Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the role of indigenous peoples in the remediation and mitigation of biodiversity loss.

Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) play a critical role in the protection and restoration of biodiversity. IPLCs are stewards of 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity¹. Evidence suggests that where IPLCs hold secure governance rights to forests, communities provide better protection and management, deforestation rates are lower, and carbon storage higher². Biodiversity indicators show significantly lower declines in land managed by Indigenous Peoples, and these lands are at least as diverse or more so than protected areas³. The UK is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which recognises ’the dependency of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) on biological diversity and their unique role in conserving life on Earth’⁴. The UK supported the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and is fully committed to promoting and protecting human rights for all individuals, including Indigenous People, without discrimination on any grounds. The UK also supports Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure (VGGT)⁵; these embody international provisions requiring the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) from Indigenous Peoples to any project that may affect them.

At COP26 the UK Presidency led a $1.7bn Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Forest Tenure Pledge (the Pledge)⁶ from 23 public and private donors to advance support for Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ (IPLC) tenure rights in tropical forest countries, running from 2021-2025. The Pledge has led to a step-change in international attention on the central role local and Indigenous communities play in climate mitigation, protecting nature and biodiversity, and the critical role of tenure security in sustainable land use. The UK is delivering our Pledge commitment of £163m through ODA programmes across FCDO, DESNZ and DEFRA.

¹ The role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation: World Bank Document
² By the Numbers: Indigenous and Community Land Rights | World Resources Institute (wri.org)
³ The Economics of Biodiversity Dasgupta Review 2021
⁴ Working Group on Article 8(j) (cbd.int)
⁵ Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure | Governance of Tenure | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (fao.org)
⁶ https://ukcop26.org/cop26-iplc-forest-tenure-joint-donor-statement/; https://landportal.org/iplc/forest-tenure-donor-pledge