Reports Fail to Comply with International Indigenous Rights Law, Replicate Disputed 2019 Findings, and Raise Serious Conflict of Interest Concerns

Regents Professor, Robert Williams, Jr. warns that the 30 x 30 project is being used to displace Indigenous peoples in many communities. In the name of rewilding nature and creating “protected areas,” millions are at risk.

Implementing Article 32 of UNDRIP: Indigenous Self-Determination Through Indigenous-Led Initiatives, Co-Management and Co-Stewardship of Natural Resources, and the Emerging Rights of Nature Framework

A World Bank-financed tourism project, REGROW, doubled the size of Ruaha National Park and funded paramilitary rangers responsible for extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, violence and human rights abuses, the destruction of livelihoods and forced evictions.

A free, fully online track for youth (16–35) on the human rights impacts of conservation—and Indigenous-led alternatives rooted in self-determination and Indigenous knowledge.

A new letter from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) puts a spotlight on a recurring rights crisis in conservation: when “protected areas” are implemented through relocation and restrictions that sideline the people who have lived on—and cared for—those lands for generations.

IPLP recently began a partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to examine patterns of human rights violations in protected areas.

This video testimony of the Babuluko Pygmy community member from the Goma region of North Kivu reminds us that when conservation initiatives fail to respect and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples, they become instruments of displacement and injustice.

The report documents patterns of forced evictions, criminalization, and barriers to remedy affecting Indigenous Peoples  in and around protected areas, and tracks non-compliance with key court and IACHR measures—highlighting Laguna Larga.

IPLP joins CBD negotiations in Panama: SBSTTA-27 and the first meeting of SB8J

The Indigenous Rights & Protected Areas Initiative at the University of Arizona’s Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program (IPLP) is participating in two Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meetings in Panama City: SBSTTA-27 (20–24 October 2025) and the first meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) and Related Provisions (SB8J-1) (27–30 October 2025).