Transforming conservation: towards community-led nature governance
IIED works to shift conservation paradigms, policy and practice so Indigenous Peoples and local communities can lead. By scaling practical tools, tackling legal and institutional barriers and convening dialogues from country to global levels, we aim to strengthen equitable governance, change narratives and influence decisions at major policy moments through 2027.
In Guatemala, Indigenous women grow and manage the production of ingredients for organic shampoo, including aloe, cacao, avocado and honey (Photo: UN Women, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Despite recent global commitments, top-down and exclusionary conservation still marginalises Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IPs and LCs), reinforces power imbalances and overlooks customary institutions and values of nature.
Changing this means confronting colonial legacies, shifting mindsets in conservation organisations and funders, and recognising the rights, knowledge and agency of IPs and LCs in policy and practice.
What is IIED doing?
IIED works with partners to enable Indigenous- and community-led nature governance by:
- Reinforcing local ownership
- Scaling investment in community-led organisations
- Amplifying Indigenous and local voices, rights and priorities, and
- Advancing equitable conservation policy.
We translate evidence into practice through principles, tools, governance models and policy pathways that strengthen local authority and accountability.
Our strategy
Our overarching goal is to make Indigenous – and community-led conservation the norm – shifting paradigms, policy and practice, removing barriers to IPs and LCs leadership, and securing a change in conservation discourse and decisions over the next few years.
To fulfil this vision, we aim to:
- Roll out practical tools that help communities, managers and authorities develop better governance and share decision-making more equitably
- Improve governance, equity and rights in protected and conserved areas and the recognition of Indigenous and traditional territories across multiple countries
- Identify actions to address legal, narrative and institutional barriers through national and regional dialogues, and
- Strengthen application of human rights-based approaches drive measurable shifts in global actors’ policies and narratives.
Current activities
We are working on a wide range of projects to advance these objectives:
Understanding barriers to IPs and LCs-led conservation and to equitable governance, and how to overcome them
Through research with our partners, and dialogues with conservation actors, we are exploring the underlying barriers to shifting power towards IPs and LCs.
What are the enabling conditions for more equity in conservation? Which systemic challenges (in policies, institutions, narratives and attitudes) are slowing progress towards change? What kind of collective action are IPs, LCs and their allies already taking and how can their customary governance systems be better recognised?
This research is helping us inform global policy debates at the Convention on Biological Diversity, and at IUCN through the task force on advancing Indigenous and community-led governance of protected and conserved areas.
Additional resources: Advancing rights and equity in area-based conservation | Nanyuki road map for advancing rights and equity in conservation | Advancing equitable governance in area-based conservation (PDF) | Advancing Indigenous and community leadership of conservation requires confronting barriers to change
Assessing governance and equity in protected and conserved areas
Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) is a site-level tool that helps stakeholders and rightsholders themselves assess governance quality and equity in their protected and conserved areas (PCAs) and agree and implement priority actions for improvement.
Under the Scaling-up Equitable Governance in Area-based conservation (SEGA) project, we aim to drive transformative change by deploying SAGE in the PCA systems of specific countries and supporting institutions to embed the results in both policy and practice. Complementing these efforts, SAGE-GT (for ‘governance type’) focuses on power balance assessment, with a view to enhance the power, authority and influence of IPs and LCs.
Scaling out self-governed biocultural heritage territories
The Potato Park Biocultural Heritage Territory in Peru is a self-governance model where five Quechua communities conserve rich agrobiodiversity, wildlife and ecosystems based on Andean cosmovision, traditional knowledge and customary laws.
IIED is working with IPs and LCs and Indigenous NGOs (Asociacion ANDES and Society for Alternative Learning and Transformation) to scale out and adapt this successful biocultural territory model to different contexts in the Peruvian Andes and coastal Kenya.
We also work with the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples to support efforts to scale out biocultural territories in 14 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Additional resources: Biocultural territories (on IIED's biocultural heritage website)
First Line of Defence (FLoD)
FLoD uses an iterative learning approach to examine the design logic of programmes that engage communities in tackling illegal wildlife trade. It provides a structured process that brings together local communities, project designers and implementers to understand the context-specific motivations and assumptions that underpin the activities (legal and illegal) of local communities.
By aligning interventions with local contexts and enabling adaptation as conditions change, FLoD helps ensure responses are grounded, practical and more likely to deliver lasting results.
Additional resources: Local communities: the overlooked first line of defence for wildlife
Values of nature tool
This initiative focuses on co-designing a practical, user-friendly tool to support conservation organisations to identify and integrate different values of nature into their work.
The tool aims to support NGOs in acknowledging diverse local perspectives through participatory methods, mapping values across stakeholder groups and planning conservation actions.
This is especially useful in contexts where conservation may conflict with local livelihoods or cultural traditions, helping to surface overlooked values and foster mutual understanding.
Principles for inclusive nature action
IIED and partner organisations have set out a guiding framework for governments, donors, NGOs and other stakeholders to deliver more inclusive, locally-grounded nature action.
These eight principles aim to guide policies, programmes and finance to work with community contexts and strengthen collaboration, accountability and respect for rights and knowledge, so biodiversity efforts are more effective and more socially just.
Additional resources: Transformative change for global biodiversity: the role of gender equality and social inclusion. Background notes for the Wilton Park Conference, September 2024
Revitalising shared governance of protected and conserved areas
More equitable governance of PCAs is essential for meeting global biodiversity goals and upholding the rights of IPs and LCs.
Shared governance models, where authority and responsibility are co-managed by key actors at site-level, have delivered conservation that is both more equitable and effective. Yet in much of Africa it remains vastly underused.
Led by the IUCN WCPA Specialist Group on Governance, Equity and Rights and convened by IIED, this initiative aims to re-establish shared governance as a credible, scalable approach by clarifying concepts and roles, centring IPs and LCs leadership, and strengthening design, implementation and recognition so power-sharing becomes a practical route to more equitable and effective conservation.
Human rights and human-wildlife conflict
Together with partners, we are exploring what it means to apply a human rights-based approach to human-wildlife conflict, and aim to provide the international conservation community with practical ways to do so.
We are collectively producing guidance for potential duty-bearers, including governments, conservation organisations and private businesses, to better identify their responsibilities towards IPs and LCs whose rights may be impacted by their land use and conservation decisions.
We are also designing and testing – in India and Indonesia – an adaptable local-level multi-stakeholder tool that centres IPs and LCs voices and aims to improve trust and accountability between key local stakeholders.
Additional resources: Principles for inclusive nature action
Contact
Barbara Lassen ([email protected]), senior researcher, IIED's Natural Resources research group
