An Appeal to the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, to stop the eviction of indigenous pastoralist communities in Ngorongoro Conservation Area

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Update on the Campaign

To:

Her Excellency, Samia Suluhu Hassan
President of the United Republic of Tanzania

Cc:

Hon. Dr. Freddy Safiel Manongi
Conservation Commissioner, Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority

Hon. Dr. Damas Daniel Ndumbaro
Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism

Hon. Tirso Dos Santos
Head of Office, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – Tanzania

Hon. Dr. Bruno Oberle
Director-General, International Union for Conservation of Nature

Hon. Audrey Azoulay
Director-General, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania is planning to evict 73,000 Indigenous Peoples from Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA). On April 12, 2021, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) had already initially issued a 30-day eviction notice to 45 indigenous pastoralists living in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The NCAA considers them illegal immigrants. Their baseless pronouncement that Indigenous Peoples and their pastoralist way of life are endangering the ecological balance of Ngorongoro Conservation Area was further disseminated by the mainstream media’s biased coverage of the issue.^[1]

Studies have proven that pastoralism is compatible with conservation.^[2] The last holding grounds for many of Tanzania’s remaining flora and fauna are found in pastoralist lands or in territories occupied by pastoralists.^[3] “The conservation attitude of pastoralists is found in the very practices of pastoralism itself. Conservation ethic is found in their cultures, and their ways of managing critical resources.”^[4]

The NCAA and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT) are stuck with a parochial and colonialist mentality. They disregard recent scientific studies that demonstrate and prove the crucial role of indigenous pastoralist communities in conservation. These government entities dismiss the importance of conducting sincere consultation with indigenous pastoralists in addressing biodiversity loss. NCAA and MNRT are neglecting their mandate to protect the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and are solely concerned with deriving profit from tourism.

The NCAA and MNRT have been responsible for a number of human rights violations against the indigenous pastoralist communities, which include the demolition of their homesteads and threats against their lives and livelihoods. The recent eviction order, although currently put on hold, threatens to continue these violations, including the destruction of government-constructed facilities such as schools, health centers, police posts, churches and mosques.

Furthermore, the safety and security of indigenous human rights defenders, including civil society organizations supporting them and the affected communities are at risk.

The threats and attacks of NCAA and MNRT on the indigenous pastoralist communities and their way of life contravene the concern of Her Excellency, President Samia Suluhu Hassan, to take steps to preserve Ngorongoro Conservation Area’s ecology and wildlife.

In light of the impending escalation of human rights violations against the indigenous pastoralist communities in Ngorongoro Conservation Area,  we stand in solidarity with them and fully support their legitimate demands for the respect and protection of their rights and wellbeing. We reecho their urgent call to the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan, to:

• Revoke the eviction order of MNRT and NCAA, and ensure the respect and protection of indigenous pastoral communities’ rights to life, livelihood and cultural integrity;
• Fully recognize and support indigenous pastoralist communities’ sustainable practices and systems of conservation and management of resources;
• Address hunger and starvation of indigenous pastoralist communities by lifting the ban on farming in twenty-five villages and the restrictions imposed on the movement of livestock for pasture and water in the conservation area;
• Organize an independent committee to investigate decades of injustices and human rights violations of the MNRT and NCAA against the indigenous pastoralist communities; and
• Establish a multi-stakeholder commission composed of self-identified representatives from the pastoralist communities, ecology and wildlife experts, and human rights advocates to develop a rights-based approach to manage and preserve the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

We also wish to draw the attention and action of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Union for Nature Conservation (IUCN) as partners of the Tanzanian government in the management of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, over the impending unjust eviction of indigenous pastoralist communities. This is clearly against the principles and commitments of UNESCO and IUCN in respecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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This petition is closed.
There were endorsements from 124 organizations and 229 individuals from 51 countries.
On 12 May 2021, IPRI sent this appeal to the President of the United Republic of Tanzania. You can read the letter here.

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Signatures*

Organizations

1. AbibiNsroma Foundation
2. Afrikagrupperna
3. Agencia Internacional de Prensa Indígena (AIPIN)
4. Agenda Ciudadana por el Desarrollo y la Corresponsabilidad Social AC
5. Alliance Nationale d’Appui et de Promotion des Aires et Territoires du Patrimoine Autochtone et Communautaire (ANAPAC)
6. Almáciga
7. Arctic Indigenous Wellness Foundation (AIWF)
8. Asia Indigenous Peoples Network on Extractive Industries and Energy (AIPNEE)
9. Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP)
10. Asociacion para el Desarrollo Integral de las Victimas de la Violencia en las Verpaces, Maya Achi (ADIVIMA)
11. Asociación Ambiente y Sociedad
12. Asociación Brasileira Maloka
13. Asociación Teatro de la Tierra
14. Association for Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Policies
15. Bangladesh Indigenous Peoples Forum (BIPF)
16. Bangladesh Indigenous Women’s Network (BIWN)
17. Bethel Lutheran
18. CENSAT AGUA VIVA
19. Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines inc.
20. Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Research and Development (CIPRED)
21. Center for Research and Development in Drylands, Kenya
22. Center for support of indigenous peoples of the North (CSIPN)
23. Centre for Research and Advocacy Manipur (CRAM)
24. Centre of Research and Development in Upland Areas (CERDA)
25. Centro de promoción y defensa de los derechos indígenas Yanapanakuy
26. Centro para la Autonomía y Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CADPI)
27. Civic and Legal Aid Organization (CILAO)
28. Colectivo Yehcoa Um
29. Columbia University, Indigenous Peoples Rights Program, Institute for the Study of Human Rights
30. Community Development Association (CDA)
31. Community Empowerment and Social Justice Network (CEMSOJ)
32. COMPPART Foundation for Justice and Peacebuilding
33. Comunidad La Toglla, Pueblo Kitu Kara
34. Conselho Indigenista Missionário, Cimi
35. CONSULTORIA TECNICA COMUNITARIA, A.C. (CONTEC)
36. Coopérative des Paysans de Lonzo
37. Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (COICA)
38. Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA)
39. CSWO
40. Cultural and Development Society
41. Development Alternatives
42. Docip Foundation
43. DYNAMIQUE DES GROUPES DES PEUPLES AUTOCHTONES (DGPA)
44. EJAtlas
45. El Pueblo Indígena Bubi de la Isla de Bioko
46. Environmental Defender Law Center
47. Extinction Rebellion Youth Solidarity
48. Federación Indígena Empresarial y Comunidades Locales de México, A. C. (CIELO)
49. Federation of Indigenous Kirat Associations (FIKA)
50. First Peoples Worldwide
51. Force Weavers
52. Forest and Peoples Organization
53. Forest Peoples Programme (FPP)
54. Forest Stewardship Council
55. Foro Indígena Abya Yala (FIAY)
56. Fotosyntesis
57. Frente de resistencia indígena
58. Global Anti-Aerotropolis Movement (GAAM)
59. Global Forest Coalition (GFC)
60. Green Development Advocates (GDA)
61. Haki Nawiri Afrika
62. Human Rights Law Network (HRLN)
63. India Indigenous Peoples
64. Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)
65. Indigenous Peoples Forum Odisha (IPFO)
66. Indigenous Peoples Global Forum for Sustainable Development (IPGFforSD)
67. Indigenous Women India Network (I WIN)
68. Indigenous Women League Nepal (IWL Nepal)
69. Indigenous Women Legal Awareness Group (INWOLAG)
70. InsightShare
71. Institute for Ecology and Action Anthropology (INFOE)
72. Instituto Orco Huasi. Investigaciones Interculturales – Salta, Argentina
73. International Accountability Project (IAP)
74. International Committee for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas (Incomindios)
75. International Indigenous Fund for development and solidarity (Batani)
76. International Indigenous Women’s Forum (IIWF)
77. International Women’s Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific (IWRAW)
78. International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
79. Interwaste Research Development (East Africa) Trust
80. Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, Bangladesh
81. Kalpavriksh
82. Kapaeeng Foundation
83. KENYA HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
84. Kenyan Peasants League
85. KJBS
86. Land is Life
87. Lawyers’ Association for Human Rights of Nepalese Indigenous Peoples (LAHURNIP)
88. Lelewal Foundation
89. Lok Shakti Abhiyan
90. Maleya Foundation
91. Manipur Nature Society
92. Marta López
93. MICOP-CBO Kenya
94. Mountain Indigenous Knowledge Centre
95. MOVIMIENTO WIPHALA España
96. Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR)
97. Narasha Community Development Group (NCDG)
98. National Garifuna Council (NGC)
99. National Indigenous Disabled Women Association Nepal (NIDWAN)
100. National Indigenous Women Forum (NIWF)
101. Neteve
102. Nimotanzania
103. Onamiap
104. Paloma Delgado
105. Pasah Kahanjak Foundation
106. Pastoralists Integratef Concerns (PICO)
107. PEREMPUAN AMAN
108. Programme Intégré pour le Développement du Peuple Pygmé (PIDP)
109. Reseau des Populations Autochtones et Locales pour la gestion durable des Ecosystèmes forestiers d’afrique centrale (REPALEAC Afrique centrale)
110. Resguardo de Origen Colonial Cañamomo Lomaprieta
111. Rights and Resources Initiative
112. Saku Accountability Forum (SAF)
113. Sandiwa Network of Advocates for National Minority Rights
114. SONIA FOR A JUST NEW WORLD
115. Southern Global Cartography Collective
116. Tanzania Land Alliance (TALA)
117. The Common Good Foundation
118. The New Dawn Pacesetter
119. Therapy in Motion Ltd
120. Tribalzone Network
121. Urgewald
122. Watu Pori
123. Women Working Group (WWG)
124. Wumweri Ghodu CBO

Individuals**

1. Abraham – Kenya
2. Adriane Costa Da Silva – Brazil
3. Agustin Depetris – Sweden
4. Alaidedia Morijei – Tanzania
5. Albane Gaudissart – Canada
6. Alejandra Orozco – Canada
7. Alejandro Fernandez – United Kingdom
8. Alex Shani – Kenya
9. Alexandra Tomaselli – Italy
10. Aline Chaves Rabelo – Brazil
11. Amanda Shakespeare – United Kingdom
12. Amani I. Laizer – Tanzania
13. Amira Armenta – Netherlands
14. Amitav Ghosh – United States
15. Andrew Castillo – Belize
16. Anne Mosley – United Kingdom
17. Ariell Ahearn-ligham – United Kingdom
18. Arkada Mollel – Tanzania
19. Arnim Scheidel – Spain
20. Arwa Hleihel – Austria
21. Augusta M Molnar – United States
22. Bailey Smith-Helman – United States
23. Baraka Mollel – Tanzania
24. Barbara Hermanns – Germany
25. Batromayo James Sonyo – Tanzania
26. Benjamin Lenaseiyanl – Kenya
27. Benoît De L’estoile – France
28. Bernice See – Philippines
29. Bivuti Bhuson Mahato – Bangladesh
30. Callie Berman – United Kingdom
31. Cathbert Tomitho – Tanzania
32. Cathy Vetter – United States
33. Charles Ole-sein – Kenya
34. Chris Fry – United Kingdom
35. Cidi Otieno – Kenya
36. Citlalli Hernández Saad – Mexico
37. Conduct Hang – United States
38. Connor Newson – United Kingdom
39. Daale Simon James – Uganda
40. Daniel Koitatoi – Kenya
41. Daniella Vanêssa Abrantes Martins – Brazil
42. Daudi Ndorosi Naata – Tanzania
43. David Berger – Denmark
44. David Smartknight – United Kingdom
45. Denise Musni – Philippines
46. Denize Marta – Brazil
47. Diogo Liberano – Brazil
48. Dionne Moseley – United Kingdom
49. Dr Laura J Brown – United Kingdom
50. Dr P A Azeez – India
51. Dr Shoa Asfaha – United Kingdom
52. Dr. Anabel Benjamin Bara – India
53. Dr. Carla S Handley –
54. Dr. Judith Dellheim – Germany
55. Dr.susan Miranda Arnott – United Kingdom
56. Elaine Hsiao – United States/Taiwan
57. Elias Kimaiyo – Kenya
58. Elisabeth Steffens – Germany
59. Ella Scarleth T. Bugarso – Philippines
60. Emma Rumney – United Kingdom
61. Emmanuel – Kenya
62. Emmanuel – Uganda
63. Emmanuel Kileli Leyani – Tanzania
64. Endoo Dorcas Chepkemei – Kenya
65. Eric Boyd – Sweden
66. Ewan Robinson – United States
67. Federico Lenzerini – Italy
68. Flora Bachmann – Austria
69. Frances Labrick – United Kingdom
70. Georgia Tendall – United Kingdom
71. Gerd Lende – Norway
72. Goor – United States
73. Grace Balawag – Philippines
74. Grace Keane O’connor – Ireland
75. Grace Roberts Dyrness – United States
76. Habu Dorcas – Kenya
77. Ingrid Torrekens – Belgium
78. Isabelle Haßfurther – Germany
79. Jacob Horwitz – United States
80. James Forole Jarso, Hsc – Kenya
81. Jasjeet Singh Sidhu – Malaysia
82. Jessica Harding – United Kingdom
83. Jessica Lasota – United Kingdom
84. Jessika Eichler – Germany
85. Jethro Pettit – Italy
86. Jevgeniy Bluwstein – Switzerland
87. Jonathan Ole Mashulu – Kenya
88. Jordana Gomes De Almeida – Brazil
89. Joseph Moses Oleshangay – Tanzania
90. Joseph Pusingare Runguna. – Tanzania
91. José Chaves – Brazil
92. José Luis Victorio Cervantrs – Mexico
93. Julio César Solís Zavala – Mexico
94. Karen Lawrence – United Kingdom
95. Katie Wightman – United States
96. Keith Barton, MD – United States
97. Kepa Fernandez De Larrinoa – Basque Country
98. Kileto Olepurko – Tanzania
99. Kim Graybiel – Canada
100. Kisiaya Saruni – Tanzania
101. Kizito Joackim Assechekamwati – Tanzania
102. Kranti L C – India
103. Lais Nardon Martins – Brazil
104. Lance Robinson – Canada
105. Laura Rebolledo Génisson – Spain
106. Lauren Ramjee – Canada
107. Learnmore Nyamudzanga – Zimbabwe
108. Leif John Fosse – Norway
109. Lekiliara Juma – Kenya
110. Lenawasae Patrick – Kenya
111. Lentoimaga A Mamosi – Kenya
112. Leonor Zalabata – Colombia
113. Leparan C. Ole Tialal – Kenya
114. Lewis Pyke – United Kingdom
115. Lokima Ramazani Yannick – Democratic Republic of Congo
116. Lucia Helena Andrade Medina – Colombia
117. Madeleine Sampson – France
118. Magabilo Masambu – Tanzania
119. Maison Ole Nkurrunah – Kenya
120. Malcolm Langford – Norway
121. Manja Sironga – Tanzania
122. Marco Mathayo Olekeiya – Tanzania
123. Maria Gabriela Feitosa Pinheiro – Brazil
124. Maria Raquel Passos Lima – Brazil
125. Marie-Sophie VIlleneuve – Canada
126. Matt York – Ireland
127. Mbekure Ole Meroro Metemi – Tanzania
128. Megoliki M Oloije – Tanzania
129. Michel Dufour – Canada
130. Mosiany Nkoirishishe – Kenya
131. Mosses M Lekando – Tanzania
132. Natana Chaves Rabelo – Brazil
133. Nathalie Faure – Thailand
134. Neema Ndemno – Tanzania
135. Ngeeyan Oloibormunyei Laizer – Tanzania
136. Ngonina Kirwa – Tanzania
137. Niyi Asiyanbi – Canada
138. Norman Biddlecombe – United Kingdom
139. Noxolo Mboniswa – South Africa
140. Nsoh Ndam Elvis – Cameroon
141. Nuria Fernandez Vidal – Spain
142. Ole Riamit Stanley – Kenya
143. Oloiteeyo Irmakesen – Tanzania
144. Onesmo Olengurumwa – Tanzania
145. Orson Nava – United Kingdom
146. Panin – Tanzanian
147. Pilar Font Serrano – Spain
148. Ponja Edward Tayai – Tanzania
149. Pricilla Rakotoarisoa – Madagascar
150. Rande Camana Bayate – Philippines
151. Rebecca Latchford – United Kingdom
152. Rebecca Teall – United Kingdom
153. Regina Weber – United States
154. Rigan Chakma – Bangladesh
155. Robert Nowak – Poland
156. Robie Halip – Philippines
157. Roger Few – United Kingdom
158. Rosa Maria Dos Santos Barreiro Chaves – Brazil
159. Rosy Vilela – Spain
160. Saitoti Ole Mutaka – Kenya
161. Saitoti Parmelo – Tanzania
162. Sali Django – Cameroon
163. Sam Munck – Sweden
164. Sara Asadullah – United Kingdom
165. Sara Mabel Villalba – Paraguay
166. Sarah Ryder – Switzerland
167. Sarah Warzecha – United States
168. Saskia Hesta – Netherlands
169. Scott S. Robinson – Mexico
170. Sergio Rene Torres Corrales – Nicaragua
171. Sethunarayanan – India
172. Shapiom Noningo Sesen – Peru
173. Shayo Alakara – Tanzania
174. Shisei Toma – Japan
175. Simon Ole Mashati – Tanzania
176. Sol Gracian Ineira Espinoza – Mexico
177. Soledad Muniz – United Kingdom
178. Sophia Pettit – United Kingdom
179. Steven Sarite – Tanzania
180. Subeksha Poudel – Nepal
181. Susanna Nordlund – Sweden
182. Tara Griffin – United Kingdom
183. Tejumola A. – Canada
184. Teo Pasquini – Brazil
185. Thomas Niederberger – Switzerland
186. Tiago Moreira – Brazil
187. Tim Portass – Belgium
188. Tonje Margrete Winsnes Johansen – Norway
189. Traute Thiem-hofsommer – Germany
190. Tricia Jenkins – United Kingdom
191. Ulrich Bock – Germany
192. Vedanshi – India
193. Vilma S. Tuno – Philippines
194. William K Sipai – Kenya
195. William Nicholas Gomes – United Kingdom
196. Zakayo Meng’oru – Tanzania
197. Чиспияков Алексей Васильевич – Russia

*as of 11 May 2021
**plus 32 undisclosed individual endorsements

Source

While some are looking for ways to slow down the ongoing climate change, others are doing their best to benefit from the situation. The melting of sea ice opens unprecedented opportunities for Russian business projects in the Arctic. Author Rodion Vasilievich Sulyandziga has his doubts if they heed the rights of the North’s Indigenous peoples.

In 2020, the Russian Government developed and approved a series of laws directly related to the rights of the Indigenous peoples in the North of Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation. 

Why now? What does the concession of rights have to do with the economic development of the Russian arctic and what threats may it pose to its Indigenous population? 

The material financial consequences of the pandemic overlapping the decade of stagnation in the economic development became a finishing touch on the bleak picture the year 2020 painted for Russia. With the social inequalities growing and economy declining, I have the impression that the Russian Government is attempting to rush into Arctic development programmes as a last chance to save the economic situation.   

State Support for Extractive Businesses

While many countries like Germany or the United Kingdom consider the global climate change the gravest global crisis of historical importance, it seems like the Russian authorities see rising temperatures and melting ice as an unprecedented opportunity to promote large-scale business projects in the Arctic, hoping that they will drive the national economy forward. Some of the projects, particularly those aimed to establish new marine routes across the Arctic, are expected to reduce shipping time by 40 percent. I would like to stress that this would allow Russia to take complete control of the trade between Asia and Europe in this part of the world.       

At the same time, the policy paper called Strategy for developing the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation and ensuring national security through 2035 adopted by the Russian Parliament in October 2020 actually defines the Arctic’s status as a base for the development of economic businesses involved in the extraction of oil, gas and minerals. Supporting a resource-oriented economy, which is the motto of the strategy, will from my point of view inevitably lead to the formation of a normative system that prioritises extractive industries with their unrestrained and insatiable appetite for profits. Tellingly, this policy document doesn’t mention the programme’s environmental and social costs. Although the Indigenous population is mentioned in different parts of the paper, the document does not have a special chapter dedicated to their rights and development.         

‘Blessed’ with Resources 

Perhaps no other country benefits as much from climate change as Russia does, which is why in my opinion prioritising the choice of the country’s economic elite comes in no way as a surprise. By denying the Indigenous peoples the connection between human rights and environmental issues, the country’s government seems to believe that climate change and economic opportunities are synonymous.

Based on previous experience, it is easy to predict that, in the attempts to stimulate economic growth, the officials will agree to turn a blind eye on laws and environmental regulations, related to the rights of the Indigenous peoples and begin exploiting the lands and natural resources of these communities. Once again, we are going to witness a fierce competition for immediate economic profits to the detriment of the people and the fragile nature in the North.         

According to my experience, western and Russian observers usually regard the Arctic as a source of Russia’s power and grandeur. As a matter of fact, this is the country’s blind and closed zone. Encircled in the ever-contracting ring of pollution, the Arctic is threatened by an environmental catastrophe. In May 2020, Russia experienced one of the gravest environmental disasters in its history, when several thousand tonnes of oil leaked from the Nornikel plant to contaminate the soils and water of the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia. By the scale of its impact, this catastrophe is perhaps second only to the leak in a pipeline in Komi in 1994, which according to Greenpeace resulted in eight times more spilt oil than in the 1989 accident that involved the Exxon Valdez oil tanker. At that time government officials responded by cementing the region’s future into the oil and gas industry. Doomed to ever remain a mere supplier of natural resources, rather than people being its most precious asset, today the Arctic needs better protection and in particular courageous politicians and intelligent managers speaking on its behalf.                    

Given that extracting “inexhaustible” natural resources is regarded by the economic elite as the only possible way to develop the Arctic, what future may the region face? What will the repeated mantra about the Arctic being “blessed” with resources do to the Indigenous peoples in the North of Siberia?

The year 2020 showed that more profound changes are needed. Today, the situation of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Russia resembles a drowning ship. The future fate of the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic and the North looks lamentable: Their identity has been devalued by economic interests, their riches stolen, their lands devastated, their rights are not protected, their freedom is under threat and their equality has only been imitated.   

Source

Growing up in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski, Tatiana Degai had salmon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Too much salmon, she thought. It took a move across the ocean—to college and graduate school in the U.S.—to really miss it. To feel, not just know, that salmon is in her DNA.

Dr. Degai belongs to the Itelmen community of Kamchatka, the “first people of Kamchatka-land,” she says, with deep connections to a fishing way of life. Her grandmother, an ethnographer, introduced her to these traditions. And her mother, a fisherwoman, taught her to advocate for Indigenous fishing rights.

For a community spread across the tundra, being heard by Moscow can be difficult. But Dr. Degai, currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the ARCTICenter at the University of Northern Iowa, carries academic clout. Now, as a new member of the Wild Salmon Center board of directors, she hopes to leverage her expertise in Indigenous knowledge systems and visions of sustainability to help WSC salmon conservation campaigns across the North Pacific.

“WSC is working with salmon communities in Bristol Bay, in British Columbia, in Oregon. There is a huge repository of Indigenous knowledge in these communities that we can learn from [back home],” she says. “We need to bring these knowledge systems into the conversations in Russia.”

There is a huge repository of Indigenous knowledge in these communities that we can learn from. We need to bring these knowledge systems into the conversations in Russia.

Below, Dr. Degai shares more about her community’s salmon way of life, how she can help from Cedar Falls, Iowa, and reconnecting—through board games!—with her home waters in Kamchatka.

Dr. Tatiana Degai, in her own words:

According to our creation stories, the Kamchatka Peninsula is made of a huge salmon. If you look at a map you will see the resemblance. Itelmen people are traditional fishermen who subsist on smelt and salmon. It is the foundation of our life.

My mother grew up in the urban part of Kamchatka, like me. And she too has this need to have salmon. She’s been a fisherwoman for many years, standing up for the rights of Indigenous people to fish for salmon. Because some people think that if you grow up in an urban area, you don’t need subsistence food, you don’t have this right. But I see this as a genetic need, to have the food that your ancestors lived with for many centuries.

When the Russians came to Kamchatka, this land was all covered with Itelmen. The village of Kovran is the center of Itelmen life, it has maybe 250 people. My grandmother would bring me along when she did field work in remote areas, like Kovran. It’s the only place left where Itelmen are the majority.

I see this as a genetic need, to have the food that your ancestors lived with for many centuries.

In the 1990s, when the Soviet Union fell, the whole socioeconomic system fell, and severe poaching started here. [Beginning in the mid-1990s] Wild Salmon Center became active in Kamchatka. I was always wondering why we never came across each other in our work. In 2007, I started working with youth to bring Indigenous knowledge back to salmon. This included salmon youth camps, salmon festivals, educational materials for children. We published several children’s activity books, and supported ethno-ecological clubs in the region.

Now my work is centered around bringing Indigenous knowledge into academia and vice versa. My research focuses on how Indigenous communities like mine adapt to current social and environmental situations, and how salmon practices relate to that as well. I also work on language revitalization.

Last year we published a card game in Itelmen language inspired by “Go Fish,” which my kids were playing. Right now we are developing a board game based on “Floor is Lava.” We have many beautiful creation stories based on volcanoes, so when my children showed me this game, I thought, oh, we can Kamchatkanize this.

I was surprised by the invitation to join WSC’s board of directors. And happy, because I think it’s a good direction. My impression is that these days WSC is working more closely with Indigenous communities. There is such a huge repository of knowledge in these communities. [WSC President] Guido Rahr introduced me to WSC with a wonderful presentation on salmon, and that’s the type of exchange that we need—between clear science on salmon and Indigenous knowledge.

I’ll be happy if being part of WSC helps support community initiatives in Kamchatka. I’d love for communities in Russia to see that Indigenous knowledge is treated as a viable source of information elsewhere.

In Russia, we have so-called obshchinas, there’s no good translation in English. [Editor’s Note, roughly, a designation of legal status for an Indigenous community.] Many people apply to get salmon quotas for land or territory to fish. Indigenous individuals have the right to fish as well, but it’s very complicated. We all have to prove that we are Indigenous people in court. What we hear on the ground is that this system is way too bureaucratized. It requires access to high-speed internet, notaries of public, reliable postal service, and we all know about the problems in these remote communities. Where for the government it is all so clear, out in the tundra is it very complicated and feels unnecessary.

That worries me the most, this huge gap of understanding between policymakers and the Itelmen. As an academic, I try to bring in Indigenous vision. And politicians tend to listen to academics.

I’ll be happy if being part of Wild Salmon Center helps support community initiatives in Kamchatka. I’d love for communities in Russia to see that Indigenous knowledge is treated as a viable source of information elsewhere.

Source

• Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court (STF) has unanimously accepted an appeal by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people and agreed to review the process around a past case that cancelled the demarcation of their Indigenous territory.
• The Guarani Kaiowá’s decades-long fight for land rights to their ancestral territory, the Guyraroká land in Mato Grosso do Sul state, had been suspended by a 2014 ruling halting the territory’s demarcation process.
• The STF’s decision to review the process in the 2014 case, which hadn’t allowed for Indigenous consultation, is seen by analysts as a victory for Indigenous groups in Brazil, and as a setback for President Jair Bolsonaro who has declared his opposition to any Indigenous demarcation occurring during his administration.
• In a related upcoming case, the STF is expected to rule on the “marco temporal,” which requires that Indigenous people have been living on claimed lands in 1988 in order to establish a legal territory. But litigators have argued that date is unfairly arbitrary, as many Indigenous groups were forced off ancestral lands by then.

In a landmark decision that could bolster Indigenous land rights in Brazil and serve as a setback to the Bolsonaro administration’s stonewalling of demarcations, the country’s Supreme Court has agreed to review the process around a past case that cancelled the demarcation of an Indigenous territory claimed by the Guarani Kaiowá people.

In a unanimous decision last week, judges from the Supreme Federal Court (STF) accepted an appeal by the Guarani Kaiowá Indigenous people, whose decades-long fight for rights to the Guyraroká land was paralyzed by a 2014 ruling halting the territory’s demarcation process.

“This now paves the way for us to start the motion to annul that decision,” said Rafael Modesto dos Santos, legal advisor to the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) and one of the lawyers for the Guyraroká community. “In other words, the process will start from zero. But before, we weren’t even allowed on the starting line.”

The Guyraroká territory, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, was recognized as an Indigenous territory in 2004, and FUNAI, the federal agency tasked with protecting Indigenous interests, began the lengthy demarcation process in 2009.

But before the territory could gain full protected status under federal law, STF judges ruled that the Guarani Kaiowá had no legal claim to their ancestral territory because they were not living on it when the Brazilian constitution came into force in 1988.

The community tried to appeal the decision several times with no success, before the case was closed in 2016. But in last week’s ruling, the STF said the 2014 decision to throw out the demarcation process could be appealed and reviewed because the legal proceedings had lacked input from the Indigenous community.

While this latest STF ruling does not overturn the 2014 decision to scrap the territory’s demarcation, the reopening of the case marks a turning point and also sets an important precedent for other disputes over Indigenous lands in Brazil, according to Juliana de Paula Batista, a lawyer with the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a nonprofit that defends the rights of Indigenous and traditional people.

“It wasn’t just any victory, it was a victory by unanimous vote,” she told Mongabay. “All the judges agreed that, in a legal proceeding that harmed Indigenous people and did not give them the opportunity to participate, the proceeding must be annulled.”

“There is now a possibility for the judgement annulling the demarcation of Guyreroka to be overturned and another judgment to be handed down,” Batista said, adding that the ruling could also help other Indigenous groups who in the past weren’t allowed to participate in legal proceedings that revoked their land rights.

Last week’s decision is especially important within the current political context, in which signals by President Jair Bolsonaro have emboldened attacks on Indigenous land rights, according to Sarah Shenker, a campaigner with Survival International, an NGO that defends the rights of Indigenous people and has been working with the Guarani people for decades.

“With this war that is being waged on Brazil’s Indigenous people, it’s especially important that the Supreme Court has voted in favor of the Guarani and reminded everybody that Indigenous people have the right to a fair hearing,” Shenker said in an interview with Mongabay.

The Guyraroká territory at the center of the dispute sprawls across some 11,000 hectares (27,181 acres) of Mato Grosso do Sul, in Brazil’s agricultural heartland. A large part of the area being disputed by the Guyraroká is controlled by José Teixeira, a powerful politician and rancher.

The Guarani Kaiowá people say their land — part of Brazil’s vast tropical savanna biome known as the Cerrado — was stolen decades ago and turned into sugarcane plantations. The Indigenous families living on what they claimed as ancestral lands were forced into government reserves or pushed to the margins of nearby towns, according to Indigenous rights activists.

In 2000, a group of families returned to “re-occupy” a slice of the territory, setting up a makeshift village. Today, some 26 families remain on about 55 hectares (136 acres) of that territory, according to Shenker.

“These powerful ranchers are using the Guarani’s land,” she said. “And in the meantime, the Guarani are living in terrible conditions, in overcrowded reserves or on the sides of main roads or on tiny patches of their land, which they’ve tried to re-occupy.”

In 2013, the Guyraroká community’s leader Ambrósio Vilhalva was found dead just meters away from his home, a makeshift canvas shack in the occupied village. Police later said the murder was not connected to the local land dispute.

While the latest STF ruling has given the Guyraroká community new hope, there is no clear timeframe for when the case will move forward, Modesto dos Santos told Mongabay. “But we are confident that we will win.”

Legal experts say the Guyraroká case could be held up by another proceeding — a case involving the Xokleng Indigenous people in Santa Catarina state that also questions whether the government can deny land rights to Indigenous people whose territory was appropriated before 1988.

The STF ruling in that case — stalled since October 2020 — is expected to set a precedent that will decide whether the courts can place a time limit on the land rights of the Guarani Indigenous people — known as “marco temporal” in Portuguese.

Litigators have argued that the 1988 Indigenous occupation date is unfairly arbitrary, since many Indigenous groups had their ancestral lands stolen from them before that date and been forced off their lands.

“This is a process that will determine whether the “marco temporal” will be applicable to all Indigenous lands or not,” said Batista. “So we’re all watching closely.”

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Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party promised to halt a mining project that could have made Greenland a major source of rare earths but at a potentially steep environmental price.

Greenland’s left-wing environmentalist party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, won a victory in general elections on Tuesday after campaigning against the development of a contentious rare earths mine partly backed by China.

The party, which had been in the opposition, won 37 percent of the vote over the longtime incumbents, the center-left Siumut party. The environmentalists will need to negotiate a coalition to form a government, but observers said their election win in Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that sits on a rich vein of untapped uranium and rare earth minerals, signaled concerns from voters over the impact of mining.

“The people have spoken,” Múte B. Egede, the leader of Inuit Ataqatigiit, told the Danish broadcaster DR, adding that voters had made their position clear and that the mining project in Kvanefjeld in the country’s south would be halted.

Greenland Minerals, an Australian company behind the project, has said the mine has the “potential to become the most significant Western world producer of rare earths,” adding that it would create uranium as a byproduct. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the vote.

The supply of rare earths, a crucial part of the high-tech global supply chain and used in the manufacture of everything from cellphones to rechargeable batteries, is currently dominated by China. Shenghe Resources, a Chinese rare earth company, owns 11 percent of Greenland Minerals.

Opposition to the Greenland mine, which the incumbent Siumut party had supported, played a primary role in its defeat, its leader, Erik Jensen, conceded in an interview with the Danish station TV2.

The mining project has been in development for years, with the government approving drilling for research, but not issuing final approval for the mine.

Among Greenlanders, opposition to the mine had grown over potential exposure of a unique, fragile area to “radioactive pollution and toxic waste,” said Dwayne Menezes, the director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative, a London-based think tank. “What they’re opposed to is dirty mining.”

The election result sent a clear message, Mr. Menezes added: Mining companies that want access to Greenland’s deposits will have to abide by stringent environmental standards and should look to give Greenlanders a “viable alternative.”

In Greenland, whose economy is heavily dependent on payouts from Denmark, the tensions over the mine centered on the potential economic boon, including hundreds of jobs on an island with about 57,000 people, versus the environmental cost of doing business.

But the vote also highlighted the Arctic region’s growing geopolitical significance on a warming planet, as its polar seas become more navigable and as the melting ice unveils newly accessible resources, including the rare earths that play an essential part in the production of many alternative energy sources.

“On a global level, we are going to need to address head on this tension between Indigenous communities and the materials we are going to most need for a climate-stressed planet,” said Aimee Boulanger, the executive director of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, a nonprofit.

Given China’s dominance over the global rare earth production and supply, Mr. Menezes said that Western countries should be looking for ways to enhance their partnerships with resource-rich Greenland to keep it in “their sphere of influence.”

Two years ago, Greenland’s lucrative resources and its increasing strategic importance led President Donald J. Trump to muse about purchasing the island. Greenland’s government, however, made clear that it was not for sale.

“We’re open for business, not for sale,” the island’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on Twitter at the time.

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Colonial era policies in northern Scandinavia continue to affect Sámi life, culture and land use. Meanwhile, truth commissions are being set up and aim to investigate injustices against Indigenous people carried out by the states.

There are an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Sámi in the Arctic regions, whose traditional homeland, an area collectively referred to as Sapmi, spans the Arctic regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia’s western Arctic.

From at least the 19th century, governments in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia pursued aggressive policies of assimilation, involving the education system and church discouraging or actively suppressing Sami languages and culture and forcibly assimilating Sami children into the dominant culture.

The Council of Europe and European human rights organisations have repeatedly condemned the lack of local representation of the Sámi in national governance decisions.

The process, Sámi representatives told EURACTIV, has negatively affected Sami languages, education and way of life until today.

But while the persecution of rights to culture and language have gradually ceased, climate change and land exploitation pose new threats to the existence of Sámi communities.

‘Truth commissions’

Sámi parliaments across Northern Europe have suggested the set-up of so-called truth commissions as one means of addressing systemic discrimination.

Inspired by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which completed its work in 2015, they are meant to include methods such as public hearings and “psychosocial support” for those who testify.

The Norwegian body was established in 2018, while the Finnish government agreed to the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2019 and the Sámi in Sweden started their work on a similar structure in 2020.

Russia, however, is lagging behind with attempts being made to silence critical indigenous voices in the country.

Most of the truth commissions are expected to take several years.

Asked what measures are needed to counteract ethnic discrimination of Sámi, Tuomas Aslak Juuso, President of the Finnish Sámi Parliament, told EURACTIV that the best tool is to focus on reminding Northern European countries of the need to observe human rights.

According to Juuso, “it is important to remind that human rights are a core part of democratic work, especially in Northern Europe, where maybe many people think that we are already human rights countries that are doing everything well in this domain.”

“That’s why we arrived at the need for the reconciliation commission – to recognise that there have been  wrongdoings with dishonest colonial practices that are still impacting Sami people heavily,” he added.

One issue is a general lack of trust by Sámi people that the process will end with tangible improvements for their daily life.

“The majority population has been taught that they are an inferior, lower class of people,” a 2018 report prepared for the Finnish prime minister on the feasibility of a truth commission stated.

“They suspect that … the Finnish government is trying to improve its reputation internationally as a country that respects human rights … at the same time [as] it is further weakening the rights of the Sámi people,” the report added.

Getting a chance to understand the situation and educate the population of the home countries could contribute to “moving away from discrimination attitudes”, Juuso stressed.

“It’s important that governments show a willingness to commit to those rights, which have been promised and which they are obliged to fulfil,” Juuso told EURACTIV.

Europe’s closer look

As the EU works on updating its Arctic policy, which is due to be published by the end of this year, youth representatives from the European Arctic have called on policymakers to ensure that Arctic youth and Indigenous peoples are included in the actions that will directly affect their futures.

“Perhaps in the past, authorities, in general, have been guilty of paying lip service to the views of people who live in the Arctic, to indigenous peoples and also to young people,” Michael Mann, EU Special Envoy for Arctic Matters, told EURACTIV during a recent event.

Arctic stakeholders stressed that identity is of major importance to the young generation, who have “preserved Sámi language, culture and traditions, despite strong assimilation politics”.

“Sámi are threatened with losing their land due to renewable energy production such as windmill parks, mines and new infrastructure. Reindeer herding and industrial projects in traditional lands cannot coexist,” Enni Similä, chair of the Finnish Sámi Youth Association, said.

“We have been watching with interest the various lawsuits that have been going on in the Northern countries aimed at safeguarding these traditional lands and ways of life and in our policymaking,” the EU’s Arctic envoy said.

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Preserving Latin America’s forests is vital to fight the climate crisis and deforestation is lower in indigenous territories

The embattled indigenous peoples of Latin America are by far the best guardians of the regions’ forests, according to a UN report, with deforestation rates up to 50% lower in their territories than elsewhere.

Protecting the vast forests is vital to tackling the climate crisis and plummeting populations of wildlife, and the report found that recognising the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples to their land is one of the most cost-effective actions. The report also calls for the peoples to be paid for the environmental benefits their stewardship provides, and for funding for the revitalisation of their ancestral knowledge of living in harmony with nature.

However, the demand for beef, soy, timber, oil and minerals means the threats to indigenous peoples and their forest homes are rising. Hundreds of community leaders have been killed because of disputes over land in recent years and the Covid-19 pandemic has added to the dangers forest peoples face.

Demands by indigenous peoples for their rights have become increasingly visible in recent years, the report said, but this has come with increasing persecution, racism, and assassinations. Supporting these peoples to protect the forests is particularly crucial now with scientists warning that the Amazon is nearing a tipping point where it switches from rainforest to savannah, risking the release of billions of tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

The report was produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (Filac), based on a review of more than 300 studies.This is my message to the western world – your civilisation is killing life on EarthNemonte NenquimoRead more

“Almost half of the intact forests in the Amazon basin are in indigenous territories and the evidence of their vital role in forest protection is crystal clear,” said the president of Filac, Myrna Cunningham, an indigenous woman from Nicaragua. “While the area of intact forest declined by only 5% between 2000 and 2016 in the region’s indigenous areas, in the non-indigenous areas it fell by 11%. This is why [indigenous peoples’] voice and vision should be taken into account in all global initiatives relating to climate change, biodiversity and forestry.”

“Indigenous peoples have a different concept of forests,” she said. “They are not seen as a place where you take out resources to increase your money – they are seen as a space where we live and that is given to us to protect for the next generations.”

Indigenous and tribal territories contain about a third of all the carbon stored in the forests of Latin America, said Julio Berdegué, the FAO’s Regional Representative: “These peoples are rich when it comes to culture, knowledge, and natural resources, but some of the poorest when it comes to incomes and access to services.” Supporting them would also help avoid new pandemics, he said, as these are most often the result of the destruction of nature.

“Even under siege from Covid-19 and a frightening rise in invasions from outsiders, we remain the ones who can stop the destruction of our forests and their biodiverse treasures,” said José Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, indigenous leader of an umbrella group, the Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin. He said the report’s evidence supports his call for climate funds to go directly to indigenous peoples and not governments vulnerable to corruption.

The report found the best forest protection was provided by peoples with collective legal titles to their lands. A 12-year study in the Bolivian, Brazilian, and Colombian Amazon found deforestation rates in such territories were only one half to one-third of those in other similar forests. Even though indigenous territories cover 28% of the Amazon Basin, they only generated 2.6% of the region’s carbon emissions, the report said.

Indigenous peoples occupy 400m hectares of land in the region, but there is no legal recognition of their property rights in a third of this area. “While the impact of guaranteeing tenure security is great, the cost is very low,” the report said, needing less than $45 per hectare for the mapping, negotiation and legal work required.

The report said it would cost many times more to prevent carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning using carbon capture and storage technology on power plants. The granting of land rights to indigenous people has increased over the last 20 years, Cunningham said, but has slowed down in recent years.

Paying indigenous and tribal communities for the environmental services of their territories has reduced deforestation in countries including Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. Berdegué said such programmes could attract hundreds of millions of dollars per year from international sources.

The need for protection is urgent, the report said, with annual deforestation rates in Brazil’s indigenous territories rising from 10,000 hectares in 2017 to 43,000 hectares in 2019. In January, indigenous leaders urged the international criminal court to investigate Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, over his dismantling of environmental policies and violations of indigenous rights.

Elsewhere, the area of large intact forests in indigenous territories has fallen between 2000 and 2016, with 59% lost in Paraguay, 42% in Nicaragua, 30% in Honduras and 20% in Bolivia. Mining and oil concessions now overlay almost a quarter of the land in Amazon basin indigenous and tribal territories, the report said.

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Dozens of countries are backing an effort that would protect 30 percent of Earth’s land and water. Native people, often among the most effective stewards of nature, have been disregarded, or worse, in the past.

With a million species at risk of extinction, dozens of countries are pushing to protect at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and water by 2030. Their goal is to hammer out a global agreement at negotiations to be held in China later this year, designed to keep intact natural areas like old growth forests and wetlands that nurture biodiversity, store carbon and filter water.

But many people who have been protecting nature successfully for generations won’t be deciding on the deal: Indigenous communities and others who have kept room for animals, plants and their habitats, not by fencing off nature, but by making a small living from it. The key to their success, research shows, is not extracting too much.

In the Brazilian Amazon, Indigenous people put their bodies on the line to protect native lands threatened by loggers and ranchers. In Canada, a First Nations group created a huge park to block mining. In Papua New Guinea, fishing communities have set up no-fishing zones. And in Guatemala, people living in a sprawling nature reserve are harvesting high-value timber in small amounts. In fact, some of those logs could end up as new bike lanes on the Brooklyn Bridge.

“If you’re going to save only the insects and the animals and not the Indigenous people, there’s a big contradiction,” said José Gregorio Díaz Mirabal, who leads an umbrella group, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin. “We’re one ecosystem.”

Nature is healthier on the more than quarter of the world’s lands that Indigenous people manage or own, according to several scientific studies. Indigenous-managed lands in Brazil, Canada and Australia have as much or more biodiversity than lands set aside for conservation by federal and other governments, researchers have found.

That is in stark contrast from the history of conservation, which has a troubled record of forcing people off their land. So, it is with a mixture of hope and worry that many Indigenous leaders view this latest global goal, known as 30×30, led by Britain, Costa Rica and France. Some want a higher target — more than 50 percent, according to Mr. Díaz Mirabal’s organization — while others fear that they may once again be pushed out in the name of conservation.

Defending Land, Protecting Vital Forests

In the Brazilian Amazon, Awapu Uru Eu Wau Wau puts his life on the line to protect the riches of his ancestral lands: jaguars, endangered brown woolly monkeys, and natural springs from which 17 important rivers flow. His people, the Indigenous Uru Eu Wau Wau, have legal right to the land, but must constantly defend it from armed intruders.

Just beyond their 7,000-square mile territory, cattle ranchers and soy planters have razed much of the forest. Their land is among the last protected forests and savanna left in the Brazilian state of Rondônia. Illegal loggers often encroach.

So Mr. Uru Eu Wau Wau, who uses his community’s name as his surname, patrols the forest with poison-tipped arrows. Others in his community keep watch with drones, GPS equipment and video cameras. He prepares his daughter and son, 11 and 13 years old, to defend it in the years ahead.

“No one knows what’s going to happen to us, and I’m not going to live forever,” Mr. Uru Eu Wau Wau said. “We need to leave it to our children to get on with things.”

The risks are high. Mr. Uru Eu Wau Wau’s cousin, Ari Uru Eu Wau Wau, was murdered last April, part of a chilling pattern among land defenders across the Amazon. In 2019, the most recent year for which data is available, at least 46 were murdered across Latin America. Many were Indigenous.

The community’s efforts have outsized benefits for the world’s 7.75 billion people: The Amazon, which accounts for half the remaining tropical rainforest in the world, helps to regulate Earth’s climate and nurtures invaluable genetic diversity. Research shows Indigenous property rights are crucial to reducing illegal deforestation in the Amazon.

A Collapse of Nature

Nature is under assault because humans gobble up land to grow food, harvest timber and dig for minerals, while also overfishing the oceans. Making matters worse, the combustion of fossil fuels is warming up the planet and making it harder for animals and plants to survive.

At fault, some scholars say, are the same historical forces that have extracted natural resources for hundreds of years, at the expense of Indigenous people. “What we’re seeing now with the biodiversity collapse and with climate change is the final stage of the effects of colonialism,” said Paige West, an anthropologist at Columbia University.

There is now broad recognition that reversing the loss of biodiversity is urgent not only for food security and a stable climate, it’s also critical to reducing the risk of new diseases spilling over from wild animals, like the coronavirus.

Enter 30×30. The goal to protect at least 30 percent of the Earth’s land and water, long pushed by conservationists, has been taken up by a coalition of countries. It will be part of diplomatic negotiations to be held in Kunming, China, this fall, under the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity. The United States is the only country, apart from the Vatican, that has not joined the convention, though President Biden has ordered up a plan to protect 30 percent of American waters and lands.

Indigenous communities are not recognized as parties to the international agreement. They can come as observers to the talks, but can’t vote on the outcome. Practically though, success is impossible without their support.

They already protect much of the world’s land and water, as David Cooper, deputy executive secretary of the United Nations agency for biodiversity, pointed out. “People live in these places,” he said. “They need to be engaged and their rights respected.”

A coalition of Indigenous groups and local communities has called for the agreement to protect at least half of the planet. Scientific research backs them up, finding that saving a third of the planet is simply not enough to preserve biodiversity and to store enough planet-warming carbon dioxide to slow down global warming.

Creating a New Kind of Park

A half century ago, where boreal forest meets tundra in Canada’s Northwest Territories, the Łutsël K’é’ Dene, one of the area’s Indigenous groups, opposed Canada’s efforts to set up a national park in and around its homeland.

“At that time, Canada’s national parks policies were very negative to Indigenous people’s ways of life,” said Steven Nitah, a former tribal chief. “They used to create national parks — fortress parks, I call it — and they kicked people out.”

But in the 1990s, the Łutsël K’é’ Dene faced a new threat: Diamonds were found nearby. They feared their lands would be gutted by mining companies. So they went back to the Canadian government to revisit the idea of a national park — one that enshrined their rights to manage the land, hunt and fish.

“To protect that heart of our homeland from industrial activities, this is what we used,” said Mr. Nitah, who served as his people’s chief negotiator with the Canadian government.

The park opened in 2019. Its name, Thaidene Nëné, means “Land of the Ancestors.”

Collaboration among conservationists, Indigenous nations and governments holds a key to protecting biodiversity, according to research.

Without local support, creating protected areas can be useless. They often fail to conserve animals and plants, becoming so-called “paper parks.”

Making a Living From Nature

Researchers have found that biodiversity protection often works best when local communities have a stake.

On islands in Papua New Guinea, for example, where fish is a staple, stocks had dwindled in recent decades. Fishers ventured farther from shore and spent more time at sea, but came back with smaller catches. So they partnered with local and international nonprofit groups to try something new. They changed their nets to let smaller fish escape. They reduced their use of a poison that brings fish to the surface. Most critically, they closed some waters to fishing altogether.

Meksen Darius, the head of one of the clans using these measures, said people were open to the idea because they hoped it would improve their livelihoods.

It did.

“The volume, the kinds of species of fish and other marine life, they’ve multiplied,” Mr. Darius, a retired lawyer, said.

Recent research from around the world shows that marine protected areas increase fish stocks, ultimately allowing fishing communities to catch more fish on the edges of the reserves.

To Iliana Monterroso, an environmental scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research in Lima, Peru, what matters is that people who live in areas of high biodiversity have a right to manage those areas. She pointed to the example of the Mayan Biosphere Reserve, a territory of two million hectares in Guatemala, where local communities have managed the forest for 30 years.

Under temporary contracts with the national government, they began harvesting limited quantities of timber and allspice, selling ornamental palms and running tourism agencies. They had an investment to protect. “The forest became the source of livelihood,” Dr. Monterroso said. “They were able to gain tangible benefits.”

Jaguars, spider monkeys and 535 species of butterflies thrive there. So does the white-lipped peccary, a shy pig that tends to disappear quickly when there’s hunting pressure. Community-managed forests have fewer forest fires, and there is almost zero rate of deforestation, according to researchers.

Erwin Maas is among the hundreds of Guatemalans who live there, too. He and his neighbors run a community-owned business in the village of Uaxactún. Mahogany is plentiful, but they can take only so much. Often, it’s one or two trees per hectare per year, Mr. Maas said. Seed-producing trees are left alone.

“Our goal is to sustain ourselves with a small amount and always take care of the forest,” he said.

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The Senate confirmed Ms. Haaland to lead the Interior Department. She’ll be charged with essentially reversing the agency’s course over the past four years.

WASHINGTON — Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico made history on Monday when the Senate confirmed her as President Biden’s secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency.

Ms. Haaland in 2018 became one of the first two Native American women elected to the House. But her new position is particularly redolent of history because the department she now leads has spent much of its history abusing or neglecting America’s Indigenous people.

Beyond the Interior Department’s responsibility for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million Native people, it oversees about 500 million acres of public land, federal waters off the United States coastline, a huge system of dams and reservoirs across the Western United States and the protection of thousands of endangered species.

“A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior,” she wrote on Twitter before the vote. “Growing up in my mother’s Pueblo household made me fierce. I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land.”

Republican opposition to her confirmation centered on Ms. Haaland’s history of fighting against oil and gas exploration, and the deliberations around her nomination highlighted her emerging role in the public debates on climate change, energy policy and racial equity. She was confirmed on a 51-40 vote. Only four Republican senators — Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — voted for Ms. Haaland’s confirmation.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said supporting her confirmation “would be voting to raise gas prices for families who are already struggling, to raise fuel and heating bills for seniors on a fixed income, to take the tough times we’ve been going through and make them even tougher.”

The new interior secretary will be charged with essentially reversing the agency’s mission over the past four years. The Interior Department, led by David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist, played a central role in the Trump administration’s systematic rollback of environmental regulations and the opening up of the nation’s lands and waters to drilling and mining.

Ms. Haaland is expected to quickly halt new drilling, reinstate wildlife conservation rules, rapidly expand wind and solar power on public lands and waters, and place the Interior Department at the center of Mr. Biden’s climate agenda.

At the same time, Ms. Haaland will quite likely assume a central role in realizing Mr. Biden’s promise to make racial equity a theme in his administration. Ms. Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo who identifies herself as a 35th-generation New Mexican, will assume control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, where she can address the needs of a population that has suffered from abuse and dislocation at the hands of the United States government for generations, and that has been disproportionately devastated by the coronavirus.

“You’ve heard the Earth referred to as Mother Earth,” Ms. Haaland said at her Senate confirmation hearing. “It’s difficult to not feel obligated to protect this land. And I feel every Indigenous person in the country understands that.”

Lynn Scarlett, who served as deputy interior secretary under George W. Bush and is now a senior official at the Nature Conservancy, warned, “It’s an enormous job, an enormously complex job.”

“The Interior Department has a footprint in all 50 states,” she said. “Its policies touch each and every American.”

As the agency takes on a newly muscular role in addressing climate change, she added, the department “will have to deal with new strategies for managing more intense wildfires on public land and chronic drought in the West. It’s hard to overstate the challenges with water.”

Among the first and most contentious items on Ms. Haaland’s to-do list will be enacting Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge to ban new permits for oil and gas projects on public lands.

Already, the White House has placed a short-term halt on issuing new oil and gas leases on public lands, which has drawn fierce attacks from Republicans and the oil and gas industry.

Ms. Haaland’s ability to implement that ban successfully could have major consequences both for the climate and for the Biden administration. According to one study by Interior Department scientists, the emissions associated with fossil fuel drilling on public lands account for about a quarter of the nation’s greenhouse gases. But the policy will most likely be enacted at a time when gasoline prices are projected to soar — spurring almost-certain political blowback from Republicans ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

For the drilling ban to survive legal challenges, experts say, Ms. Haaland will have to move with care.

“They may attempt a total ban, but that would be more vulnerable to a court challenge,” said Marcella Burke, an energy policy lawyer and former Interior Department official. “Or there’s the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach.”

That approach would make oil drilling less feasible by creating such stringent regulations and cleanup rules that exploration would not be worth the cost.

“Each step will be challenged in the courts, but it’s like diversifying your portfolio,” Ms. Burke said. “It lowers the risk that one single ban will be thrown out in courts.”

Complicating Ms. Haaland’s efforts to formulate new land management policies will be a logistical hurdle: the planned relocation of the Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the Interior Department that oversees oil and gas drilling policies. The bureau is expected to move back to Washington from Grand Junction, Colo., where it was moved by the Trump administration.

“You need to move that back to D.C. and build it back,” said Joel Clement, a former Interior Department expert in climate change policy who resigned from the agency in protest of the Trump administration policies. “The staff, the budget — all these people who were supposed to work with Congress on these policies were pushed out West, or they left,” he said. “They are hugely demoralized.”

Ms. Haaland is also expected to revisit the Trump administration’s rollback of habitat protections under the Endangered Species Act. Under the Trump rules, it became easier to remove a species from the endangered list, and for the first time, regulators were allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, estimating lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat — when deciding whether a species warrants protection.

Such rules led to an exodus of staff, particularly from the Fish and Wildlife Service, Mr. Clement said.

“There’s a rebuilding that needs to happen there,” he said.

The Interior Department also must submit a detailed new plan by June 2022 that lays out how the federal government will manage the vast outer continental shelf off the American coastline, an area rich in marine wilderness and undersea oil and gas resources.

Given Mr. Biden’s pledge to ban new drilling, the new offshore management plan will quite likely reimpose Obama-era policies that barred oil exploration on the entire East and West Coasts of the United States — while possibly going further, by limiting drilling off the coasts of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico. But writing the legal, economic and scientific justifications will be difficult.

“They have to get started and really get cracking,” said Jacqueline Savitz, a vice president of Oceana, an environmental group.

As the department moves against offshore drilling, it is expected to help ramp up offshore wind farms. Last week, the agency took a major step toward approving the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., a project that had been in the works for years.

“This administration is in a position to make large-scale offshore wind a reality for the first time,” Ms. Savitz said. “But the transition in the ocean from offshore fossil fuels to wind farms needs to happen in the next four years, so it’s in place before the next administration.”

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