People and Protected Areas: Tenure and Participation

Sustainable use of natural resources cannot be achieved unless fair access and control to natural resources are available to local people, without discrimination based on gender, class, ethnicity, age or other social variables. There is a need to empower communities and local users, recognising their rights and responsibilities, ensuring their means to sustainable livelihoods and human development. Fair and safe tenure systems for land and natural resources increase social stability and local resources users' incentives and abilities to participate in resource management decisions in effective ways.

Protected areas are one of the most important tools for biodiversity conservation and have traditionally been a key field for IUCN. Many protected areas of the world overlap with indigenous lands and territories (including marine areas). As an example, in Latin America, it is estimated that 86% of national parks are inhabited by local populations, most of them indigenous; in Central America, about 85% of the total land within protected areas is inhabited by indigenous communities. Many conflicts have emerged from the fact that protected areas have not recognized the rights of local populations. Therefore IUCN seeks to:

• Promote collaborative management in Protected Areas and address the need to promote national processes that empower local communities’ rights and responsibilities to fully participate in the planning, implementation and decision-making processes affecting resource management in their lands and territories.

• Support governments and nations to invest in stakeholder consultation and negotiation mechanisms and to adapt legal and institutional frameworks to allow participatory management of natural resources in and around Protected Areas (e.g., community-based management, collaborative management).

• Promote tenure systems that support fair access to the land and to natural resources beyond gender, caste, class, ethnicity, age, or any other social discrimination, as basic foundations for achieving conservation and sustainable use of natural resources.

• Promote those processes that support local institutions, and strengthen local communities' secure access to, and control over, land and resources, equitable sharing, education and training, as well as full and fair participation in decision-making processes.

• Involve different stakeholders in Protected Areas by working at the local level to promote decision-making institutions and collaborative management, and building a partnership based on trust, respect and solidarity.

Recalling the WCC Resolution 1.42 on Collaborative Management for Conservation, IUCN seeks, in particular, to promote the participation of local groups and communities, which are frequently marginalised in resource management and development processes.

IUCN's inter-disciplinary Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy (CEESP) acts as a source of expertise on economic and social factors that affect natural resources and biological diversity and works actively on issues related to communities and Protected Areas.

Look at the Principles And Guidelines On Indigenous And Traditional Peoples And Protected Areas developed by IUCN / WCPA and WWF in May 1999.

Read "Local communities and protected areas", PARKS, Volume 12 No. 2, 2002 (a joint issue of the WCPA magazine with CEESP / TILCEPA).

See the Participatory Management Clearinghouse established jointly by IUCN, WWF and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.