New guidelines: Recognising territories and areas conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities (ICCAs) overlapped by protected areas

ICCA Consortium members develop Good Practices Guidelines on Protected and Conserved Areas Series volume published by IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas

First published on 10/23/2024, and last updated on 02/27/2025

By Stan Stevens, Honorary member of the ICCA Consortium

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has published a new volume on ICCAs–territories of life in the Good Practice Guidelines on Protected and Conserved Areas Series produced by the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA). ICCA Consortium members led the editing and writing of the volume over six years in coordination with the WCPA’s Specialist Group on Governance, Equity and Rights.

“Recognising territories and areas conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities (ICCAs) overlapped by protected areas” can be downloaded as a free PDF file from IUCN here. The ICCA Consortium will publish a companion volume in early 2025 to provide an in-depth discussion of key points, 50 case studies, and other resources.

This volume provides guidance on good practices for appropriately recognizing ICCAs in diverse ways and situations, including as conserved territories and areas, protected areas, ‘other effective area-based conservation measures’ (OECMs), and in situations in which conserved territories, sacred places, commons such as community forests and marine areas, and Indigenous and community protected areas (PAs) are overlapped by protected areas.

Since its founding, the ICCA Consortium has advocated for appropriate recognition and respect for overlapped ICCAs, and both IUCN and the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity have called for the development of good practice guidance.

Communities in the Natural Park of the Ampezzo Dolomites, Italy, continue to govern, manage, and use traditional grazing commons. These emblematic ICCAs are recognized in the PA management plan and zonation system. A regional multi-community organization governs the PA itself. View of sheep grazing on a hillside in Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Pomagagnon group of the Dolomites, Italy, by Diana Robinson, 2016, Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Recognizing overlapped ICCAs – a major challenge for conservation and affirmation of rights

The Guidelines focus special attention on situations in which ICCAs are overlapped by PAs or may be overlapped by new or expanded ones. This is a major issue for many ICCA custodians worldwide. From Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park in the high Himalayas of Nepal to Yaigoje Apaporis National Park in the Colombian Amazon, many–perhaps most–PAs worldwide overlap with ICCAs–territories of life. Thousands of protected areas have been superimposed over Indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ (IPs’ and LCs’) traditional territories, lands, and waters, including collectively governed and conserved territories; forest, rangeland, marine, and inland water commons; sacred places, and Indigenous and community PAs.

Overlapped ICCAs–territories of life have often been undermined by PA governance and management. Very few are appropriately recognized and respected. Remedying this is a major challenge and opportunity for global conservation and for affirming the distinct and differentiated rights of IPs and different types of local communities.

Recognizing, respecting, and supporting overlapped ICCAs is accordingly central to fulfilling international conservation law and policy, including attaining several of the goals of the CBD’s Global Framework for Biodiversity (BFF, 2022), and particularly Targets 3 and 21.

The GBF Target 3 calls for ensuring global conservation goals are met through equitable systems of protected areas and OECMs that recognize “Indigenous and traditional territories” and the IPs’ and LCs’ territorial and other rights. Target 21 calls for ensuring IPs’ and LCs’ full and equitable participation in biodiversity-related decision making with respect for their cultures and rights, including their rights over territories, lands, resources and traditional knowledge (Target 21). Neither target of these goals can be achieved without recognition and respect for ICCAs, including those that are overlapped by PAs.

In 2019, the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation (LKDFN) declared the 26,376 km²Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area (Canada) under its governance and law. It reached agreements with the governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories that mutually recognize this Indigenous Protected Area and three overlapping PAs (Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve and two territorial PAs. Utsingi Point–Great Slave Lake, by Paul Gierszewski, 2008, Wikimedia Commons

Key messages

The Guidelines provide guidance on how law, policy, and practice can be revised so that ICCAs and overlapped ICCAs can be recognized in accordance with their custodians’ wishes. This includes recognizing ICCAs as conserved territories, sacred places, collectively governed commons, and as PAs and OECMs governed by ICCA custodians.

Drawing on experiences and insights from the recognition of ICCAs throughout the world, including eight in-depth case studies the Guidelines identifies six key approaches/pathways and 20 good practices for recognizing and respecting ICCAs and overlapped ICCAs in law, policy and PA governance and management practice.

These pathways and good practices provide tools for recognizing overlapped ICCAs in all existing, new and expanded PAs as well as alternatives to maintaining existing overlaps or creating new ones. Much of its guidance also applies to recognizing and respecting ICCAs that are overlapped by OECMs that are not governed by ICCA custodians.

The volume’s key messages include:

ICCA/PA overlaps are common, but overlapped ICCAs are seldom appropriately recognized, respected and supported.

Recognizing and respecting overlapped ICCAs contributes to IPs’ and LCs’ well-being and to realizing both ICCA custodians’ and PA goals.

ICCAs should be recognized and respected in accordance with their custodians’ wishes and rights.

Recognition and respect should maintain or restore ICCAs’ institutional integrity. This requires that custodians govern, manage, and use ICCAs through their own institutions and practices and according to their worldviews or cosmovisions, values, law, and priorities.

Recognizing and respecting overlapped ICCAs is critical for repairing and strengthening relationships between ICCA custodians and PA governance authorities, and hence to promoting conservation coordination and collaboration, redressing injustices, diminishing conflict and promoting social reconciliation.

Overlapped ICCAs can be recognized and respected in all existing, new and expanded PAs, regardless of their IUCN PA governance type or management objectives. Key approaches and good practices for doing so vary among PAs due to different contexts and circumstances, including governance.

There are multiple approaches/pathways and good practices through which overlapped ICCAs can be appropriately recognized and respected with their custodians’ wishes and FPIC.

Appropriately recognizing and respecting overlapped ICCAs is vital for achieving the goals of the GBF, and particularly Targets 3 and 22.

*Key approaches/pathways for achieving recognition and respect for overlapped ICCAs. Photo: Stan Stevens and Piper Gaubatz*

The ICCA Consortium and the new Guidelines

This volume builds on earlier ICCA Consortium publications, especially a 2016 policy brief, ICCAs and Overlapping Protected Areas: Fostering Conservation Synergies and Social Reconciliation, and its companion report.

Individuals associated with the ICCA Consortium worked as volunteers over a six-year period to edit the volume, write its text, and develop its case studies.

This includes the entire editorial team (lead editor Stan Stevens, Terence Hay-Edie, Carmen Miranda, Ameyali Ramos, and Neema Pathak Broome), lead author Stan Stevens, and the authors of all but one of the case studies.

Case study authors include Cristina Eghenter (Kayan Mentarang National Park, Indonesia), Irakli Goradze (Machekhela National Park, Georgia), Jeremy Ironside (Community Protected Areas, Cambodia), Steven Nitah (Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area and the overlapping Thaidene Nëné National Park Reserve and two overlapping Northwest Territories provincial protected areas, Canada), Giovanni Reyes (Mt. Kalatungan Range Natural Park, the Philippines).

Stan Stevens co-authored several of these case studies. Also, he wrote those on the Natural Park of the Dolomites, Italy, and the Mangagoulack Community Heritage Area, Senegal, with input from Grazia Borrini Feyerabend, Christian Chatelain, and Salatou Sambou.

Download the publication here: https://doi.org/10.2305/RSLY2962