{"id":10363,"date":"2024-09-29T13:20:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T10:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/?p=10363"},"modified":"2024-09-29T13:20:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T10:20:20","slug":"do-indigenous-peoples-conserve-80-of-global-biodiversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/news\/do-indigenous-peoples-conserve-80-of-global-biodiversity","title":{"rendered":"Do Indigenous peoples conserve 80% of Global Biodiversity?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new commentary piece in Nature argues that the much-cited claim that Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world\u2019s remaining biodiversity is not only baseless, but wrong.<\/p>\n

Although scientists and Indigenous advocates agree the statistic is under-researched, not all agree with the authors\u2019 conclusions, especially as they did not provide evidence that suggests the statistic is wrong nor provide alternative ways of estimating biodiversity conservation on Indigenous lands.<\/p>\n

Scientists share their ideas and insights on calculating biodiversity on Indigenous lands, including the complexities of such research and what to avoid in the future to maintain scientific rigor.<\/p>\n

Indigenous advocates say the Nature commentary is unethical as it makes conclusions without enough evidence and undermines Indigenous guardianship of biodiversity<\/a>, their land rights and access to funding ahead of the upcoming U.N. biodiversity conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A new\u00a0commentary piece<\/a>\u00a0in the journal\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0has caused an uproar in the conservation world and has prompted scientists to call for rigorous study.<\/p>\n

According to the authors, the much-cited claim that 80% of the world\u2019s remaining biodiversity is protected by Indigenous peoples is not only a \u201cbaseless statistic\u201d that is not supported by any real data<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s wrong. Mentioning the impossibility of quantifying biodiversity and the lack of studies that produced the statistic, the researchers show how multiple peer-reviewed journal articles and media (including this one) cited the figure.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaintaining accuracy and integrity is crucial for advancing social advocacy. Failing to correct errors, no matter how inconvenient, only serves to perpetuate disinformation,\u201d says \u00c1lvaro Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares, one of the authors. \u201cThis runs contrary to the tenets of scientific rigor.\u201d<\/p>\n

But not all researchers agree with the authors\u2019 conclusions, and many Indigenous activists call<\/a> the commentary unethical. Although nearly all sources Mongabay spoke to agree the statistic is under-researched, and certain NGOs have long avoided using the figure, some say the\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0commentary itself lacks real evidence. According to scientific principles, they say, it\u2019s still incorrect to point to the 80% stat as wrong without providing proof it\u2019s wrong. This is especially true as many peer-reviewed\u00a0studies<\/a>\u00a0point to Indigenous stewardship of high-value biodiversity areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the 80% statistic is not well evidenced, it does not mean it\u2019s not true,\u201d says Drea Burbank, CEO of the fair-trade biodiversity credits business<\/a> Savimbo.<\/p>\n

Publishing the commentary without proof, Indigenous advocates tell Mongabay, undermines Indigenous guardianship of biodiversity and needlessly\u00a0jeopardizes their land rights ahead of the upcoming<\/a>\u00a0U.N. biodiversity conference.<\/p>\n

But how can scientists calculate the actual number? And, following the authors\u2019 conclusions on biodiversity, is it even possible to calculate this figure?<\/p>\n

Yes, say most researchers Mongabay spoke with, and some are looking forward to it \u2014 though in different forms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a better paper would have been to highlight this [discrepancy] and then to offer various different ways to estimate the importance of Indigenous lands for biodiversity,\u201d says Jonathan Green, senior researcher at SEI York who focuses on conservation<\/a> science.<\/p>\n

But the issue, scientists and policy experts tell Mongabay, is down to data discrepancy. To come up with the true number, researchers would need two data layers: biodiversity density and Indigenous<\/a> lands. Both are complex information to gather and analyze for their own reasons.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible, scientists say, but difficult and imperfect.<\/p>\n

\"A
A member of the Kayambi youth group in Ecuador plants new plants in their communal orchard. Image by UNICEF Ecuador via\u00a0Flickr<\/a>\u00a0(CC BY 2.0<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beyond calculable numbers, Indigenous advocates also say any assessment will offer but a snapshot of their stewardship of life on Earth, its\u00a0species<\/a>\u00a0and their\u00a0spiritual<\/a>\u00a0ties to the land. Fernando Lezama, Pijao tribal leader and co-founder of Savimbo, says many Indigenous sites in the Amazon<\/a> and Ecuador have long protected the rarest species, including a species of wild canine they have not found possible to study or gather data on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have other rare animals that we haven\u2019t been able to capture yet, but we know that some animals exist and that are not yet written in the books of science,\u201d he tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n

Can we quantify biodiversity?<\/h2>\n

A few years ago, Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares intended to use the 80% figure in a scientific article of his. \u201cBut when I tried to fact-check it, I was unable to find any solid source. The deeper I dug into it, the clearer it became that the figure was unsubstantiated,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

To check the claim, the authors of the\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0piece searched decades of literature. The earliest potential source for the 80% statistic is in the 2001\u00a0edition<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0Encyclopedia of Biodiversity<\/em>. Three reports cite this publication, including a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0by the U.N. Food and Agriculture<\/a> Organization (FAO). According to the report, \u201capproximately 80 per cent of the world\u2019s remaining biodiversity is found in Indigenous peoples\u2019 territories.\u201d However, the encyclopedia actually asserts that \u201cnearly 80% of the terrestrial ecoregions are inhabited by one or more Indigenous peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, the original statement and the analysis underpinning it merely quantified the proportion of the world\u2019s 136 terrestrial ecoregions in which Indigenous peoples live.<\/p>\n

Then, in 2002, the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development\u00a0stated<\/a>\u00a0that Indigenous peoples \u201cnurture 80% of the world\u2019s biodiversity on ancestral lands and territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, a 2008 World Bank\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0seemed to have contributed most to the figure\u2019s widespread adoption in the academic literature. The report cited a 2005\u00a0publication<\/a>\u00a0by the global nonprofit World Resources Institute (WRI), which observed that seven Indigenous communities in the Philippines were \u201cmaintaining over 80 percent of the original high-biodiversity forest cover\u201d \u2014 not a statement of global Indigenous biodiversity stewardship.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome social scientists call it an \u201cimmutable mobile\u201d \u2014 i.e., an apparent fact that is used by different people all over the world without questioning,\u201d says Tim Forsyth, a professor of environment and development at the London School of Economics and Political Science<\/a> who focuses on understanding contested science. \u201cThat in itself is a course of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the continued use of the stat comes from assumptions about Indigenous peoples that are too narrow and essentialist about their relationship with nature. \u201c[It] reflects an interest in Indigenous people that only serves the agenda of protecting biodiversity,\u201d he tells Mongabay, reducing our attention to Indigenous rights beyond this generalization.<\/p>\n

\"Sami
Sami people in Enonteki\u00f6, Finland, at the summit of the sacred Saana Fell. Image by Ninara via\u00a0Flickr<\/a>\u00a0(CC BY 2.0<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While he says many studies show we have much to learn from Indigenous people\u2019s traditional ecological knowledge and their conservation of ecosystems<\/a>, some communities also actively take part in activities destroying biodiversity, and many cultures are changing within the younger generations.<\/p>\n

But,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to Burbank, Savimbo continued to use the statistic after doing their own internal study. To do so, they overlapped maps of global territories and areas conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities from the ICCA Consortium\u2019s Territories of Life 2021\u00a0report<\/a>, with the ranges of one of several existing data sets on biodiversity density, such as the 2024\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0on the global distribution of plants used by humans.<\/p>\n

A similar public<\/a> study, scientists told Mongabay, should be done.<\/p>\n

Although the\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0commentary bases its conclusion on the fact that biodiversity is unquantifiable, measuring biodiversity described by science is not such a big challenge, Burbank argues. Rather than emphasizing the fact that \u201cwe can\u2019t measure biodiversity\u201d because scientists have not yet described all species or it may be difficult to distinguish between species, she says focusing on described species, using species as proxies for biodiversity or innovating<\/a> how we measure biodiversity should be the focus.<\/p>\n

Several months before the commentary was published, Burbank approached the authors with this possibility of measuring biodiversity on Indigenous lands, but she says they didn\u2019t respond to her email.<\/p>\n

Researchers we spoke to, on the other hand, did say measuring biodiversity was a challenge but also disagreed with the\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0authors that it was impossible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all sorts of ways of measuring and mapping biodiversity \u2014 and species richness often isn\u2019t the most useful in terms of conservation. Inevitably none capture all biodiversity, so all assessments come with caveats, but these kinds of assessments are central to the prioritization of conservation<\/a> actions,\u201d Green tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n

Though imperfect for capturing all of biodiversity, scientists tell Mongabay that species on the IUCN<\/a> Red List, key biodiversity areas (KBAs), ecoregions or the distribution of plants, wildlife and fungi can serve as proxies for calculating how much Indigenous peoples conserve.<\/p>\n

To get a better sense of the biodiversity density that Indigenous peoples\u2019 have long stewarded, Stuart Butchart, chief scientist<\/a> at conservation NGO BirdLife International, says multiple parameters for biodiversity should be used. \u201cPresenting the range of these numbers would give a more realistic assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In these ways, people are always publishing studies about biodiversity density globally, Burbank from Savimbo tells Mongabay. \u201cBut apparently, they have no interest in biodiversity density on Indigenous lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Indigenous
Indigenous people and cattle in the Omo valley, Ethiopia. Image \u00a9 Markus Mauthe \/ Greenpeace.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mapping Indigenous lands<\/h2>\n

Gathering accurate data on Indigenous lands is the other piece of the puzzle to estimate the percentage of biodiversity, though it is also complex.<\/p>\n

According to David Kroeker-Maus, senior research associate of Rights and Resources Initiative\u2019s land\u00a0Tenure Tracking program<\/a>, researchers could use\u00a0key biodiversity areas<\/a>\u00a0as a proxies for biodiversity and compare the\u00a0KBA database<\/a>\u00a0with maps of Indigenous lands. He proposes using land maps like\u00a0LandMark<\/a>, the best available global map of Indigenous and community lands, or maps used in a 2018\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0researchers often refer to.<\/p>\n

But gathering accurate data on the precise location of Indigenous lands on a global scale is challenging, and both these maps have significant gaps, geographers tell Mongabay.<\/p>\n

Researchers should use up-to-date data on Indigenous lands, including those that are not yet titled. States\u2019 lack of recognition of ancestral lands, the absence of mapping Indigenous lands in country maps and unresolved land conflicts make it difficult to obtain accurate data on the full scope of all Indigenous lands.<\/p>\n

So far, the 2018 study estimates Indigenous peoples manage or have tenure over at least 28% of the Earth\u2019s lands. This figure suggests the true figure of biodiversity density on Indigenous lands could be much lower than 80%, Butchart says. However, perhaps not too low. One\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0suggests these same Indigenous lands have habitats of at least 60% of all terrestrial mammal species.<\/p>\n

Some sources suggest that biodiversity loss<\/a> in the last few decades since the 80% figure first appeared could also have lowered the number. A World Bank<\/a> spokesperson tells Mongabay that in light of \u201cadvances in research, knowledge around biodiversity, Indigenous peoples\u2019 lands and geospatial data over the past 16 years, we are phasing out our own use of the 80% statistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if scientists want to go beyond how much biodiversity is on Indigenous peoples\u2019 lands to calculate how much biodiversity they\u00a0actively<\/em>\u00a0conserve, it\u2019s even more complex.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany Indigenous peoples\u2019 land<\/a> use paradigms do not have the same dichotomy between conserved land and productive land that is implicit in Western conservation planning,\u201d Kroeker-Maus explains. \u201c[And] even Indigenous lands that have not been explicitly demarcated as a conservation area are likely being conserved in the sense that they are being sustainably stewarded by the communities<\/a> that use them.\u201d<\/p>\n

To estimate the amount of biodiversity\u00a0actively<\/em>\u00a0protected by Indigenous peoples, researchers should also pull data and map all Indigenous protected areas<\/a>, conserved customary lands, community forests, community credit projects and more, Indigenous advocates say. The ICCA Consortium\u2019s 2021 report captures one aspect of Indigenous stewarded areas, but not all, and it also includes lands stewarded by non-Indigenous local communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most feasible approach would be to assess how much\u00a0known<\/em>\u00a0biodiversity exists within\u00a0mapped<\/em>\u00a0Indigenous lands and to use this as a baseline, focusing only on countries or regions where reliable data is available,\u201d says Fabrice Dubertret, a geographer focused on mapping Indigenous lands and one of the founding members of LandMark, in an email. \u201cAttempting to create a global estimate with precise results would be a chimera.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also likely to be inaccurate, he tells Mongabay. It might be more productive to focus on regional levels and use that to reveal meaningful trends in Indigenous biodiversity stewardship without compromising scientific rigor.<\/p>\n

In the future, if people estimate or publish work on Indigenous biodiversity conservation<\/a>, everyone must look more critically at how they generate that statistic, sources say.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor what campaigning purposes \u2014 and with what costs to how we understand biodiversity or Indigenous people,\u201d Forsyth says.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the conflict over the exact figure, former U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment David Boyd says that lands managed by Indigenous people are in better shape from an ecological perspective than lands managed by the state or privately owned lands. To strengthen their participation, recognizing and respecting Indigenous title to land is an important conservation strategy<\/a>, Boyd says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is also a compelling human rights argument that states must<\/a> respect Indigenous rights when taking conservation action,\u201d he tells Mongabay.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan
Jonathan Mesulam<\/a>, spokesperson and coordinator for the Alliance of Solwara Warriors in Papua New Guinea\u2019s New Ireland province, speaks to a coastal community. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018More harm than good\u2019<\/h2>\n

Multiple<\/a>\u00a0studies<\/a>\u00a0acknowledge Indigenous peoples\u2019 stewardship of biodiversity and\u00a0forests<\/a>, from\u00a0protecting<\/a>\u00a0the Amazon\u2019s carbon sinks to owning lands with\u00a0fewer \u201calien\u201d species<\/a>. Although the authors acknowledge this, Indigenous rights advocates say they worry the\u00a0Nature\u00a0commentary could do more harm than good \u2014<\/a> especially as it was published as a commentary rather than a peer-reviewed study.<\/p>\n

It \u201cundermines the intangible relationship of communities with nature\u201d and could result in Indigenous peoples being denied biodiversity funding ahead of the U.N. biodiversity (COP) summits, they tell Mongabay.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t really ethically sound,\u201d says Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a member of the Hopi Tribe in Northern Arizona and assistant specialist at the University<\/a> of Arizona. \u201cWhether it\u2019s 60%, 80%, they didn\u2019t explain that. It was just a biased article that did not offer any alternative solutions, discrediting our knowledge, ways of life and the relationships we have with our lands and territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Indigenous people\u2019s connection to the land is physical, cultural and\u00a0spiritual<\/a>\u00a0based on millennia of knowledge, allowing ecosystems to thrive under their care is crucial, says Hanieh Moghani, expert member and vice chair at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.<\/p>\n

The authors tell Mongabay they don\u2019t question Indigenous environmental stewardship, which they underline as essential in their commentary. Rather, their focus is about getting the metrics, data and statistics accurate, they say.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares says challenging the 80% figure was important before other researchers uncaring about human rights came across the \u201cdeficiency of statistics\u201d and dismissed all established claims on Indigenous stewardship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur article could be interpreted as a careful attempt to defuse a ticking bomb waiting to go off that could have caused enormous damage to Indigenous peoples,\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares says.<\/p>\n

No donor, state representative or NGO has yet publicly stated whether the\u00a0Nature\u00a0article influenced their funding or conservation<\/a> work with Indigenous organizations.<\/p>\n

The World Bank spokesperson says the financial institution \u201ccontinues to work to promote the recognition and strengthening of Indigenous peoples\u2019 significant contribution as stewards of a portion of the world\u2019s forests and biodiversity.\u201d And large conservation NGOs we spoke with continue to underline the importance of including Indigenous peoples in conservation.<\/p>\n

Rather than focusing solely on the percentage, Moghani says attention should be on whether the government and global community will uphold Indigenous\u00a0rights<\/a>\u00a0to manage and protect the territories, especially in the face of external pressures like land-grabs, industrialization and\u00a0climate change<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile stats are important,\u201d she says, \u201cthe essence of the discussion lies in acknowledging the undeniable role Indigenous peoples play as stewards of biodiversity, which is so evident that it does not need to be reduced to mere numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Banner image:<\/strong>\u00a0Belen Perugachi, 16, is an Indigenous Kichwa adolescent from Paquiestancia, a small comunity in the highlands of Ecuador. Image by UNICEF Ecuador via\u00a0Flickr<\/a>\u00a0(CC BY 2.0<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

Related Mongabay podcast episode:<\/strong>\u00a0How the Indigenous Shuar regained their ancestral forest<\/a>. Listen here:<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Citations:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares, \u00c1., Fa, J. E., Brockington, D., Brond\u00edzio, E. S., Cari\u00f1o, J., Corbera, E., \u2026 Garnett, S. T. (2024). No basis for claim that 80% of biodiversity is found in Indigenous territories.\u00a0Nature<\/em>,\u00a0633<\/em>(8028), 32-35. doi:10.1038\/d41586-024-02811-w<\/a><\/p>\n

Levin, S. A., & Et al. (2001).\u00a0Encyclopedia of biodiversity<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(2001 ed.). Academic Press.<\/p>\n

Pironon, S., Ondo, I., Diazgranados, M., Allkin, R., Baquero, A. C., C\u00e1mara-Leret, R., \u2026 Willis, K. J. (2024). The global distribution of plants used by humans.\u00a0Science<\/em>,\u00a0383<\/em>(6680), 293-297. doi:10.1126\/science.adg8028<\/a><\/p>\n

Garnett, S. T., Burgess, N. D., Fa, J. E., Fern\u00e1ndez-Llamazares, \u00c1., Moln\u00e1r, Z., Robinson, C. J., \u2026 Leiper, I. (2018). A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation<\/a>.\u00a0Nature Sustainability<\/em>,\u00a01<\/em>(7), 369-374. doi:10.1038\/s41893-018-0100-6<\/a><\/p>\n

O\u2019Bryan, C. J., Garnett, S. T., Fa, J. E., Leiper, I., Rehbein, J. A., Fern\u00e1ndez\u2010Llamazares, \u00c1., \u2026 Watson, J. E. (2020). The importance of Indigenous Peoples\u2019 lands for the conservation of terrestrial mammals.\u00a0Conservation Biology<\/em>,\u00a035<\/em>(3), 1002-1008. doi:10.1111\/cobi.13620<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new commentary piece in Nature argues that the much-cited claim that Indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world\u2019s remaining biodiversity is not only baseless, but wrong. Although scientists and Indigenous advocates agree the statistic is under-researched, not all agree with the authors\u2019 conclusions, especially as they did not provide evidence that suggests the statistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10363"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10368,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10363\/revisions\/10368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cfwt.sua.ac.tz\/ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}