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Abstract
Understanding the scale, location and nature conservation values of the lands over which Indigenous Peoples exercise traditional rights is central to implementation of several global conservation and climate agreements. However, spatial information on Indigenous lands has never been aggregated globally. Here, using publicly available geospatial resources, we show that Indigenous Peoples manage or have tenure rights over at least ~38 million km2 in 87 countries or politically distinct areas on all inhabited continents. This represents over a quarter of the world’s land surface, and intersects about 40% of all terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes (for example, boreal and tropical primary forests, savannas and marshes). Our results add to growing evidence that recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ rights to land, benefit sharing and institutions is essential to meeting local and global conservation goals. The geospatial analysis presented here indicates that collaborative partnerships involving conservation practitioners, Indigenous Peoples and governments would yield significant benefits for conservation of ecologically valuable landscapes, ecosystems and genes for future generations.
Highlights
There are at least 370 million people who define themselves as Indigenous 1, are descended from populations who inhabited a country before the time of conquest or colonisation, and who retain at least some of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions[2] (Supplementary Information 1)
Indigenous Peoples’ lands representing one of the oldest forms of conservation units[3,4]. They assert that Indigenous rights do not require state-sanctioned approval to exist[5]
We provide a first estimation of the overlap between Indigenous Peoples’ terrestrial lands and protected areas[13], human anthropogenic biomes[14] and the degree that humans influence these lands
Summary
There are at least 370 million people who define themselves as Indigenous 1, are descended from populations who inhabited a country before the time of conquest or colonisation, and who retain at least some of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions[2] (Supplementary Information 1). We provide a first estimation of the overlap between Indigenous Peoples’ terrestrial lands and protected areas[13], human anthropogenic biomes (anthromes)[14] and the degree that humans influence these lands (for which we use the updated global Human Footprint[15]) These analyses allow us to understand the extent to which Indigenous Peoples are involved in managing areas of high conservation value (see Methods). There is a wide array of innovative approaches and tools to facilitate discussion of collaboration, co-management and power-sharing around conservation initiatives, for reasons of social justice and more inclusive environmental governance These include sets of Indigenous-led codes of ethical conduct in conservation (e.g., Akwe: Kon Guidelines and The Tkarihwaié:ri Code of Ethical Conduct34,35) and tools for dialogue such as the Whakatane Mechanism[36], providing a collaborative framework that can ensure the full and effective involvement of Indigenous Peoples in conservation, while respecting their rights and institutions. There is already good evidence that recognition of the practices, institutions and rights of Indigenous Peoples in global environmental governance is essential if we are to develop and achieve the generation of global biodiversity targets 16,18,37,38
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