During the IUCN World Conservation Congress held in Marseille (3-10 Sept 2021), two ICCA GSI side events were organized at the ‘Vital Sites for a Protected Planet Pavilion’, notably (1) ‘The contribution of ICCAs to the CBD 2020 framework and beyond’ including a presentation of two global reports on Territories of Life and IPLCs’ lands; and (2) ‘An overview of governance assessments, legal reviews and registration systems for ICCAs, protected and conserved areas’ featuring knowledge products and outputs developed by the ICCA GSI.
The Territories for Life: 2021 Report, first launched in May 2021, includes a synthesis report; recommendations for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework under negotiation for finalization at the CBD COP15 to be held in Kunming in 2022; 17 case studies; 6 national/sub-regional analyses; and a global analysis led by UNEP WCMC on the spatial estimation of ICCAs. The overview report is also available in French and Spanish, whilst country case studies are available in national languages.
The State of IPLCs Report officially launched in June 2021 by WWF, UNEP WCMC, UNDP, and over ten contributing organizations, was widely disseminated at the IUCN WCC. The spatial analysis builds on the earlier Garnett (2018) analysis of the global area of lands conserved by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, and collects a large dataset on lands and territories conserved by IPLCs at the global level. Some of the main findings include that: (i) IPLC lands with a high degree of intact ecosystem represent approx. 32% of land globally, of which 13% overlap with protected areas; (ii) 64% of the IPLC lands are in good ecological condition/unmodified; (iii) in some cases, human modification may also be beneficial to environmental conservation; (iv) 36% of Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) overlap with IPLC conserved lands; and (v) based on the ecoregion analysis, over 75% are covered by IPLCs in 91 ecoregions. The report is available in different languages including English, French and Spanish, and summary reports in Portuguese and Swahili.
Additional WCC events included a press conference on the State of IPLCs Report; and a side event on ‘Implementing two IUCN Best Practice Guidelines: Cultural and Spiritual Significance of Nature in Protected and Conserved Areas, and Recognising ICCAs overlapped by Protected Areas’. Coordination meetings were also organized with the incoming Chair of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), Dr. Madhu Rao, elected at the WCC on 10 Sept 2021.