At the same time, it is no less true that the planet suffers and that humanity is not going fast enough to avoid greater evils.
Last week the fifth edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook was published, a report of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is an international instrument born in 1992 and signed by 196 countries whose objective is to monitor the protection and use given to the planet's biodiversity: ecosystems, species and genetic resources.
Its governing body, the Conference of the Parties, meets every two years to review progress on its goals and decide priorities.
Well, on this occasion, the CBD warns that almost none of the purposes that were agreed for the first time in 2010 have been fulfilled.
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However, one of the few points that has been partially achieved is the establishment of more land and marine protection areas: 17% of the land and 10% of the oceans.
And now more is being asked: specifically, protection by 2030 of up to 30% of the planet.
This is what has been dubbed the 30x30 goal and is supported by a large part of the scientific community.
It is a measure that will be negotiated within the so-called Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework on May 21, 2021, in an appointment that should have been held last spring, but was canceled due to covid-19 .
This ambitious goal is what has sparked the controversy to the point that, at the beginning of September, more than a hundred organizations that defend the rights of indigenous peoples sent a letter to the CBD warning that the measure will have an effect. devastating in these native communities and in local populations: the forced displacement of up to 300 million people.
This is a figure obtained from the results of a research published in the journal
Nature Sustainability
in November 2019. Another analysis published in
Nature
in July 2020 also offers similar data.
Organizations contrary to the 30x30 goal consider that it has been set without conducting a prior study of the social impact of the previous one, which set that 17% of protected territory.
"Protected areas have led to the displacement and expulsion of local communities that depend on their lands and have caused serious human rights violations by conservation organizations and other bodies in charge of enforcing regulations on the ground," reads the letter. sent to the CBD.
An assessment of their climate mitigation potential is also requested, as well as a summary of which areas are planned to be included, under which protection regimes and what will be the impact on their inhabitants.
Climate activists from the Extinction Rebellion association hold a banner with the slogan 'Indigenous lives matter' during a protest to make visible the situation of indigenous peoples in the Amazon in Trafalgar Square in London, UK, on September 5 2020. TOBY MELVILLE REUTERS
"This has nothing to do with climate change, protecting biodiversity or avoiding pandemics. Rather, it is an economic issue, control of land and resources," said Stephen Corry, President of Survival International. , one of the organizations that has promoted the sending of the letter to the CBD together with Minoriy Rights Group International and Rainforest Foundation UK.
The CBD, for its part, has not responded to questions from this newspaper.
All planned conservation areas are in the Southern Hemisphere, and most of the people who live in them are from middle-income countries, although 10% live in low-income countries, according to research published in Nature Sustainability.
Conservation organizations maintain that this measure can only be carried out if communities are protected more effectively than has been done so far, since declaring a protected area implies that no one can live in it.
"The risk is that 300 million people will be displaced or suffer consequences such as the militarization of their territories, the lack of food and the violation of their fundamental rights," says Fiore Longo, researcher at Survival International.
"They already did it in the past, for example in the areas that have been created since 2010, like the Messok Dja, which was done without the consensus of the peoples. Or the tiger reserves in India ... In all the areas that have been protected there have been consequences ".
Protected areas have led to the displacement and expulsion of indigenous peoples and other local communities that depend on their lands
In reality, concern about the climate emergency is shared, but they believe that the creation of more protected areas is "counterproductive" and may further strengthen an "obsolete and unsustainable" conservation model that puts the survival of the least responsible people at risk. of global warming.
"It is evident that it is a desire of the countries of the north of the world to continue with their way of life and make other people pay for a climate crisis that they are not producing," Longo criticizes.
"It is we [northern countries] who are destroying the planet and above all we make those who contribute the least to it pay the price," says the researcher.
And remember that they show it because it is they, precisely, who have the greatest biodiversity, up to 80% of it, and play an indispensable role in conserving the planet, as highlighted by the UN itself in its Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.
However, they are only recognized as ownership of 10% of the territories they occupy.
"Right now, and despite all the obstacles, the helplessness of the States, the pandemic and the violence that we suffer, we are the first aid team on earth."
It is a statement by José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, General Coordinator of the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), who last week participated in the virtual presentation of a new investigation by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), a coalition of more than 150 organizations dedicated to promoting the rights to forest lands and resources of these communities.
Right and Resources Initiative
The report suggests that governments are failing to recognize the role of these groups in addressing the environmental crisis.
"We are protecting 80% of the world's biodiversity, and that is why it is important to preserve at least 50% of our entire planet if we really want to have a chance to survive. But it is impossible to help protect our common future without being recognized. our rights to land or without having access to the technical and financial support we need to expand our own projects, "declared this community leader.
A reconcilable goal that should be expanded
In this controversy, numerous voices think that the two positions - protecting the Earth and respecting the native peoples - are not irreconcilable and that, in fact, one cannot go without the other.
"The Global Biodiversity Outlook should serve as a call to action for leaders around the world because we cannot afford another decade without advances in biodiversity conservation," says Brian O'Donnell, Director of the Campaign for Nature, which brings together another hundred conservation organizations that support the 30x30 goal.
"For this reason, at Campaign For Nature we are promoting the objective of protecting at least 30% of the planet and we are working to ensure that it can be fully and fairly implemented," he says.
O'Donnell highlights that, to achieve this, the countries must agree and, also, "indigenous peoples and local communities must play a central role in conservation with their rights defended and their land tenure secured."
For Eric Dinerstein, director of Resolve's biodiversity and wildlife solutions program (and former WWF chief scientist), 30% is a good start and would be appropriate for 1950, but beyond: "We have only a decade to tackle three existential crises: massive loss of biodiversity, climate collapse and ecosystem collapse. The solutions to these problems are interdependent, which is why only by protecting about 50% can we save a living biosphere ", says the expert.
And from Avaaz, a civic and social movement that has collected more than two million signatures to protect half the planet, they point out that the goal falls short because an additional 35% in critical ecosystems should be protected if collapse is really wanted of biodiversity and the point of no return in our climate.
"Countries that advocate for 30% protection by 2030 are actually seeking to protect only an additional 15% of land. But much of that 15% is already managed by indigenous peoples, and these are areas in excellent condition thanks to their ancestral wisdom, despite the violence and the fact that their possession is not recognized, "says Óscar Soria, the organization's campaign director.
"The 30% goal for 2030 is a poor goal, without scientific consensus and the product of a compromise solution between the traditional conservation movement and some countries, which is more based on the lowest common denominator than on a real and transformative ambition" , he assures.
Rights and Resources Initiative
Any increase in the world's protected areas must be preceded by independent research on social impacts and on the real effectiveness of the measure in conserving nature.
This is something that has not been taken into account until now, according to the organizations that signed the letter to the CBD, and they ask that before declaring new lands as protected, the right to tenure be recognized, in compliance with international agreements. the land of the communities that inhabit them, that their access to their natural resources, the right to self-determination and to give their free, prior and informed consent is guaranteed.
In fact, the Rights and Resources Initiative publication released last week also offers a plan that identifies opportunities for investors, donors and philanthropic organizations to demonstrate their commitment to conservation by taking an approach that is more respectful of community land rights. for their rightful owners, and even countries that already have an adequate legal and financial framework are listed.
"If only 30% were given greater protection, we would put large wilderness areas, rainforests and areas of large intact mammal assemblages at risk. Fortunately, much of the biodiversity-rich lands overlap with areas under jurisdiction or claimed by indigenous peoples. The simplest solution to saving life on Earth is to empower and fund indigenous peoples to be the global stewards of a vibrant biosphere, "Dinerstein advises.
The organizations that sent the letter to the CBD speak in this line, as they request that it be recognized that the management of the territories by their native peoples is the main mechanism to achieve the conservation of biodiversity.
"We do not want to compete with the large conservation organizations, we want to work together, but with clear rules in our vision of the territory, in our vision of rights and our vision of the development that we are doing in the territories," insists Díaz Mirabal.
"I make a call to join forces, because it is very painful to hear a report on the planet, which was made this week, and there is not a single paragraph that names the contributions that indigenous peoples have made. That hurts a lot because we are the first to we are giving our lives for the defense of the territories, and thus it is difficult to seek unity ".
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