The Indigenous World 2023: IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC)

Written on 30 March 2023. Posted in IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC)

Held in Kigali, Rwanda from 18 to 23 July 2022, the IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) was the “first ever continent-wide gathering of African leaders, citizens and interest groups to discuss the role of protected areas in conserving nature, safeguarding Africa’s iconic wildlife, delivering vital life-supporting ecosystem services, and promoting sustainable development while conserving Africa’s cultural heritage and traditions.”^[i]

The Congress was convened jointly by the Government of Rwanda, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the African Wildlife Foundation, and attracted more than 2,400 participants from across the African continent and beyond, representing governments, African regional bodies, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, NGOs, national and international experts and organizations, youth, academia, the judiciary, development agencies and the private sector.^[ii]

The overarching objective of the APAC was “to position Africa’s protected and conserved areas within the broader goals of economic development and community well-being and to increase the understanding of the vital role parks play in conserving biodiversity and delivering the ecosystem services that underpin human welfare and livelihoods.”^[iii]

The Congress was organized around the following three Streams: 1. Protected Areas (“Promoting effective and well-managed networks of protected and conserved areas in Africa”); 2. People (“People and protected and conserved areas: towards mutual well-being”); and 3. Biodiversity (“Africa’s biodiversity as the basis for life on the continent”). Additionally, six cross-cutting themes were identified to help focus the discussions: Governance; Climate Change; Conflict; Science, Technology, and Indigenous Knowledge; Sustainable Financing; and Physical Infrastructure. The main outcome document of the Congress was the “Kigali Call to Action for People and Nature,” agreed upon in the APAC closing plenary session on 23 July 2022.

This article is part of the 37^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous person in Tanzania. This photo was taken by Geneviève Rose, and is the cover of the Indigenous World 2023 where this article is featured. Find the Indigenous World 2023 in full here.

Role and status of Indigenous Peoples

The APAC was organized on the basis of an understanding that the historic tendency to focus on State-owned and controlled conservation estates was outdated and was meant to “help move the discourse to embrace various forms of community conserved areas, private protected and conserved areas, as well as formal State-owned protected areas.”^[4] The organizers considered that community conserved areas were “a vital component to achieving the spatial conservation targets in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework” and that to achieve this, “increased focus and investment [was] required to ensure communities integrate conservation as part of both conservation and livelihood options.”^[5]

The organizers recognized that “Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) conserve, with associated rights and responsibilities, large areas of Africa’s conserved lands, for example as conservancies, indigenous and community conserved areas, dry season grazing reserves, and sacred natural sites,” acknowledging that they were “the ‘original conservationists’ way before conservation was a term and way before the Protected Area movement,” and criticizing that their importance and role in conservation was seen as secondary and not sufficiently respected.^[6] “Too often we view conservation as the domain of government, yet communities actively manage, conserve and use vast areas of inter-connected conservation value,” they wrote in the introductory papers for the Congress.^[7] One of the stated objectives of the APAC was to “[a]gree on practical measures to recognize, elevate, and uphold the rights, responsibilities and roles of indigenous people, local communities and young people in conserving nature.”^[8]

The organizers of the Congress envisaged that “IPLCs [would] showcase at APAC the important role they play in conserving Africa’s biodiversity and conserved areas” and would “engage fully in the three Streams and six cross-cutting themes.”^[9] They promised from the outset that APAC would “provide space for IPLCs through plenary presentations, keynote addresses, side events and a dedicated pavilion,” and “ensure IPLCs are able to engage equitably with the private sector and formal protected area authorities”.^[10] They also pledged that the voice of Indigenous Peoples and local communities (recommendations, lessons, actions) would be integrated into the Kigali Call to Action.^[11] Additionally, they announced that a two-day “Pre-Congress IPLC Workshop” would be organized to “help IPLCs make the case for the importance of their role in conserving Africa’s biodiversity and conserved areas” and to “prepare the participants to engage fully in the three Streams and six cross-cutting themes.”^[12]

Indigenous Peoples were thus accorded a central and important role at the APAC from the very beginning albeit grouped and conflated with “local communities” in the context of the Congress, a practice that many Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and networks from other regions have objected to as it may not properly recognize the rights of Indigenous Peoples compared to local communities.^[13],[14] The three UN bodies focused on Indigenous Peoples’ rights (the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, and Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), as well as some States, have expressed concerns that the grouping of Indigenous Peoples with local communities may result in the undermining of the distinct status and rights of Indigenous Peoples under international law.^[15] If the term is nevertheless used in this chapter, it is due to its usage in the conference documents and should not be seen as an endorsement of the practice.

Pre-congress consultations of Indigenous Peoples

A month before the APAC, representatives of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and networks from Africa convened in Nairobi, Kenya on 15-16 June 2022 to plan for their meaningful participation in the Congress. This meeting was attended by around 50 Indigenous participants and resulted in a declaration to IUCN, governments, and funding partners (the “Nairobi Declaration”^[16]) to be presented at the pre-congress workshop for Indigenous Peoples and local communities in Kigali.^[17] The participants of the meeting nominated IMPACT Trust Kenya^[18] as the Indigenous Peoples’ organization to co-lead/host the pre-congress workshop.

Additionally, on 11-13 June and 17-19 June 2022, ten Indigenous Peoples’ communities from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania came together at Chepkitale, Mount Elgon, Kenya for the “East Africa Assembly on Land Justice and Indigenous Peoples Co-operation”.^[19] This assembly also produced a declaration to be presented at the APAC, the “People-to-People Declaration at Laboot.”^[20]

The official “Pre-Congress IPLC Workshop” took place on 16-17 July 2022 in Kigali and was co-organized by IMPACT Trust Kenya and the ICCA Consortium.^[21] It drew participation from around 40 countries and was attended by some 150 representatives of Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and community-led conservation organizations from Africa. Among other things, the workshop aimed to shine a spotlight on how Indigenous Peoples and local communities are conserving a significant proportion of the world’s biodiversity and nature through their self-determined cultures, ways of life and governance systems; to discuss experiences, challenges, opportunities, and recommendations for appropriate recognition and support for their self-determined priorities for their collective lands, waters and territories; to discuss strategies for advancing the movements for conservation justice and collective land, resources and tenure rights in the context of nature conservation (including the proposed “30x30 target” in the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework^[22]); and to support Indigenous Peoples’ and community representatives to prepare for participation in the APAC.^[23]

Another key objective of the workshop was to prepare a consolidated declaration to the APAC from Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The resulting “Africa Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) Kigali Declaration”^[24] builds upon the Nairobi Declaration, the Laboot Declaration, and two declarations of ICCA Consortium regional assemblies. The Kigali Declaration provided the basis for the keynote speeches of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the opening and closing sessions of the APAC and served as guidance for their representatives participating in high-level dialogue sessions, panels, and the drafting group preparing the outcome document of the Congress (the “Kigali Call to Action”).^[25]

IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress, Kigali, 18-23 July 2022

The keynote address on behalf of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the opening of the APAC was given by Milka Chepkorir, a Sengwer Indigenous woman from Kenya, who started her speech by underlining that “We, IPLCs, have had many experiences of conservation gone wrong: human rights violations, forced evictions, dispossession, displacement, and violence, even to the extent of being killed… People have lost their hunting and gathering, pastures and fishing areas to State-run and private protected areas and are being branded as enemies of the very wildlife we have always lived in peace with.”^[26] She highlighted that little to no progress had been made on the three key targets regarding Indigenous Peoples and local communities adopted by the 2003 IUCN World Parks Congress in Durban: Free, Prior and Informed Consent for the establishment of any new protected areas; meaningful participation by Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the governance of protected areas; and restitution of lands lost by communities to conservation.

“Twenty years later,” Ms Chepkorir noted, “Here we are, still, talking about the same things.” She added:

At the same time, we know our world is facing a crisis – we are losing biodiversity at a frightening rate and the climate is changing, making our planet unliveable for us all. Unfortunately, the conservation response, adopted from colonial times, has been sustained and even refined with increased militarization. These approaches have not only failed to offer a real solution to this crisis, but they have also caused untold harm and trauma to the very citizens which governments should look to as conservators.

Similarly, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, Francisco Calí Tzay, noted in a video message^[27] to the Congress:

The scientific community has acknowledged that Indigenous Peoples protect the biodiversity better than protected areas do. Yet they are often excluded from the management and control of conservation projects and environmental programmes. Although Indigenous Peoples have contributed the least to climate change and biodiversity loss, they remain the most impacted by the creation of protected areas, facing forced eviction, criminalization, rape, torture and killing.

The Special Rapporteur stressed the need to rethink and improve the way protected areas are located, governed, monitored, and managed:

Current models for creating protected areas threaten to dispossess Indigenous Peoples of their lands, limit access, impose restrictions on livelihoods, and interfere with the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, violating their rights to autonomy, security of land tenure and self-determined development… A whole new model of conservation is required that puts Indigenous Peoples – the best guardians of biodiversity – in control of their lands and resources. This requires a recognition of rights at the national and international level that includes securing land tenure, respecting the principle of free, prior and informed consent, and allocating funding and other benefits directly to Indigenous Peoples.

While Ms Chepkorir pointed out in her opening address that “it wasn’t at all easy for us to meet here and obtain a meaningful space to offer our views and proposed solutions for the way forward,” Indigenous Peoples were successful in claiming that space and in making their voice heard at the Congress. Throughout the conference, there was significant participation of Indigenous Peoples’ representatives in plenary panels and parallel events, and this participation clearly had a significant impact on the discussions and the outcome document of the Congress.

The central messages, demands and recommendations of Indigenous Peoples and local communities were summarized in a closing statement^[28] read by Maidada Langa from Malawi in the closing plenary on 23 July. Mr. Langa underlined:

As shareholders and not mere stakeholders in the business of taking care of Mother Nature, we seek empowerment and not mere participation, so we can bring to bear our traditional knowledge, experiences, and solutions. In this regard, we seek a people-led approach to conservation in which people are firmly at the centre of conservation, while governments and government partners actively play an empowering role… [W]e seek decolonization of conservation through abolition of policies and laws that perpetuate neocolonial approaches to conservation that seek to separate us from nature on which we depend and lead to militarization of protected spaces.

Mr. Langa also stressed that governments must “cease using benefit-sharing arrangements from tourism and other uses of our customary resources as compensation for displacement.”

Central demands, requests and recommendations made by Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the Congress included the following:^[29]

Addressed to governments:

• Stop the human rights abuses connected with conservation in Africa, including the endless eviction, displacement and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and the many instances of threats, intimidations, violence, and criminalization and imprisonment of leaders and community members.
• End the militarization of protected areas.
• Ensure that the upholding of human rights guides every aspect of conservation in Africa.
• Advance efforts to recognize and respect the customary collective tenure rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
• Commence, or accelerate, legal recognition of customary collective ownership of lands and resources.
• Implement the 2003 Durban Accord and Action Plan and the UNDRIP, prioritizing the restitution of lands and redress, and refrain from establishing new protected areas.
• Adopt policies that compel conservation donors and agencies to provide direct funding to Indigenous Peoples and local communities and not to fund organizations and actions that do not respect a human rights-based approach.
• Respect and implement decisions of the African Union mechanisms and structures, including already awarded resolutions and judgements.^[30]
• Establish robust grievance and redress mechanisms for addressing conservation-related grievances and ensure that Indigenous Peoples and local communities have access to justice to resolve historical injustices related to conservation through compensation, reparations, and restitution.
• Ensure that conservation staff committing human rights abuses are held to account.
• Ensure that the Global Biodiversity Framework strongly incorporates the right to sustainable use of both flora and fauna, and that achievement of the proposed 30x30 target will not result in the loss of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ lands.
• Adopt the recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ tenure rights as a strategy to achieve 30x30 targets.
• Prioritize community tenure-led conservation and make this the flagship of conservation in Africa.
• Focus the activities of government conservation agencies on empowering, assisting technically and financially as required, and monitoring community tenure-led conservation.

Addressed to donors and development partners:

• Support projects and programmes that promote secure land and resource rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
• Support conservation management planning that incorporates the conservation ideologies of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, embedded in community tenure-led conservation.
• End funding to actors that do not respect a rights-based approach to conservation and stop enabling the militarization of conservation.
• Stop funding projects and programmes that do not have the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of affected Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
• Channel conservation and development funding directly to Indigenous and community organizations at the “point of impact,” and develop new mechanisms and practices for doing so.
• Meaningfully engage Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the monitoring and evaluation of conservation and protected areas.
• Create spaces for direct dialogue between donors and Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Addressed to IUCN and other conservation organizations:

• Decolonize conservation and redefine the IUCN concept of protected areas, particularly category VI, which upholds national enforcement for creating protected areas.
• Replace the concept and practice of “protected areas” with “conservation”.
• End the militarization of protected areas, promote people-nature relationships, apply FPIC, and ensure prioritization of funding for community-based conservation efforts.
• Create institutional frameworks to enable Indigenous Peoples and local communities to meaningfully engage as partners in the implementation and follow-up of the “Kigali Call to Action” and future APAC meetings and processes.

Addressed to researchers, media, and academia:

• Right the wrongs of misrepresentation that have been propagated by films, documentaries, articles, etc. which showcase an African conservation space in which wildlife exists without people.

The Kigali Call to Action

The APAC culminated in the “Kigali Call to Action for People and Nature,”^[31] which was prepared by a special drafting team during the Congress and read out in the closing plenary session. The drafting team included two representatives of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and many of the concerns and priorities articulated by Indigenous Peoples at the Congress are reflected in the Call. The stated purpose of the Call, according to its preamble, is to identify “priority actions to strengthen Africa’s protected and conserved areas [PCAs] in a manner that is just, equitable and fair and that will deepen the involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities”.

The Call is organized into the following four sections: “Promoting inclusive and equitable governance,” “Putting people at the centre of effective and equitable conservation,” “Mobilizing the economic value of PCAs and sustainable financing,” and “PCAs as natural solutions to the biodiversity and climate change crisis.” Among many other things, it calls for:

• the identification, recognition, and empowerment of all custodians of nature in Africa to lead the way in conserving Africa’s rich biodiversity through PCAs that are fair and just;
• support for Africa’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities to sustain the wisdom, traditions, scientific and traditional knowledge, and customary approaches that will result in effective conservation and the long-term resilience of nature, culture, livelihoods and human well-being;
• acknowledgement of past and ongoing injustices experienced when Indigenous Peoples and local communities have not been accorded their rights, roles, responsibilities, and expectations in the pursuit of conservation goals, and for these injustices to be halted now and in the future;
• a mechanism to hear the voices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, understand options for the resolution of their grievances and reach agreement on remedies that will rebuild confidence;
• the relationship between conservation and people to be restored and respected, so that nature conservation in Africa puts people at the centre;
• direct funding to Indigenous Peoples and local communities through mechanisms that are fair, equitable, and efficient, in order to address priority conservation and social outcomes;
• equitable, effective, generational and gender-responsive participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in decision-making related to biodiversity, at all levels, including access to justice and information, respect for and promotion of their rights over lands, territories and resources and their equitable enjoyment of benefits from the conservation and sustainable use of biological and genetic resources;
• halting human rights abuses associated with law enforcement;
• adoption of the new International Ranger Federation Code of Conduct^[32] by governments and conservation organizations;
• grievance mechanisms based on clear standards that are directly accessible to Indigenous Peoples and local communities in order to ensure speedy and appropriate resolution of conflicts and injustices.

While the Call does not directly mention the 30x30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework, it calls for “[f]urther efforts to identify all areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem services that are neither protected nor conserved and to build these into conservation plans and programmes..., while ensuring that any proposed targets are not achieved at the expense of people”. It also calls for the “[i]dentification and recognition of all areas in the custodianship of governance authorities that meet the definition of other effective area-based conservation areas (OECMs), and to seek their inclusion and support in national systems, following the free, prior and informed consent of their custodians”.

In Africa, only 14% of the terrestrial landmass is currently defined as protected areas,^[33] and an expansion to 30% (in line with the 30x30 target) will clearly not be attainable without including lands and territories traditionally owned, managed, used, or occupied by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, which make up a large share of Africa’s intact ecosystems and key biodiversity areas.^[34]

There is significant fear that pursuit of the 30×30 target would inevitably cause massive evictions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities from their territories if the expansion of protected area coverage continued to rely upon State-owned and run protected areas.^[35] This underscores the importance of ensuring respect for Indigenous Peoples’ collective rights over their traditional territories and their right to FPIC in the pursuit of the 30x30 target.

One main drawback of the Kigali Call to Action is that it “does not explicitly call for collective tenure as a path to achieving greater conservation. Nor does it call for a community-led approach to conservation. This suggests that participating governments and supporting conservation agencies remain stuck in a partnership that they propose to lead. This fails to echo broader moves to devolve natural resource governance in which States and donors support land-dependent communities as front-line leaders of conservation and recognize and respect community conserved areas of all types.”^[36]

It has also been criticized that the Call to Action does not fully acknowledge current human rights violations sanctioned and/or funded by large conservation organizations and governments, who continue to follow outdated “fortress conservation” models in Africa

and elsewhere.^[37] Examples are the ongoing conservation-related injustices experienced by the Maasai in Tanzania, the Ogiek in Kenya, the Baka in Cameroon, and the Batwa in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Call to Action also does not mention the failure of some States to implement the decisions and judgements of African Union mechanisms that uphold the rights of Indigenous Peoples affected by conservation.

Perhaps the most concrete outcome of the APAC was the commitment in the Call to Action to develop an “African Protected and Conserved Areas Forum as an inclusive and consultative pan-African body… to guide the implementation and monitoring of APAC 2022 commitments through smaller regional meetings and the convening of the second APAC within the next 4-5 years.” Additionally, the Kigali Declaration of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities contains a commitment to set up a “pan-African IPLC body” anchored in national and sub-regional networks as a “platform for our shared concerns, actions, programmes and cross-learning among States and to follow up the implementation of this declaration.”

Stefan Disko works as an independent consultant on issues related to Indigenous Peoples, heritage and human rights. He holds an M.A. in World Heritage Studies from BTU Cottbus and an M.A. in ethnology and international law from LMU Munich.

Lola García-Alix is IWGIA’s Senior Adviser on Global Governance.

This article is part of the 37^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous person in Tanzania. This photo was taken by Geneviève Rose, and is the cover of the Indigenous World 2023 where this article is featured. Find the Indigenous World 2023 in full here.

Notes and references

^[1] Congress website, https://apacongress.africa/

^[2] Kigali Call to Action for People and Nature, https://apacongress.africa/download/english-version-of-apac-kigali-call-to-action/

^[3] Congress website.

^[4] APAC. “APAC Content for Streams and Cross-Cutting Themes.” https://pfbc-cbfp.org/job-opportunities/APAC-Call.html?file=files/docs/news/7-2021/-EN-Master%20Document%20310521%20FINAL.pdf

^[5] APAC. “Value Proposition on IPLCs: Respect the role Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities play in conservation.” https://apacongress.africa/download/value-proposition-for-indigenous-peoples-and-local-communities/.

^[6] Ibid.

^[7] Ibid.

^[8] APAC. “The Case for Protected Areas: For Nature & For People.” https://apacongress.africa/download/apac-brief/

^[9] APAC. “Value Proposition on IPLCs.”

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Ibid.

^[12] “APAC Content for Streams and Cross-Cutting Themes.” Also see: https://apacongress.africa/programme/

^[13] Inuit Circumpolar Council. “Policy Paper on the Matter of “Local Communities”.” 12 October 2020, https://www.inuitcircumpolar.com/project/policy-paper-on-the-matter-of-local-communities/

^[14] International Indian Treaty Council and Coordinadora de las Organizaciones Indígenas de la Cuenca Amazónica (COICA). “Statement of Support for UN Recommendations Addressing the Matter of “Local Communities”. 24 June 2022, https://www.iitc.org/iitc-statement-of-support-for-un-recommendations-addressing-the-matter-of-local-communities/

^[15] Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. “Report on the twenty-first session (25 April–6 May 2022),” UN Doc. E/2022/43, para. 85. https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=E%2F2022%2F43&Language=E&DeviceType=Desktop&LangRequested=False; EMRIP. “Efforts to Implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Report to the Human Rights Council, 4 August 2021, UN Doc. A/HCR/48/75, para. 34; Joint statement of Canada, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and Denmark together with Greenland at the 14^th session of EMRIP. 13 July 2021, https://cendoc.docip.org/collect/cendocdo/index/assoc/HASHc70c/2cf7f1b6.dir/EMRIP2021_Denmark.pdf; The Permanent Forum has “urge[d] all United Nations entities and States parties to treaties concerning the environment, biodiversity and the climate to eliminate the use of the term ‘local communities’ in conjunction with indigenous peoples, so that the term ‘indigenous peoples and local communities’ would be abolished” (Report on the 21^st session, para. 85).

^[16] Nairobi Declaration, presented by the Africa Indigenous and Local Communities, to the Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC). 2022, https://www.forestpeoples.org/sites/default/files/documents/Nairobi%20Declaration.pdf

^[17] IMPACT Trust Kenya. “Indigenous Peoples Pathways to the African Protected Areas Congress (APAC).” https://www.impactkenya.org/about-3-1

^[18] Indigenous Movement for Peace Advancement and Conflict Transformation (IMPACT), https://www.impactkenya.org/

^[19] For a film the communities made of the assembly, see: YouTube. “East Africa Assembly on Land Justice and Indigenous Peoples’ cooperation – June 2022.” InsightShare, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig8E4cNonDM.

^[20] The Laboot Declaration is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UQ7MYpS7ggz2IU4XtqD4ZAI6bgHztiyQ/view

^[21] On the ICCA Consortium, see https://www.iccaconsortium.org/. The term “ICCA” broadly refers to Indigenous Conserved Territories and Areas Conserved by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.

^[22] A worldwide initiative for governments to designate 30% of the world’s terrestrial landmass and oceans as protected areas by 2030. The 30x30 target was subsequently adopted at the COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in December 2022.

^[23] IMPACT Trust Kenya. “Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Kigali Pre-Congress.” 27 July 2022, https://www.impactkenya.org/post/indigenous-peoples-and-local-communities-kigali-pre-congress; the agenda of the pre-congress workshop is available at https://www.iccaconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/kigali-pre-congress-iplc-workshop-programme-final-15-july-en.pdf

^[24] The Kigali Declaration is available at: Africa Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs), Kigali Declaration at the 1^st Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) 2022, https://apacongress.africa/download/the-iplcs-declaration-to-apac2022/

^[25] The workshop appointed Mali Ole Kaunga of IMPACT Trust Kenya and Timothée Emini of OKANI, Cameroon, as representatives to participate in the drafting of the “Kigali Call to Action.”

^[26] Opening statement by Milka Chepkorir, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SaynE2kAGs0XZUwhLJgLLno7_QhjhvlXn_VYu0YkoWs/edit. For a video recording, see: YouTube. “The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC).” IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoTC41UaSZ0&t=7347s

^[27] Video message from Francisco Calí Tzay: YouTube. “Day 4: The IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC).” IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Eu158xdws&t=1099s

^[28] Closing remarks by Malidada Langa: YouTube. “Malidadi Langa presents closing remarks on behalf of IPLCs at APAC 2022.” Resource Africa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NPcpwvyJ58

^[29] Compilation from the Kigali Declaration and the keynote speeches on behalf of Indigenous Peoples and local communities at the opening and closing sessions of the congress.

^[30] This refers to rulings of the African Court and Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in favour of Indigenous Peoples, such as the rulings in the Endorois case and the Ogiek cases.

^[31] “IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress. Kigali Call to Action for People and Nature.” 23 July 2022, https://apacongress.africa/download/english-version-of-apac-kigali-call-to-action/

^[32] International Ranger Federation. Ranger Code of Conduct, https://www.internationalrangers.org/toolkit/ranger-code-of-conduct-2/

^[33] Protected Planet. Africa, https://www.protectedplanet.net/region/AF

^[34] WWF et al. “The State of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Lands and Territories.” 2021, https://wwfint.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/report_the_state_of_the_indigenous_peoples_and_local_communities_lands_and_territor.pdf

^[35] Rights and Resources Initiative. “The Kigali Call to Action at the IUCN Africa Protected Areas Congress.” 5 August 2022, https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-kigali-call-to-action-at-the-iucn-africa-protected-areas-congress-statement-from-rris-africa-delegation/

^[36] Ibid.

^[37] Ibid.

Tags: Global governance, Human rights, IWGIA