Human rights are not just words on paper. Advocates, social movements and government champions have brought much needed positive changes by pushing for the adoption of international human rights standards and putting rights at the forefront of national laws, policy, and governance decisions. In the world of conservation governance, human rights are the key to protecting whole systems — people, wildlife and the natural spaces they live in. However, applying human rights is easier said than done with multiple barriers to implementation. This is the realm we operate in to help bring tangible change.
At the end of 2024, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the “core human rights principles for private conservation organizations and funders,” which build on existing human rights treaties and standards. The drafters received input from many actors, including us. However, there remains insufficient clarity in translating principles into practice.
As human rights practitioners with extensive experience in several fields, we have been working in the conservation sector to bring a sharper, more systematic focus on human rights and to develop a better understanding of what works on the ground. When governments fail to uphold human rights, in most instances it is imperative not simply to terminate support but rather to stay on a principled course to protect and respect the rights of affected communities over the long term.
Large conservation NGOs often work in extremely remote places where government presence is limited, with few, if any, social services or other civil society actors. This puts enormous pressure on them to support communities heavily dependent on their presence to help secure their rights, welfare and different types of services. Conservation organizations can play a bridging role between communities and governments and exercise leverage, but governments are ultimately responsible for protecting human rights.
When governments fail to uphold human rights standards, some critics of conservation call for termination of conservation funding, activities and support to governments. But abandoning communities to endure the abuses alone, while their environment is destroyed, is just avoiding the problem. Pragmatic, gradual improvement in rights-protection is both possible and principled through the human rights-based approach.
This approach helps: 1) honor the self-determination of Indigenous peoples and local communities; 2) prioritize justice and non-discrimination; 3) move away from models imposing top-down services and livelihood projects onto communities seen as merely beneficiaries; 4) lift the voices of communities in the design of policies and governance; and 5) reduce conflict with communities. To review the full article, click here.
Autor: Sharanya Kanikkannan, Sushil Raj
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