Indigenous territorial rights in the Global Biodiversity Framework: Creating a third pathway to 30x30

At the conclusion of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD-COP15) in Montreal, Canada in December 2022, many rights-holders and allies commended the inclusion of language respecting Indigenous rights and knowledge in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF). In particular, they pointed to the recognition of and rights to Indigenous and traditional territories in Target 3, commonly referred to as 30x30. Drawing on a collaborative ethnography of CBD-COP15 and its preparatory meetings between 2020 and 2022, we examine how the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity and its allies built a transnational alliance of member states, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), and others to further a human rights-based approach. We illustrate how they invoked the moral authority of the United Nations human rights framework and used consultation processes, established under Article 8j of the CBD, as well as the time and space provided by the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, they embraced Target 3–a target that was important to many actors–framing the recognition of territorial rights as key to achieving Target 3. The inclusion of rights-based language in Target 3 entails a critical step toward decolonizing conservation by underscoring the importance of recognizing and respecting the rights of IPLCs in all area-based conservation, by recognizing IPLCs rights—and implicitly Indigenous-led governance—over traditional territories, and by paving the way for a third category of area-based conservation, which sees Indigenous territorial claims as fundamental human rights and protecting territorial rights as a means of protecting Indigenous life. The power of this text lies in its codification of a conservation paradigm shift that frames long standing struggles against green grabs as human rights issues and foundation for legal claims in international, regional, and national courts. Nonetheless, it is limited in its ability to transform the broader political economy of conservation. The core challenge ahead is to utilize the various mechanisms for implementing the KMGBF—from monitoring and reporting to the new Subsidiary Body on Article 8j—to restructure the relations of domination under capitalism that cause environmental destruction and dispossession.

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