Posts in Indigenous knowledge
EXPLAINER: Philanthropists pledge $5 bln for growing global push to protect nature

Thomson Reuters

September 22, 2021
A group of private donors pledged a record $5 billion to help safeguard the planet's plants, animals and ecosystems at an event during the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

The nine charitable funders, which include the Bezos Earth Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rainforest Trust, launched the decade-long "Protecting Our Planet Challenge" to help finance larger and better-managed natural areas worldwide.

"Halting and reversing biodiversity loss and climate change requires expanded protected and conserved areas, especially in tropical forests," said James Deutsch, CEO of the Rainforest Trust, which contributed $500 million to the pot.

"Developing nations and indigenous peoples need financing to achieve this, which is why we are pledging to more than double our level of funding between now and 2030, and (are) urging other private and public funders to do the same," he added in a statement.

The Finance for Biodiversity Pledge also said on Wednesday that 75 financial institutions - worth a combined 12 trillion euros ($14 trillion) in assets - have committed to protecting and restoring biodiversity through their investments.

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30x30, finance, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous people, nature, UN General AssemblyMary Price30x30, Finance, UN General Assembly, Indigenous peoples, Indigenous knowledge, nature, indigenous-led conservation
Philanthropists pledge $5 billion to save threatened species

Washington Post

September 22, 2021
The Wyss Foundation and eight other philanthropic organizations pledged Wednesday to give $5 billion by 2030 to protect biodiversity around the planet, the largest-ever private gift for conservation.

Wyss said it would donate $500 million, which comes on top of a $1 billion commitment it made three years ago. Wyss has already invested nearly $676 million of that amount to help local communities, Indigenous peoples and governments safeguard their lands, water and wildlife.

The philanthropic group’s goal is to maintain 30 percent of the planet in its natural state. In May, a United Nations report concluded that a million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction, a rate of decline that is unparalleled in human history.

“The actions we take from today through 2030 will determine the fate of our natural world,” Hansjörg Wyss, founder and chairman of the Wyss Foundation, said in a statement. “For our grandchildren and their grandchildren to have the same opportunities we’ve had, for them to inherit a functioning planet, we have to rapidly slow the rate at which our economies are destroying nature.”

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30x30, finance, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous people, nature, UN General AssemblyMary Price30x30, Finance, Wyss, nature, UN General Assembly, indigenous-led conservation, Indigenous peoples
Support of indigenous people vital in conservation efforts

New Straits Times

September 21, 2021
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is one of the foremost global organisations advocating the protection of nature.

Governments and civil society organisations convened in 1948 to create the IUCN to protect nature, encourage international cooperation, and provide scientific knowledge and tools to guide conservation.

IUCN played a fundamental role in creating the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (1971), the World Heritage Convention (1972), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, (1974) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992).

Today, with more than 1,300 members, including states, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and indigenous peoples' organisations, and thousands of supportive experts, IUCN continues to champion nature-based solutions, such as he United Nations' Paris climate change agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

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IUCN, Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, indigenous rights, 30x30, biodiversity loss, natureMary PriceIUCN, Indigenous peoples, indigenous-led conservation, Indigenous knowledge, 30x30, biodiversity loss
Bezos Puts $1 Billion of $10 Billion Climate Pledge Into Conservation

The New York Times

September 20, 2021
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and one of the world’s richest men, announced plans on Monday for $1 billion in conservation spending in places like the Congo Basin, the Andes and tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean.

The announcement was the latest step in his largest philanthropic effort, the Bezos Earth Fund, to which he pledged $10 billion last year. “By coming together with the right focus and ingenuity, we can have both the benefits of our modern lives and a thriving natural world,” Mr. Bezos said on Monday at an event in New York.

The money will be used “to create, expand, manage and monitor protected and conserved areas,” according to a news release from the fund, which also introduced a website on Monday.

The initiative is intended to support an international push to safeguard at least 30 percent of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030, known as 30x30. The plan, led by Britain, Costa Rica and France, is intended to help tackle a global biodiversity crisis that puts a million species of plants and animals at risk of extinction. While climate change is part of the problem, activities like farming and fishing have been even bigger drivers of biodiversity loss. The 30x30 plan would try to slow that by protecting intact natural areas like old-growth forests and wetlands, which not only nurture biodiversity but also store carbon and filter water.

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30x30, finance, Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, natureMary Price30x30, finance, nature, conservation, indigenous-led conservation, Indigenous peoples, Indigenous knowledge
Nature-based climate solutions will rely on indigenous rights

Thomson Reuters Foundation - OpEd

June 28, 2021
As countries and companies make net-zero promises, nature’s role in absorbing carbon and offsetting emissions has received increasing attention. 

Investing in nature - or so called nature-based solutions - is seen by players from oil majors, agricultural giants to local governments as the key to removing carbon and achieving net-zero.

Carbon removal, or negative emissions, is now central to most net-zero pledges.

For my community, the Maasai pastoralists of Kenya, nature-based solutions are nothing new: ensuring that nature remains intact has always been a central part of how we operate.

Our traditional nature-based solutions have long been recognized as one of the most effective means of restoring ecosystem health and reversing degradation in drylands. In maintaining healthy ecosystems, we have ensured that forests can hold and capture more carbon, helping keep emissions down.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, climate change, nature-based solutionsSara Sheehyindigenous lands, indigenous-led conservation, climate change
Indigenous communities receive less than 1% of climate mitigation aid, report finds

Landscape News

June 24, 2021
Even though Indigenous communities protect some of the most critically important forest ecosystems, conserving a wealth of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity and carbon storage, they remain woefully shortchanged with aid money for climate mitigation, receiving less than 1 percent of such earmarked funding. While development aid for climate mitigation is more than USD 30 billion annually across the globe, support to Indigenous communities for tenure and forest management adds up to an annual USD 270 million, according to a new report put out by Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN).

What’s more, the amount Indigenous communities receive directly is even less, as most of that funding flows through large organizations. Only a little over USD 46 million a year goes to projects that include the name of an Indigenous or local community in the project implementation description. This is an indication, says RFN senior policy advisor Torbjørn Gjefsen, of how few climate mitigation projects are done in direct cooperation with Indigenous peoples.

“It’s an appalling mismatch between the needs, opportunities and resource commitments from donors,” says Alain Frechette, executive director of the Rights and Resources Institute. “Donors and governments need to shift the balance in favor of rights-based actions.”

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Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous people, indigenous rights, climate changeSara Sheehyindigenous lands, Indigenous peoples, indigenous-led conservation, climate change
Safeguarding indigenous rights is good for nature—and economies

Eco-Business

June 8, 2021
From forest fires raging across five continents to glaciers melting faster than ever before, the world looks increasingly apocalyptic. The good news is there is a simple solution, and I witness it daily in my conservation work: invest in indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) living in and around our wild places to conserve 30 per cent of our planet’s land and water by 2030.

Protecting one-third of the Earth is the magic fraction global scientists have identified will avert what looks increasingly like the end of the world. By setting aside the planet’s last wild places for biodiversity, they can sustain the other two-thirds we as a global community require for drinking water, a stable climate, and our agricultural needs.

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Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous people, indigenous rights, 30x30Sara SheehyIndigenous peoples, indigenous-led conservation, indigenous lands, Indigenous rights
‘We guard the forest’: Carbon markets without community recognition not viable

Mongabay

June 4, 2021
Nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis, specifically through the global carbon market, are attracting major public and private investment. Yet, according to new research by the NGO Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) and Canada’s McGill University, most tropical forested countries looking to benefit from these markets still need to define the rights of Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples over carbon in their customary lands and territories.

If these rights are not meaningfully recognized, the researchers argue, the viability of these nature-based solutions will be fundamentally threatened.

RRI has tracked the land rights of Indigenous communities throughout the world for two decades. This latest research is in the context of a global task force established to rapidly expand voluntary carbon markets. Major international corporations like Amazon, Unilever, Salesforce, Airbnb and Nestlé, as part of the LEAF coalition, are pushing to mobilize at least $1 billion using Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) to tackle deforestation and forest degradation.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, indigenous rights, climate change, nature-based solutions, Campaign for NatureMary PriceIndigenous rights, Indigenous peoples, indigenous lands, nature-based solutions, climate change, forests, Campaign for Nature
New Report Reinforces Need for Indigenous Rights to be at Center of Global Biodiversity Agreement

Campaign for Nature

May 20, 2021
Today, the ICCA Consortium released its Territories of Life: 2021 Report. The report includes the most up-to-date analysis of how much of the planet is likely conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, estimating that they are conserving more than 22% of the extent of the world’s Key Biodiversity Areas on land and at least 21% of the world’s lands. The report also found that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are the de facto custodians of many existing state and private protected and conserved areas, without being recognized as such, underscoring the critical need for equitable governance and the importance of ensuring that all existing and new protected and conserved areas fully respect Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights.

In addition to providing updated spatial analyses and related findings, the report details 17 case studies of territories of life from five continents, highlighting concrete examples of how Indigenous Peoples and local communities sustain our planet and describing what types of actions are needed to better support them, their rights, and their contributions to biodiversity.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, local communities, nature, human rights, biodiversityMary PriceIndigenous peoples, Indigenous rights, indigenous lands, indigenous-led conservation, Indigenous knowledge, biodiversity, conservation, Nature, human rights
'Forest gardens’ show how Native land stewardship can outdo nature

National Geographic

April 23, 2021
For hundreds of years, Indigenous communities in what is now British Columbia cleared small patches amid dense conifer forest. They planted and tended food and medicine-bearing trees and plants—sometimes including species from hundreds of miles away—to yield a bounty of nuts, fruits, and berries. A wave of European disease devastated Indigenous communities in the late 1700s, and in the 1800s, colonizers displaced the Indigenous people and seized the land. The lush, diverse forest gardens were abandoned and forgotten.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledgeSara Sheehyindigenous lands, Indigenous knowledge
For past 12,000 years, traditional land uses have actually encouraged biodiversity, report says

Washington Post

April 23, 2021
As scientists rush to preserve biodiversity, they often focus on untouched landscapes teeming with life. But how untouched are they? Not as much as you might think.

A study shows that over the past 12,000 years, nearly three-fourths of nature has been shaped by humans — and that traditional land uses actually encouraged biodiversity.

The paper, published in the journal PNAS, challenges existing notions about the history of land use. Past assessments have argued that as late as the 16th century, the majority of land on Earth was uninhabited.

But when an international team of researchers tested those assumptions, they uncovered a different story. By overlaying data on human populations and land use throughout history with information on biodiversity, they found that contrary to the common belief that only untouched land has high biodiversity, it actually existed and flourished in land shaped by humans.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, biodiversitySara Sheehyindigenous lands, indigenous-led conservation, biodiversity
Humans Sustainably Managed Much of Earth’s Lands for Thousands of Years, Study Affirms

EcoWatch

April 21, 2021
A new study has affirmed the growing and long overdue awareness among scientists and conservationists that Indigenous societies are the best caretakers of biodiversity.

The new research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month, looked at maps of human habitation over the last 12,000 years and found that almost three-quarters of Earth's land had been sustainably shaped and managed by Indigenous or traditional societies during that time. This means that it isn't simply human presence in a landscape that drives environmental destruction.

"With rare exceptions, current biodiversity losses are caused not by human conversion or degradation of untouched ecosystems, but rather by the appropriation, colonization, and intensification of use in lands inhabited and used by prior societies," the study authors wrote.

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biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous peopleSara SheehyIndigenous peoples, indigenous-led conservation, biodiversity
Bananas, indigenous knowledge, and GMOs

SciDev.Net

March 10, 2021
Biotechnology, indigenous knowledge, climate change and banana trees. This week, Africa Science Focus sits down with United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema to discuss biodiversity and environment on the continent.

With the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration officially launching in June, local solutions and innovations will play a leading role in driving sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mrema says.

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Africa, UN CBD, Indigenous knowledgeSara SheehyAfrica, UN CBD, Indigenous knowledge
Global experts urge involvement of indigenous communities in biodiversity conservation

Xinhua Net

December 16, 2020
Multilateral institutions and governments should harness traditional knowledge, practices and innovations possessed by indigenous people in order to revitalize the biodiversity conservation agenda, experts said on Tuesday evening.

Speaking at a virtual forum for indigenous communities' leaders from Asia, Africa, Caribbean and Latin America, the experts said that forest dwellers, hunter-gatherers and nomads are endowed with expertise that can be tapped to strengthen protection of habitats.

"We need to recognize the contribution of indigenous people to the global conservation agenda," said Viviana Figueroa, a legal expert from International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity.

Figuero said that indigenous communities have for centuries demonstrated prowess in conserving biodiversity hotspots that underpin global food, energy and water security.

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COP15, Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, UN CBDMary PriceIndigenous peoples, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous rights, UN CBD, conservation, post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, COP15
Indigenous peoples ask to be included in the UN biodiversity treaty

EFE Verde

December 15, 2020
Leaders and representatives of indigenous peoples have asked this Wednesday that the aspirations and ambitions of their peoples be included, recognized and integrated in the process of drawing up the Biodiversity Treaty of the United Nations Convention on the Biological Diversity (CBD).

According to the leaders at the virtual press conference, the zero draft of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework - which will be adopted next year at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the CBD and will set the global agenda for the next 30 years with the objective of guaranteeing the protection of nature - it does not reflect or take into account the aspirations of indigenous peoples.  

"We ask the States to advance in this treaty and recognize the rights, contributions (of indigenous peoples) and our health and sovereignty systems," said the coordinator of the Program for the Management of Natural Resources with Indigenous Peoples of Central America, Ramiro Batzin.

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Indigenous people, Indigenous knowledge, UN CBD, COP15Mary PriceIndigenous peoples, Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous rights, UN CBD, COP15, post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework