The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-20, framed by Parties to the CBD at the 10th Conference of Parties in 2010, outlines an ambitious roadmap towards halting and reversing biodiversity loss across the planet. While clearly not a replacement for the Convention, which is a mix of policy, goals, strategies, actions, and guidance, the Strategic Plan is crucial for its implementation. The 20 ‘Aichi Targets’ it encompasses understandably go beyond ecological and biological aspects, essential as they are, to also focus on the social-cultural, economic, and political elements of achieving this roadmap.
While all sectors of society have a role to play in the im- plementation of the Strategic Plan, indigenous peoples and local communities are central to it. This is not only because the lands and waters over which such peoples and communities have custodianship and/or customary rights to, contain the majority of the world’s biodiversity, but also because their practices, knowledge, skills and customs embody conservation (including sustainable use) in ways that the modern world has much to learn from.
The full document ICCA Briefing Note is available online and will be presented at the upcoming World Parks event in November in Sydney.
