First published on 12/05/2011, and last updated on 03/05/2018
By: Francois Depey
Returning from the ICCA Consortium gathering that took place in Bali in October 2011 and assembled there a whole crew of regional coordinators and members of the steering committee, I was inspired to start spreading the news regarding the Consortium and its potential to support North American communities and First Nations (indigenous peoples) in their ICCA initiatives. The British Columbia Protected Areas Research Forum (BCPARF) — a bi-annual forum facilitating and promoting parks and protected areas research in British Columbia, Canada – provided an excellent occasion for that!
The Forum is a cooperative partnership between the research community, and provincial and federal governing agencies. “Adapting to change”, the theme of the December 2011 event, seemed quite appropriate to introduce the concept of ICCAs and the work of the Consortium. In fact if ICCAs seem like an alternative to more conventional biodiversity conservation models, they also historically preceded any current system of protection achieved by communities and states. The timing was good and getting involved right away in the BCPARF event prevented me from waiting another couple of years for the opportunity to reoccur. Organizers welcomed our idea to introduce the theme of ICCA in their event that hosted an audience of around 150 participants, mostly accustomed to more conventional types of biodiversity conservation through state managed protected areas. Even though academic research was the dominant topic, there were a few presentations related to protected area management. The ICCA presentation was directly followed by a rich discussion that provided an occasion for many participants to engage, share their points of view and experiences and inquire further about the idea.
In conjunction with the presentation, I also designed and brought two posters (see picture below) that provided information on the support provided to ICCAs by international conservation organizations such as IUCN and CBD. The posters were on display throughout the event and provided opportunities for one-to-one discussions with various participants.
Besides spreading the “ICCA word”, the Forum presented me with an opportunity to connect with a member of the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations. In 1994, following a long and active struggle to protect old growth forest from being logged by the forest industry in their watershed, the Tla-o-qui-aht identified a portion of their traditional territory and declared it their own “tribal park”. This was a very innovative initiative in Canada, which remains an inspiration for other First Nations. In 2010, they hosted on their territory an event on “Community Conservation in Practice” which focused on ICCAs. Even though at that time the ICCA Consortium was not yet officially in existence, many current Consortium Members and Honorary members were already involved in that event. Building upon those existing relationships could be a good starting point to get to know better the members of that Nation and their tribal park initiative, as it is critical to clearly understand how such initiatives work out for the land and water and people they encompass.
For me, participating in the BCPARF was a first attempt at reaching out to a broad group of conservationists. And it succeeded in initiating exchanges that I hope will lead to more interactions between the ICCA Consortium and other groups involved in initiatives that fulfill the three criteria of the ICCA definition.
Fostering such exchanges and networking among people in their territories may lead, in due time, to an ICCA gathering in North America. For now, we still need to expand our small core group of Members and Honorary members in North America to solidify our foundations in this part of the world. My participation in the British Columbia Protected Area Research Forum had thus many of the characteristics of a “first step”, but a step that sparkled my desire of moving forward with our mission to support ICCAs in North America.
We would like to acknowledge SWIFT foundation for making our participation in that event possible thanks to their financial support that covered all expenses to attend the forum in Vancouver, British Columbia.
