Community-led conservation

Community-led conservation refers to a re-imaging of conservation as a primarily locally driven action where indigenous peoples and local communities take the lead in managing natural resources, caring for their lands and resources and sustaining their own cultures.

By investing in, and supporting, community-led conservation initiatives and enhancing community capacity to monitor and demonstrate biodiversity outcomes, the project contributes to the base of evidence that demonstrates the crucial role of indigenous peoples and communities in biodiversity conservation and sustainable use.

Peruvian indigenous youth draw a map of their territory

Wampis Nation students drawing the learnings from their leadership training, one of five delivered over a year by LifeMosaic for the Shawi Leadership School in Peru. Photo by Mikey Watts

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Blog

Revitalising Indigenous Food Systems of the Payew people of Besao, Mt. Province

Blog by Florence Daguitan Up to the 1980’s, food production of the Payew people has been sufficient and diverse. They even exported some of their surplus banana and rice. Their food comes mainly from their cultivated farms: the baangan and payew. Baangan are located within…

17.12.24

Article

Tohmle Statement

This statement was developed at the 4th Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples of Asia (IKPA) Conference on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Biodiversity, and Climate Change, held on October 1-4, 2024, in Pokhara, Nepal Asia is a region of high biological and cultural diversity, where Indigenous Peoples, play…

16.12.24

Article

Community-based monitoring of ancestral land and resources in an urban setting

The experience of the Ibaloy community of Muyot, Happy Hallow, Baguio City The community of Muyot in Barangay Happy Hallow, Baguio City, has been home to the indigenous Ibaloys for generations. The original inhabitants and their descendants cared for the land, forests, and pasturelands for…

16.12.24

Conservation and Human Rights: An Introduction

This guidance is intended as a resource for conservation professionals who are interested to learn more about the relationship between conservation and human rights, especially the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities. A huge amount has been written on this topic over the past…

30.10.24

Blog

Training resources on the Convention on Biological Diversity

This booklet series provides Indigenous Peoples and local communities with key insights into the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), and its Target 3, focusing on their rights and participation in global conservation efforts. It offers guidance on engaging…

28.10.24

Ensuring the sustainability of customary use on Indigenous and community-held lands

This guide is for local organisations (e.g. community-based organisations and trusted local non-governmental organisations) which are supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP & LCs) in their desire to assess the sustainability of natural resources on their lands (both terrestrial and marine), and implement activities…

17.10.24

Further info

Indigenous peoples have developed sophisticated knowledge systems and management practices that have enabled them to live sustainably in their environments for many generations, and in many cases, millennia. By giving them greater control over the management of natural resources, community-led conservation can ensure that these valuable traditions are preserved, and that biodiversity is protected for future generations.

Over the course of the project, this larger base of evidence will directly impact how much local and national governments recognise and support indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ beneficial roles in biodiversity protection. Consequently, this will also improve the level of protection and recognition of their underlying rights to lands, resources and traditional knowledge.

These two aspects of the long-term impact are closely connected: sustaining community-led long-term management of natural resources is linked to the security of underlying tenure, yet in many of the project countries customary tenure is insufficiently recognised.

By demonstrating the valuable contributions that these territories make to national biodiversity priorities, the project makes the case for increasing security of tenure over the longer-term.