Conservation & Human Rights
30×30: the good, the bad and what needs to happen next
After years of intense international negotiations and delays, the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) has now been adopted but the final agreement is a mixed bag – while it contains some hard-fought guarantees for Indigenous Peoples and other local communities, core concerns about the “30×30” plan remain. Ultimately, governments have missed a huge opportunity for a … Read more
NGOs warn 30×30 plan could “devastate Indigenous lives” in run-up to COP15
These Khadia men were thrown off their land after it was turned into a protected area. They lived for months under plastic sheets. Millions more face this fate if the 30% plan goes ahead. © Survival Human Rights NGOs have just released a joint statement in the run-up to December’s COP15 on biodiversity, denouncing the planned target … Read more
Target to ‘Protect’ 30% of Earth by 2030 – A Disaster for People and Bad for the Planet?
With COP15 looming, leading Human Rights NGOs have denounced the planned target of protecting 30% of Earth by 2030.
“The 30×30 conservation pledge isn’t backed by science” – warn human rights groups
A push to place 30% of the planet under ‘protected’ status by 2030, while making for catchy media headlines and political slogans, is not supported by the science, a group of international NGOs have warned. This warning comes as delegates of governments and conservation organisations meet in Kenya this week to discuss the draft post-2020 … Read more
On Protected Areas and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: A submission to the UN Special Rapporteur
In a submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ upcoming report on the impacts of protected areas to the UN General Assembly at its 77th session, RFUK has warned that despite much lip service to the contrary, conventional conservation and climate change programmes continue to wreak havoc on indigenous peoples … Read more
Protected Areas and Indigenous Rights: A submission to the UN Special Rapporteur
In response to a call for comments to inform the Special Rapporteur’s report to the UN General Assembly at its 77th session, RFUK has put together a brief highlighting how, despite much lip service to the contrary, conventional conservation and climate change programmes continue to wreak havoc on indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities.
NGOs respond to the proposed weakening of the Post-2020 GBF
RFUK and a group of environmental NGOs have written a letter to the Working Group of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, stating their deep concern over the planned weakening of the standards and principles of the Framework. Under a stated intention of making the proposal clear and concise, all “cross-cutting issues” will be removed from … Read more
New U.S. legislative bill could pave the way for greater protection of human rights in international biodiversity conservation
In a significant development, the chair and ranking minority member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources has introduced a bill that aims to ensure that U.S. international biodiversity funding is not used to contribute to human rights abuses in and around protected areas. This comes off the back of a U.S. … Read more
A Post-COP Conversation
After a frenetic two weeks for RFUK and our local partners at the climate talks in Glasgow, we reflect on some of the gains, the losses, and the next steps in striving to put tropical forests and their traditional guardians at the heart of the international climate agenda. A declaration by 137 countries promising to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 … Read more
First international counter-conference on conservation will denounce “world’s biggest land grab”
The world’s first major international congress on decolonizing conservation, “Our Land, Our Nature”, will take place in Marseille, France, on September 2, 2021, immediately before the IUCN World Conservation Congress in the same city. At this congress indigenous representatives and speakers from around 18 countries will share evidence and first-hand testimonies of conservation atrocities and … Read more