1.Front section - IUCN

Protected areas and indigenous peoples: the Durban contributions to reconciliation and equity 9
clarifying roles and responsibilities between national
and subsidiary levels. Most countries will require the
combination of several governance approaches e.g.
through strengthening co-management mechanisms in
existing government-managed areas, supporting
indigenous peoples in establishing communityconserved
areas and, importantly, establishing corridors
between, and networks of, protected areas. In
Colombia, for example, the Matavén Forest Indigenous
Territory, covering 1,849,613 hectares, comprises 16
indigenous territories of six indigenous peoples, who
collaborate on management issues through an
association of traditional authorities, while relying on
the central support of the government (Oviedo, 2002).
Improving quality, effectiveness and
reporting of protected area management
Improving quality and effective delivery of protected
area objectives serves as a major incentive for
securing indigenous buy-in to protected area
strategies. The Durban Action Plan emphasised the
importance of ensuring “sufficient knowledge of
trends in ecological, environmental, social, cultural
and economic indicators” along with recognising the
value of indigenous and traditional knowledge. This
means emphasising the role of socio-economic and
cultural objectives in assessing effectiveness. Are
protected areas effective in reaching cultural
objectives Do they provide indigenous peoples the
benefits agreed upon The Durban CBD message
highlighted the importance of socio-economic criteria
for evaluating the performance of all protected areas.
Even, and perhaps especially, strictly protected areas
have socio-economic impacts, which need to be fully
addressed when evaluating effectiveness.
Four key steps and their
benchmarks towards
2010/2012 targets
A broad reconciliatory agenda is needed responding
to the aforementioned policy objectives in the
implementation of the Durban Action Plan and the
CBD programme of work on protected areas. Such an
agenda could be structured around the key elements of
both instruments, with their targets guiding specific
actions and serving to monitor and assess progress.
In order to avoid compartmentalized action, four key
steps are proposed below to situate these policy
elements in overall system design and
implementation. As these targets are mainly
‘procedural’ involving the conduct of reviews,
ensuring participation, and establishing mechanisms
and systems, it is fundamental to qualify
implementation through a number of benchmark
indicators to review progress on the substantive issues
at stake. Such indicative benchmark indicators are
suggested below.
STEP 1: Effective involvement of
indigenous peoples in national and
regional gap analyses, protected area
reviews and system planning processes
Goal 1.1, considered the ‘overall purpose’ of the CBD
programme of work on protected areas, aims to
establish and strengthen national and regional
protected area systems by 2010 (terrestrially) and
2012 (marine). Suggested activities by Parties include
gap analyses (1.1.5) and national reviews, by 2006, of
“existing and potential forms of conservation”
including “innovative types of governance” – with full
and effective participation of indigenous and local
communities (1.1.4). Furthermore, Parties are
suggested to “encourage the establishment of
protected areas that benefit indigenous and local
communities” (1.1.7). These activities are all the more
important given that the gap analyses will establish
baseline data for the further establishment of new
protected areas. The considerable overlap between
areas of high biodiversity and those of cultural
diversity (Oviedo et al., 2000) provide a fundamental
reason for fully exploring effective conservation
solutions with the indigenous peoples concerned.
Second, it is fundamental that indigenous protected
area strategies are effectively linked with, rather than
separate from, national systems and approaches.
Suggested activity 2.2.1 is clear on the necessity of
participatory national reviews. It calls for protected
area agencies to “Carry out participatory national
reviews of the status, needs and context-specific
mechanisms for involving stakeholders, ensuring
gender and social equity, in protected areas policy and
management, at the level of national policy, protected
area systems and individual sites.” In order for this to
123