Bridging the needs of conservation and local communities

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties (COP) in Cali, Colombia, COP16, provides an opportunity to move closer to achieving the world’s biodiversity conservation goals. This year’s CBD COP will follow both the United Nations Climate Change and Desertification COPs as the last in a triad of ‘super’ COP events taking place in close succession. It follows from the watershed CBD COP15, where the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted. 

With a vision of a world living in harmony with nature by 2050, the Global Biodiversity Framework is historic. It includes a 30 by 30 target – 30 percent of land and water to be under biodiversity protection by 2030 – and calls for the adoption of innovative modalities for conservation. Given realities of land use, achieving these ambitious goals to scale up conservation cannot rely on traditional strategies of declaring new national parks and protected areas. ‘Other Effective Conservation Measures’ or OECMs are among the conservation approaches being considered and actively promoted by the global community. 

What are OECMs?

The OECM concept is distinct from the ‘Protected Area’ or PA concept. While conservation is a primary objective of PAs, with OECMs, conservation is not necessarily a primary objective, but rather an outcome. Within the OECM framework, land or marine environments that are not already protected via traditional biodiversity conservation mechanisms can be more formally acknowledged for their biodiversity protection role. This opens up the possibilities for a range of existing land management options to be folded into the protection and conservation spheres. Depending on national-level standards and interpretation of OECMs, community forests, Indigenous community conserved areas, private parks, marshes and other areas, may be designated as OECMs.

Since COP15, countries have advanced efforts to develop more detailed national-level criteria and policy guidance as to what areas may qualify as OECMs. In Asia, these discussions are at various stages, with countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Thailand being more advanced in the development of their national OECM criteria. 

These efforts are taking place in the context of a world grappling with mounting biodiversity challenges. Globally, 96 percent of mammal biomass comprises humans and livestock, with wildlife making up only the remaining 4 percent. Biodiversity levels have plummeted since 1970, with the average size of wildlife populations declining by 73 percent. 

The biodiversity crisis is a global crisis, and one that is inseparable from other looming challenges such as climate change. In economic terms, biodiversity loss could reduce global gross domestic product by an estimated $2.7 trillion annually by 2030. 

Conservation in context

It is important to remember that in some countries, the term ‘biodiversity conservation’ continues to be associated with ‘fortress conservation’ approaches that have led to the evictions of Indigenous Peoples and a raft of other human rights violations.  While there is still important progress to be made, attitudes have shifted significantly over the last 30 years and the biodiversity value and contributions of lands and waters traditionally used and managed by Indigenous Peoples and local communities are better understood and acknowledged in most countries. However, there are still complex and sometimes opposing views in the context of OECM designation. Lessons learned from the fortress vs. inclusive protected area debate are relevant here and should inform our way forward.

Indigenous and ethnic minority cultures around the world have a deep and multi-generational understanding and respect for biodiversity. Management practices have been adapted and refined over centuries to reflect highly specialized approaches to living in harmony with natural systems. Is it always a perfect model of co-existence? Certainly not. However, in broad strokes, evidence supports the sustainability and effectiveness of the forest and biodiversity management approaches of Indigenous Peoples and local communities when land tenure is secure.

However, in Asia, in countries where indigeneity may still not be recognized, Indigenous Peoples are often categorized as ‘hilltribes’ or ‘ethnic minorities’. They represent some of the most excluded and persecuted groups that have gone through forced resettlement, removal of children, systematic repression of Indigenous languages and cultures. 

Indigenous Peoples and local communities, despite being stalwart guardians of biodiversity are also facing the challenges associated with its potential loss. Indigenous Peoples and local communities no less than the rest of global citizens depend on the ecosystem services the earth’s biological diversity provides – from pollination, water regulation, microclimate and soil fertility to the cultural and spiritual values deeply rooted and embodied in our natural environs. 

Are OECMs a potential win-win? 

The OECM approach could be a powerful mechanism through which Indigenous Peoples and local communities can have their important role in biodiversity conservation more formally recognized. Recognition of qualifying areas as OECMs would strengthen the acknowledgement of both the biodiversity occurring in these areas as well as the effectiveness of these communities’ management practices, bringing much needed validation of their indigenous land management practices. OECM designation might also open up ecotourism, national recognition and investment opportunities.

Areas such as community forests, community managed wetlands and marshes, and Indigenous Community Conserved Areas all hold potential for being recognized as OECMs. It is important to remember that historically, these areas are also among some of the world’s most tenure-insecure. In many countries, indigenous-managed lands have too often been subject to fortress conservation approaches that have seen Indigenous land expropriated and gazetted as national parks.

It is understandable that many Indigenous Peoples and local communities may approach the establishment of OECMs with suspicion and with concerns about what designation of community-managed lands might imply in practice.

United we stand: What does the present require from us?

The conservation and social justice sectors have long operated in isolation. This is the moment where it is no longer feasible or acceptable to maintain this separation. As national dialogues on OECMs proceed and the charting out of what OECMs will look like on a country-by-country basis takes place, Indigenous Peoples and local communities must be a central part of these discussions. 

If Indigenous Peoples and local communities are not engaged, this would be a huge lost opportunity for the global community, which is in deep and existential need of not only protection but also recovery of biodiversity. 

Equally, stakeholders must have concrete and meaningful answers to these fundamental questions: How are existing community-based land rights and claims going to be fully protected? And given the additional insecurity and potential higher degrees of effort associated with ensuring OECM designation, another question that demands multiple practical and tangible answers also emerges: How will local land managers benefit?

It behooves the international community and national OECM bodies to think carefully about how to develop targeted and compelling responses to these fundamental concerns. Failure to take action could spell failure for the Global Biodiversity Framework, which is one of the most potentially effective tools we have ever had in our fight to preserve the Earth’s fragile ecological life support systems.

With the increasingly evident interconnection of the threats of biodiversity loss and climate change, approaches to these issues are converging. The Biodiversity COP and the Climate COP are finding common grounds to address these challenges together. Video by Climate Investment Funds

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This article was also published as an op-ed in The Jakarta Post on 28 October 2024.

Regan Pairojmahakij leads the Climate Change Programme at RECOFTC. 

RECOFTC’s work is made possible with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Government of Sweden.