Achieving 30x30: the vital role of Indigenous and traditional territories, rights and governance
Ahead of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in October, we urge all Parties to recognise Indigenous and traditional territories (ITTs), embrace biocultural approaches and strengthen equitable governance of protected and conserved areas to keep the world on track to achieve the 30x30 target.
A global learning exchange on biocultural territories in the Potato Park, Peru, organised by the International Network of Mountain Indigenous Peoples in 2017 (Photo: Lucia Flores)
Target 3 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), also known as 30x30, commits Parties to conserve at least 30% of the earth’s land, inland waters and sea areas by 2030, ensure equitable governance, and recognise Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ rights, including over their traditional territories. CBD COP17 will be a critical moment in ensuring the world reaches this target.
Insufficient progress to date
But the first draft of the global review of collective progress shows that implementation of the GBF is not on track. Although Parties are making progress in expanding protected and conserved areas, their implementation of, and reporting on, Target 3 remains uneven.
This is concerning for two reasons. If the push to expand areas under conservation does not consider rights and equity, it will perpetuate injustices, from a lack of decision making power for Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendent and other local communities in protected and conserved areas, to their displacement and human rights violations.
It could also miss the opportunity to include some of the world’s most biodiverse areas – and the people who have effectively protected them for centuries – in achieving the target.
ITTs conserve vital biodiversity
Global evidence shows that Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ diverse values, institutions and ways of life are critical for conserving biodiversity, and that equitable governance delivers more positive ecological and conservation outcomes, particularly autonomous governance.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities own or govern at least 32% (or 43.5 million square kilometres) of global land and associated inland waters and many of these areas are in good ecological condition.
Across the world, there are thousands of examples where communities effectively govern and conserve their territories based on their own rules and knowledge systems. These include territories of life (also known as Indigenous Peoples' and community conserved areas and territories – ICCAs) and biocultural heritage territories, which recognise and protect deep historical and spiritual relationships with land and the interdependence of culture and nature as the basis for conservation, community wellbeing, nature-rich food systems and self-determination.
Achieving the 30x30 target will therefore require Parties to recognise and protect ITTs. Any expansion of the land, water and sea area reported to the CBD as contributing to Target 3 will have to include, to a significant extent, Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ territories, lands and waters.
Addressing barriers to equity in mainstream conservation
Expanding conservation while ensuring equity and effectiveness requires consideration of both how to improve the governance of existing protected and conserved areas, and how to bring about a shift towards supporting Indigenous and community-led conservation approaches.
But this is not a simple task. There are systemic barriers to change in the conservation sector and beyond: in policy and institutional frameworks, resource distribution, conservation paradigms and narratives, capacities and relationships.
These barriers, which include persistent colonial legacies – such as the assumption that humans and nature need to be separated to conserve nature, structural inequalities and unequal power relationships – ensure Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and their knowledge, values and institutions, remain marginalised in mainstream approaches.
Recognising ITTs to achieve 30x30
There is still some debate in CBD negotiations on how to include ITTs into Target 3 implementation. The International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB) has taken the clear position that Parties must recognise ITTs as a separate, but equivalent, pathway alongside protected areas and “other effective area-based conservation measures” designated by governments.
This would require clear procedures for reporting to both the CBD and the global database on protected and conserved areas. Ensuring ITTs can contribute to Target 3 also requires action at national level to legally recognise and protect Indigenous Peoples’ and local communities’ collective customary land rights, address the many situations of overlap between existing protected areas and ITTs, and ensure the full participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and their customary institutions in decision-making.
Five calls to action
As such, we call on all Parties at the CBD COP17 to:
- Work with the IIFB to finalise the guidelines to strengthen the legal and policy framework for the implementation of Targets 2 and 3 of the GBF, including on ITTs, developed by the Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) (PDF) to produce guidance that genuinely works towards recognising ITTs as a separate but equivalent pathway to achieve Target 3 of the GBF.
- Ensure the CBD’s revised programme of work on protected areas (PoWPA) (PDF) aligns with the GBF, with more recent guidance on equitable governance (PDF), and with the ITT guidelines. Strengthen the guidance in the PoWPA to improve the governance of protected areas and to create diverse national protected and conserved area systems that recognise ITTs, address any overlaps between them and existing protected areas, and embed a human-rights based approach across all its elements.
- Take urgent action at national level to recognise and protect territories of life/ICCAs, biocultural territories and other ITTs across different ecosystems, through effective legal measures that prevent threats from extractive industries, the imposition of protected area expansion and carbon projects, and other activities in different sectors.
- Substantially increase direct funding to Indigenous Peoples and local communities for establishing and strengthening self-governed ITTs.
- Ensure that the rights (including territorial rights), knowledge, worldviews, values and practices of Indigenous Peoples and local communities are respected in the implementation of the GBF overall, including all targets, in accordance with its Section C.
More in this series
Insight: Getting back on track: turning global biodiversity promises into fair and locally-led action by 2030, Nicola Sorsby and Barbara Lassen (July 2026)
