How conservation NGOs can put human rights principles into practice (commentary)

Human rights are not just words on paper. Advocates, social movements and government champions have brought much needed positive changes by pushing for the adoption of international human rights standards and putting rights at the forefront of national laws, policy, and governance decisions. In the world of conservation governance, human rights are the key to protecting whole systems — people, wildlife and the natural spaces they live in. However, applying human rights is easier said than done with multiple barriers to implementation. This is the realm we operate in to help bring tangible change.

At the end of 2024, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released the “core human rights principles for private conservation organizations and funders,” which build on existing human rights treaties and standards. The drafters received input from many actors, including us. However, there remains insufficient clarity in translating principles into practice.

As human rights practitioners with extensive experience in several fields, we have been working in the conservation sector to bring a sharper, more systematic focus on human rights and to develop a better understanding of what works on the ground. When governments fail to uphold human rights, in most instances it is imperative not simply to terminate support but rather to stay on a principled course to protect and respect the rights of affected communities over the long term.

Large conservation NGOs often work in extremely remote places where government presence is limited, with few, if any, social services or other civil society actors. This puts enormous pressure on them to support communities heavily dependent on their presence to help secure their rights, welfare and different types of services. Conservation organizations can play a bridging role between communities and governments and exercise leverage, but governments are ultimately responsible for protecting human rights.

When governments fail to uphold human rights standards, some critics of conservation call for termination of conservation funding, activities and support to governments. But abandoning communities to endure the abuses alone, while their environment is destroyed, is just avoiding the problem. Pragmatic, gradual improvement in rights-protection is both possible and principled through the human rights-based approach.

This approach helps: 1) honor the self-determination of Indigenous peoples and local communities; 2) prioritize justice and non-discrimination; 3) move away from models imposing top-down services and livelihood projects onto communities seen as merely beneficiaries; 4) lift the voices of communities in the design of policies and governance; and 5) reduce conflict with communities.

Here are three long-term investments in human rights implementation that we believe can affect real change. The overall focus is on creating tangible improvements in the lives of those who live in and around government-created protected areas, and to support more Indigenous or local-led models of conservation.

Shift mindsets and change organizational culture

A discussion of human rights in conservation governance cannot begin without first recognizing the distinction between Indigenous peoples and local communities. While neither are defined under human rights law, there are constitutive elements that encompass Indigenous peoples and their collective rights, including in Africa, as distinct from local communities.

In our practice we consider local communities to be those that include Afro-descendant peoples, place-based and forest-dependent communities, as well as others with long-standing cultural ties to natural resources and territories. In some conservation sites, Indigenous peoples and local communities may overlap or be mixed due to inter-marriage and various historical relationships. We must respect how they self-identify.

Conservation organizations must continue hiring more Indigenous peoples, human rights advocates, and various social science specialists to be part of core teams in conservation management. With the onboarding of specialized staff there can be continuous training across the organization on different elements of human rights.

Training — combined with continuous learning — can shift mindsets, organizational processes and culture. Conservation actors must allow communities to determine their own future and ensure that rights are not applied piecemeal. The work we do with people is interdependent and often co-evolved with conservation goals. In short, nature and people cannot be separated.

Refining partnerships with communities will take time. For years, social scientists have worked on integrating community governance structures into program design — an approach that has effectively protected large tracts of high-integrity forest. The ongoing mindset shift is to recognize communities as rights-holders in the land.

Just as in our work, we call on conservation organizations to train rangers in applied human rights protection and protocols for arrest and detention. We encourage them to be further trained in de-escalation and dispersal tactics, with periodic refresher courses. At the same time, law enforcement efforts to deter illegal activities such as deforestation and illegal hunting of endangered species must be carried out without infringing upon human rights. By investing in monitoring, by supporting rangers, and by listening to Indigenous peoples and local communities, NGOs can build stability and trust between communities and rangers.

Take principled approaches in challenging contexts

In some of the conservation sites and countries where we work, longstanding human rights issues exist — with competing political, financial and economic interests that make our work especially relevant. Because conservation efforts can span decades, there is time to build trust and alliances with local actors, think tanks, and conflict resolution groups to maximize protection of Indigenous peoples and local communities without compromising biodiversity goals.

Kahuzi Biega National Park (KBNP), in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, exemplifies the need for long-term investment to address historical neglect of the park and its population. Evictions, pressure from inward migration, ongoing discrimination toward the Batwa Indigenous people, conflict with militia groups, large-scale extraction of natural resources, periodic episodes of violence, and heavy demographic pressures complicate governance there.

While the Batwas’ legitimate claims to their ancestral lands in the park must be addressed, they have frequently been co-opted by outsiders looking to push their own agendas and by some local actors looking to exploit the park’s natural resources. Simple narratives of the Batwa as either forest “guardians” or “destroyers” may do more harm than good by failing to recognize larger structural issues at play.

The more difficult but principled path is to invest time, resources and expertise from multiple sectors to overcome polarized viewpoints and decades of mistrust. This requires a deep understanding of militia groups, organized criminal networks, and other actors undermining the park’s rich biodiversity and the human rights of the Batwa and others.

To address these concerns, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which manages the park, committed to several actions that we believe other organizations should also take. It negotiated a board structure with the government that includes seats for Indigenous peoples and local communities in park governance, and it negotiated park revenue-sharing between communities and the government. Further, WCS made a public commitment to supporting implementation of the recent national IP rights law and is working with a conflict mediation organization to implement the previously negotiated “Bukavu Roadmap” to find a durable solution to land rights issues.

A grievance redress mechanism with input from Indigenous peoples and local communities has also been established. This facilitates collection of complaints that are then investigated and responded to by both WCS and the government. To maintain confidentiality and accountability, reporting of any serious allegation is designed to bypass the site level. Careful tracking and prompt investigation and resolution of the cases enable confidence-building with communities.

Additionally, human rights vetting of new rangers to be hired by utilizing the UN human rights due diligence framework helps identify any past records of human rights violations.

Leverage institutional capabilities

Conservation actors must use their influence to push for greater human rights compliance by governments while also being cognizant of their limitations. Typically, conservation NGOs do not have the power to terminate the employment of a state agent accused of committing a human rights violation, because they remain government employees. However, NGOs can use grievance systems and internal investigations to establish the facts and take measures like reporting and suspension, demotion, and removal from patrol operations.

They can also discuss human rights red lines with governments at the outset of negotiations, and push for adherence later. This is a widely supported approach that arose during the second convening on Conservation and Human Rights, which we organized together with Indigenous leaders and other stakeholders to create a space for frank discussions of solutions to rights-protection challenges in conservation.

Instead of the cut-and-run approach when problems arise, conservationists should use long-term investments to shift the needle quietly towards human rights protection. Such commitments can provide leverage, especially where conservation is a benefit to the government. We have seen soft power deployed successfully when negotiating with government to prevent mining contracts and extractives from expanding operations on Indigenous lands.

Rather than the “stick” of cutting funding, first line responses should include detailed locally appropriate standard operating procedures to overcome the gulf between national law and international standards and strong human rights impact assessments as part of an overall due diligence approach.

Conclusion

We believe it is the role of large international conservation organizations to help governments realize the inter-connectedness of human rights and conservation, of people and natural places, and to steadily push national policy and dialogue towards greater voice and agency for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

At times the challenges may appear to be daunting, but with long-term commitment and greater alignment towards a common vision, we can translate human rights principles into practical reality across the conservation sector for the benefit of both people and wildlife.

Banner image: Members of the Dodoth Indigenous community in Uganda. Image by Rod Waddington via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

Sushil Raj is the executive director of the Rights and Communities Global Program at WCS, a board member and mediator with the New York Peace Institute, and former member of the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, a Special Procedures mandate of the UN Human Rights Council. He spent 24 years with the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UN Department of Political Affairs, the Ford Foundation, and other groups focused on the rights of Indigenous peoples and minorities. He supported international negotiations to strengthen the UN Human Rights Treaty body system at the General Assembly and focused on human rights implementation in the DRC, Nepal, and Sudan.

Sharanya Kanikkannan is a human rights specialist with the Rights and Communities Global Program at the WCS. A human rights lawyer by training, Sharanya has worked as a human rights officer with the UN and on grassroots justice campaigns with communities and civil society. She has also supported governments as a trusted adviser and consultant to enact civil and criminal law reforms to benefit marginalized populations. At WCS, she oversees human rights analysis and research, works with training teams, and assists country teams with tools and assessment processes to improve application of the human rights-based approach.

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