples define themselves as distinct
nations and seek political autonomy, WWF
respects their efforts to negotiate their status with
governments, but does not consider this to be an
issue on which it must take sides.
III. Key Program Issues for
Conservation Organizations
Collaboration with indigenous peoples falls
under several programmatic areas. This section
explores six of them: 1) participation and prior
informed consent; 2) protected areas; 3) traditional
ecological knowledge and management
practices; 4) alternative economic options and
benefit sharing; 5) mitigation of environmental
impacts; and 6) conservation capacity-building.
Many of these issues are discussed in more detail
in the case studies that follow.
3.1 Prior Informed Consent
Prior informed consent (PIC) is a fundamental
principle for indigenous collaboration with outside
organizations and the basis for protecting all
other rights. PIC requires outsiders proposing
any action to fully inform indigenous groups of
the reasons for the activity, how it will be implemented
in detail, the potential risks involved, and
how this activity realistically can be expected to
affect other aspects of community life in the short
and long terms. If the indigenous community
withholds its consent, no activities can begin, and
activities already under way must be halted. The
following types of activities relevant to biodiversity
conservation should be subject to PIC:
• the extraction of renewable or nonrenewable
resources from indigenous communities
or their territories;
• the acquisition of knowledge from a person
or people, whether for commercial or noncommercial
purposes; and
• all projects affecting indigenous communities,
including infrastructure construction of
roads and dams, and colonization schemes.