1.Front section - IUCN

9
Friends for Life: New partners in support of protected areas
Dani tribe in Wamena market, East Indonesia.
IUCN Photo Library © Jim Thorsell
a new, rights-based, approach to establish equitable
trade-offs and compromise solutions with the
communities concerned. Customary livelihoods may
need to undergo change, but how this takes place must
be identified with the consent of indigenous
communities – and equitably. The implications are
enormous for the protected area world, not least in
terms of revisiting the costs of protected area
establishment.
Yet if protected areas are expected to contribute to
sustainable development goals, as established in both
Durban and the CBD, they must benefit, or at least do
no harm, to indigenous and local communities. This
may make protected areas more expensive, but also
make them more relevant as viable solutions to
governments struggling to reconcile social, economic
and conservation priorities. The legacy of “paper
parks” needs urgent attention. What is important is the
need for the protected area community to integrate
indigenous concerns in all levels of policy
development and strategising. The four key steps and
their accompanying benchmarks listed above intend
to offer concrete advice in this respect. Although
planning realities are seldom as rational and linear,
these benchmarks are fundamental in bridging gaps
through the full recognition and involvement of
indigenous peoples.
Fully understanding the conservation concerns of
indigenous peoples allows for a bottom-up
construction of a common agenda of issues for
strengthening protected areas and facilitating
indigenous contributions. This cannot happen through
compartmentalized micro-level interventions alone,
but requires solid policy and system level
developments, which recognise and build on
indigenous rights and interests as much as on more
objective, science-based, less emotional conservation
frameworks. On the ground, creativity and efforts of
concerned individuals and groups to reconcile the
indigenous peoples vs. protected area dilemma can
provide many useful lessons to enrich and feed into
overall policy goals. In the end, it is protected area
managers and community representatives, not distant
policy makers, who have the knowledge and
experience to make the paradigm shift work
in practice.
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