World Conservation Congress

World Conservation Congress recognizes the specific needs of Mobile Indigenous Peoples

Resolution 068 “Mobile Peoples and Conservation” was passed at the World Conservation Congress held from the 17th - 25th November in Bangkok. Organised every 3-4 years by IUCN - the World Conservation Union - the Congress helps define conservation policy worldwide. Resolution 068 is based largely on collaboration between Dr Dawn Chatty of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford and others and promotes issues of mobile peoples (e.g., nomadic pastoralists, shifting agriculturalists, hunter-gatherers, sea-nomads) and conservation.1

The Resolution notes the Dana Declaration on Mobile Peoples and Conservation which is the outcome of an Oxford-led initiative to increase collaboration between social and natural scientits, conservation practitioners and policy makers and sets out five principles to guide a new approach to the relationship between mobile peoples and conservation.

For the first time the ratified resolution recognizes that mobility has been a most effective component of community strategies for the conservation of wild and domestic biodiversity, the promotion of environmental integrity and the sustainable use of natural resources. At the same time it notes that policies of mobility restriction and sedentarization have deprived mobile indigenous peoples of cultural identity, access to and capacity to manage natural resources, and have led them in many cases to destitution and abject poverty. Often their very mobility has led to a lack of inclusion in wider discussions concerning natural resource use and local conservation policies.

To counter this lack of visibility the Standing Committee of the Dana Declaration on Mobile Peoples and Conservation sponsored the participation of mobile indigenous peoples representatives from Jordan, Syria, Namibia, Tanzania, and Iran at the Congress. Dr.Chatty facilitated a key forum for these representatives at the Indigenous Peoples’ Preparatory Meeting. This helped promote their involvement in the main Congress and led to the successful passing of the resolution.

The remaining challenge is to ensure that the new resolution is translated into practice. A programme of support to the recently created World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP) is now being developed to this end.

1. The resolution builds on progress made at the World Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa in September 2003 and at the meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur in February 2004 where a political commitment was made “to ensure necessary participation and equitable sharing of the benefits of protected areas, particularly with indigenous and mobile peoples, as well as local communities.”

Other supporting groups included: Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent at Canterbury, the World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for Nature Indigenous Peoples’ Ad Hoc Working Group of Indigenous Peoples (AHWG), Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact Foundation (AIPP), Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), Theme on Indigenous and Local Communities, Equity and Protected Areas (TILCEPA) of the IUCN, and the World Alliance for Mobile Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP).