Civil Society Statement - English

CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF WORK ON PROTECTED AREAS
CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF WORK ON PROTECTED AREAS
(Delivered on 11th February 2008, at the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Protected Areas, 2nd Meeting, Rome)

As civil society organizations gathered at the 2nd meeting of the CBD Working Group on Protected Areas, we express serious concern about the continued loss of biodiversity, and lack of progress with achieving agreed targets to reduce and halt this loss. There remain serious threats from extractive and other industries such as logging and mining, new processes such as the promotion of agrofuels, and other such factors. The loss of biodiversity also continues to have serious impacts on the survival and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities. The CBD parties must announce a moratorium on extractive and other industries in areas considered important for biodiversity conservation.

Ironically, some the most effective means of reaching the targets to reduce and halt biodiversity loss remain neglected aspects of the CBD Protected Areas Programme of Work (PA POW). This includes, especially, the recognition of the practices of indigenous and local communities in community conserved areas, and through the involvement of such communities in the establishment and management of government protected areas. Also neglected in the move to expand protected areas are spaces like the high seas, which are crucial to future of the planet. Finally, the general landscape of degradation is being neglected, in the move to set up protected areas as islands.

We also point to the recently adopted Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The rights enshrined in this declaration should guide the implementation of the Programme of Work on PAs and all other aspects of the CBD. This is crucial because our experience shows that in most countries, protected areas continue to be established and run in violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, despite the commitment to change which is embedded in the PA POW.

We recognize that there has been some progress on implementation of the PA POW, but our concerns remain on the following points:

The rush to meet the targets of the PA POW through narrowly ‘scientific’ criteria without considering their social and cultural aspects, and without diversifying PA governance, continues to undermine the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Many of the targets of the PA POW could be effectively reached if governments were to put a moratorium on industrial and commercial extractions of resources in areas of biodiversity importance, while simultaneously recognizing the rights of IP/LCs to participate in PA establishment and management. Criteria for identifying and establishing protected areas need to take on board social and cultural issues, and indigenous knowledge; expansion of the protected area systems must rely on diversification of governance in particular community conserved areas.

Most countries appear not to have put in the policies, laws, and institutional mechanisms needed to implement the recommendations regarding governance and benefit-sharing committed to in Element 2 of the PA POW. There is also a clear need for capacity-building in the governance aspects of PA management. Governments should fully recognize the rights of indigenous and local communities in PA systems, and to fully redress the imbalance between local and national/global costs and benefits. There is also a clear need to build capacity within government agencies on governance aspects, and we strongly recommend a series of regional workshops dedicated to this.

Reporting by governments on the implementation of the PA POW remains very weak, with very few parties having sent in their reports, and many of them not reporting on the governance and social aspects of PAs. In most countries, reports have not been prepared through participatory ways despite relevant COP decisions on this. We admit also that civil society reporting on this needs to be stronger and more independent. Parties must be made accountable to adequate and participatory reporting; we also urge the need to support and recognise independent reporting by indigenous peoples, local communities, and civil society organizations.

PA schemes and poverty and livelihood schemes in countries are still delinked, creating artificial shortages of finances for conservation and driving governments towards private sector funding and management of PAs, even further undermining IP/LC rights. There is a need to link various programmes of the govt, and to democratize their planning and implementation with IP/LC participation, to support PAs as the ‘commons’ that are critical for ecological security and for the livelihood security of IPs/LCs.

So-called ‘innovative mechanisms’ for financing PAs such as carbon and biodiversity offsets are of serious concern to us, if they provide an escape route to those most responsible for the destruction of our planet, and if they are being used by governments to continue carrying out activities in violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, as if often the case. Governments and donors need to commit to putting in the funds needed from public funds first and foremost, and where relying on other innovative mechanisms, to ensure ecological sustainability and the full respect of the rights and participation of IPs/LCs.

Finally, we support the following draft recommendations made in the Secretariat note UNEP/CBD/WG-PA/2/2, but would like to stress that IP/LC participation in these has to be central:
(i) establishment of multi-stakeholder coordination committees in each country, to help implement the POW (with the proviso that IP/LCs be seen as rightsholders, not mere ‘stakeholders’);

(ii) improvement and diversification of PA governance and in particular co-management and community conserved areas.

Signed(On behalf of civil society organizations / NGOs)