Resources

Conservation and human rights: an introduction.

Conservation and human rights have had an uneasy relationship ever since the emergence of the modern ‘western’ concept of conservation in the late nineteenth century. The core strategy of conservation globally has been the creation of uninhabited areas that are protected against any form of human exploitation (an approach known as ‘fortress conservation’). Fortress conservation has often involved forced, violent evictions of whole communities, and has had devastating impacts on the lives, cultures and wellbeing of indigenous peoples and local communities, often in violation of their rights. Since the 1970s, conservationists have made repeated commitments to respect rights, but despite this, forced exclusion continues to be commonplace and violent evictions still occur regularly. Not only is this morally wrong and in violation of human rights, but it is also counterproductive.  We now know that many traditional systems of environmental stewardship are sustainable, and that good conservation outcomes are correlated with greater local autonomy and control (Dawson et al, 2024).

However, at the UN CBD COP15 in 2022, nearly 200 countries made a renewed and strengthened commitment to follow a human rights-based approach in conservation. The commitment was made as part of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which sets out 23 targets and four overarching goals for what needs to be done over the next 30 years to address the global biodiversity crisis. The strong language on rights-based conservation in the Framework provides an opportunity to transform the way that conservation is done and build on common interests between conservationists and the many indigenous peoples and local communities who are struggling to defend their lands, resources and cultures from destruction. To do this, there needs to be a move away from top-down approaches and externally generated priorities, towards greater support for those who live in biodiverse, vulnerable places to conserve their own nature, based on full respect for their rights (Milner-Gulland, 2024).

Several changes will need to take place for this shift to happen, including institutional, political and normative changes in the conservation sector. However, one underlying requirement is a much better understanding amongst conservationists of international human rights law, how it applies to conservation, and what a human rights-based approach means in practice. To help meet this requirement, our new publication introduces the major international human rights instruments and frameworks, summarises how they are overseen and implemented, and discusses how they apply to conservation. It then sets out the most relevant human rights of three groups of people who are particularly affected by conservation: indigenous peoples and local communities, women, and environmental human rights defenders.

Lastly, the guidance presents several practical tools and approaches to help conservationists apply a human rights-based approach. Tools for respecting and protecting rights include social safeguard and due diligence procedures, human rights impact assessments, free, prior and informed consent processes, grievance mechanisms, and processes for remedy and redress. However, following a rights-based approach means more than this. It also means actively supporting rights-holders to assert and exercise their rights and working to ensure that governments and others meet their human rights obligations.

Rights-based approaches cannot be reduced to a set of steps or methodologies alone; instead, they involve a shift away from approaches in which individuals, communities and peoples are treated as the passive objects of external interventions to one in which they are recognised as “key actors in their own development” (UNDG, 2003). The details of how this is done in practice vary from case to case, but in all cases, it involves building on common interests and negotiating where there are differences in interests, with full respect for individual and collective rights as an underlying bottom line. Our guidance presents three tools that have proven useful in identifying and building on common interests: the Whakatane Mechanism, which is a conflict resolution methodology adopted by the IUCN, participatory mapping, and participatory biodiversity monitoring. The guidance ends by exploring what a rights-based approach means for two common types of conservation project that often affect Indigenous peoples and local communities. These are livelihoods projects and projects related to human wildlife conflict.

The need for conservation to be rights-based is now firmly embedded at the heart of international policy. Now it needs to become embedded in practice throughout the conservation sector. For this to happen, human rights will need to become a standard part of formal conservation training programmes. More immediately, each of us who works in conservation needs to take responsibility to ensure that our own work follows a rights-based approach.

A guide to community-based monitoring of river health

Globally, rivers are facing increasing pressure from adverse human activities and development. Pollution, habitat loss, species declines, and unsustainable resource use are common challenges facing freshwater ecosystems.

At the same time, Indigenous and local communities rely on rivers for food, water, medicine, ceremony, identity, and more. By monitoring changes in river water quality, habitat conditions, and species presence, communities can better understand emerging threats and take action to protect the rivers that sustain them.

Community-led monitoring supports and empowers communities in leading initiatives themselves, and not relying on outside expertise or resources. Indigenous and local communities hold a deep knowledge on environmental changes, including changes from adverse human activities. There is a need for a river monitoring guide that places Indigenous and local communities and their knowledge at the core of environmental monitoring, with additional monitoring techniques that are accessible to communities with limited resources or technical expertise.

To further support Indigenous and community-led conservation initiatives, our team developed a new community-led guide for monitoring river health and biodiversity. This guide brings together methodologies that build on Indigenous and local ecological knowledge, alongside scientific monitoring approaches, supporting community stewardship of river ecosystems. This guide was developed in collaboration with Forest Peoples Programme, the University of Oxford’s Department of Biology and Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation Science, the Transformative Pathways project funded by the International Climate Initiative, Carleton University, and Mitacs.

Maximising ranger-collected data to tackle elephant poaching.

ICCS postdoc Tim Kuiper and Professor E.J. Milner-Gulland partnered with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority to help tackle elephant poaching through leveraging poaching data collected by wildlife rangers. Ranger detections of elephant carcasses have immense value for tackling poaching – helping park managers track changes in poaching, and strategically direct and measure the performance of different antipoaching strategies. In late 2020, Tim was awarded a Fellowship from the Oxford Policy Engagement Network to translate his PhD research into action in Zimbabwe. Tim’s PhD assessed the reliability of ranger-collected data and how these data were used by park managers in the Zambezi Valley. Learn more about this research here .

The policy brief co-developed with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority was endorsed by high level management within the organisation, and in late 2022 local partners in Zimbabwe began workshops with ZPWMA staff to start the process of implementing the policy guidelines.