Indigenous communities wary of UN biodiversity rescue plan
Some of the world’s leading conservation groups have backed conservation projects that dispossessed indigenous peoples of their ancestral ties and homelands
By Eleonore Hughes / AFP, PARIS
As crunch UN talks to reverse the accelerating destruction of nature loom, indigenous communities are sounding an alarm over proposed conservation plans that they say could clash with their rights.
The COP-15 UN biodiversity summit in Kunming, China — provisionally slated for early October — will see nearly 200 nations attempt to thrash out new goals to preserve Earth’s battered ecosystems.
To limit the devastating effects of species loss caused by pollution, hunting, mining, tourism and urban sprawl, the draft treaty proposes to create protected areas covering 30 percent of the planet’s lands and oceans by 2030.