Natural Allies

Around the world, Indigenous peoples and local communities are the custodians of huge swaths of intact habitats—forests and fens, marshes and mangroves—that harbor an estimated 80% of the world’s biodiversity and store about a quarter of above-ground carbon.

But like natural areas everywhere, these lands and waters are under threat, as is the traditional knowledge that has guided generations in maintaining their integrity. Roads and logging trucks, natural gas pipelines and mines gnaw at the fringes of ancestral territories and carve scars through ancient woods and grasslands, decimating native plants and animals and endangering the cultures of native peoples. At the same time, the communities themselves put pressure on natural resources as they attempt to meet basic needs and better their lives, particularly in places where other livelihoods are scarce or nonexistent. Where opportunities lack, young people, in particular, often leave.

And more often than not, the peoples’ rights to determine the future of their own territories are in jeopardy.

But in the gap between threat and conservation lies opportunity. “Indigenous peoples and local communities,” says Judy Oglethorpe, senior director of innovative conservation approaches at WWF-US, “hold a lot of future conservation in their hands.”

If WWF supports communities as they defend their rights and interests, pursue sustainable livelihoods and development, and continue to effectively steward their own territories, she says, then they would be strengthened in playing their fundamental role in safeguarding the world’s natural heritage.

The importance of Indigenous and community conservation is nowhere more evident than in efforts to stem deforestation. Indigenous peoples alone are custodians of a quarter of the Earth’s land surface, including well over a third of remaining intact forests. That also makes them crucial champions for climate solutions, says WWF-US vice president and deputy lead for forests Josefina Braña Varela.

“Without directly engaging the people who live in the forests, those who are making the decisions that keep forests standing, we’re never going to be effective in conservation efforts,” says Braña Varela.

The ability of those communities to keep their forests standing often hinges on the concept of community ownership. In some places, Indigenous peoples and local communities are able to secure tenure—legal recognition of their rights to ancestral lands. But in many other places, they are not. Fewer than half of all countries have legal frameworks in place to enable Indigenous or community ownership, and even where frameworks exist, communities often struggle to navigate their sometimes extreme complexities. Helping to create those frameworks and supporting communities to make use of them by documenting their territories and claiming their rights are cornerstones of WWF’s work.

“The concept of community ownership can be understood on a continuum,” explains Althea Skinner, WWF-US lead specialist for socially inclusive conservation, “from formal to customary land tenure. But community ownership also has a broader meaning. In light of the stake that communities have in their historical territories, ownership is about ensuring that they are in the lead—and have the resources and capacities they need—to sustainably manage the ecosystems on which they depend.”

Regardless of how formalized their tenure is, “the goal is to move communities along the spectrum from access and use to control and decision-making,” she says. “The more decision-making power communities have over land and resources, the better they are able to steward them.”

Supporting Indigenous and local communities as they move along that ownership continuum means recognizing that conservation and development—helping communities sustainably meet their basic needs and improve their living conditions—must go hand in hand. “They’re two sides of the same coin,” says Skinner.

Nathalie Simoneau, WWF-US lead specialist for gender and social inclusion, agrees. “I think we’re really at a convergence point, where everybody’s starting to realize that we cannot just work on conservation or development, she says. “It needs to be both.”

WWF has a decades-long history of intentionally promoting such coupled interventions, says Braña Varela, by working with communities on projects that have both conservation and sustainable livelihood goals, such as ecotourism or non-timber forest products like honey. Increasingly, the organization has been “focused on the important role partners on the ground play in ensuring the long-term health and well-being of people and nature.”

What’s new is the role reversal.

Traditionally, WWF has been a driver of conservation projects. But the roles should be viewed the other way around, according to the ICCA Consortium, an international group of Indigenous and community organizations and federations. Their view is that “it is the custodians ... the concerned Indigenous peoples and local communities who should decide whether and how to include others as supporters in their own conservation endeavors.”

Taking a back seat can be a challenge for an organization like WWF. But “there’s a mind shift happening,” says Oglethorpe. “Communities are the drivers. Decisions should be theirs. Our role is to support and help.”

What that support looks like depends on the local context and runs the gamut. Policy support, advocacy, and legal action can aid communities in claiming rights to their territories and having other concerns heard. Research and technical support may be needed in order to document cultural sites and traditional land uses or to monitor territories for poaching or the impacts of infrastructure development and resource extraction. Financing and capacity development help communities pursue sustainable development and create opportunities that can allow young people and others to stay on their lands. Communications support can amplify Indigenous voices in national and international forums.

Of course, the only way to know what communities need is to ask. “We have to take all of their concerns and their ideas into the design of projects,” says Simoneau. “We have to engage them from the time we’re first thinking about a project, through to the very end. That’s how you develop community ownership of a project or an approach.”

“We are there to support what communities want and need in order for them to have access in perpetuity to both resources and the right to manage them,” she says. “But it needs to come from the community if we want it to be truly sustainable.”

“Our focus is on supporting them as they make decisions,” says Braña Varela. “We want to contribute what we can to their capacity to independently advocate for themselves.”

Engaging productively with local people can be challenging, and WWF has made mistakes. Social benefits haven’t always been balanced with conservation outcomes, and attempts to involve communities in decision-making have sometimes underestimated the intricacies of their dynamics.

“These situations can be very complex,” says Braña Varela. “We have learned that transparency and consent are the only ways forward. Without the consent of the whole community— which requires transparency at every step—we cannot have authentic participation. And we can also create unintended problems that undermine our relationships, as well as the outcomes we are seeking.”

“If there isn’t meaningful participation of communities, then you’re not going to be successful,” says Emelin Gasparrini, a WWF communications specialist who has supported Indigenous peoples’ engagement in global conferences. “I think that’s one lesson that we have learned. So, some of our programs have focused on bringing voices into the process that had previously been excluded...making sure that we listen better and that there’s space for them to engage fully and meaningfully.”

Conservation has to include the most vulnerable and marginalized members of a community—for example, those with low literacy skills and those who are the poorest, says Simoneau. “They’re often the ones who depend most on natural resources and lack the opportunities that wealthier or more educated community members have.” Women are often excluded as well.

“There are multiple layers to the work we do,” says Braña Varela. “First, there is a very comprehensive strategy of on-the-ground interventions involving the constituents in our partner communities. That work must be coupled with policy and advocacy at the regional, national, and international levels. And then we activate our network and relationships, and use our ability to facilitate conversations to get competing interests to talk to each other and reach a productive outcome.

“Using the breadth of WWF’s network, we have woven connective tissue across multiple levels of governance,” she says. “And that has earned us a lot of trust from Indigenous peoples, because they know that we’re not only investing in a project and leaving after the project ends. We are engaged for the long term, and we help them build the strength and skills to represent themselves.”

WWF-Colombia’s Maria Fernanda Jaramillo, who works to facilitate knowledge sharing among Indigenous groups in the Amazon, adds: “We put all our efforts and money into helping to connect local to national to international, and into including voices that are usually not there in those discussions, to give the local stakeholders the opportunity to be part of something bigger.”

Naturally, making and sustaining those connections take time—conservation is a long game. “Jumping at quick solutions doesn’t usually deliver long-term results. Working with communities can take more time and more effort—but it gets us closer to the goal,” says Gasparrini.

"You can’t rush it," says Skinner. “Relationships move ‘at the speed of trust.’”

Quotes featured in this story are pulled from a variety of WWF and partner resources.