eurasiareview | Indigenous Peoples have ownership, use and management rights over at
least a quarter of the world’s land surface according to a new study
published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability.
The
38 million square kilometers (14.6 million square miles) are spread
across 87 countries or politically distinct areas and overlap with about
40 percent of all terrestrial protected areas.
The results of the
study provides strong evidence that recognizing the rights of
Indigenous Peoples to their traditional lands and waters is not only an
ethical obligation it is essential to meeting local and global
conservation goals. The authors say that more collaborative partnerships
between Indigenous Peoples and governments would yield significant
benefits for conservation of ecologically valuable landscapes,
ecosystems, and genetic diversity for future generations.
“Understanding
the extent of lands over which Indigenous Peoples retain traditional
connection is critical for several conservation and climate agreements,”
said Professor Stephen Garnett from Charles Darwin University in
Australia who led the international consortium that developed the maps.
“Not until we pulled together the best available published information
on Indigenous lands did we really appreciate the extraordinary scale of
Indigenous Peoples’ ongoing influence,” he said.
There are at
least 370 million people who define themselves as Indigenous, are
descended from populations who inhabited a country before the time of
conquest or colonization, and who retain at least some of their own
social, economic, cultural and political practices. The proportion of
countries with indigenous people is highest in Africa and lowest in
Europe-West Asia.
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