What are the concerns about the Global Biodiversity Framework which aims to increase areas under forest cover, inland water, coastal and marine areas to at least 30% of the world’s terrestrial area? What is the situation in India?

In a powerful demonstration of solidarity and advocacy on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (March 21), Professor Robert A. Williams, Jr.; Faculty Co-Chair, Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program, featured prominently in the Anti-Racism Live 2024 event organized by Peace One Day.

The Scheduled Tribes in India will bear the brunt of this expansion, as 89 of the 106 notified national parks in the country were established in areas that they lived. This means that 84% of protected areas in India overlap with tribal areas, New Delhi-based rights activist Suhas Chakma said at the symposium on ‘Conservation, Racism, and Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights’.

As about 89 out of the 106 national parks in India are established in the areas inhabited by the Scheduled Tribes, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework will destroy the indigenous population, warned activists Suhas Chakma.

The choice of ‘human dignity’ as a reference framework underscores its foundational and all-encompassing usage under international human rights law, including equality and non-discrimination.

The Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe has a time-limited opportunity to purchase 232 acres located on a historic Nisenan Village site called Yulića near Nevada City - what is currently known as Woolman.

In the shadow of the rugged cliffs and geothermal steam that define Hell's Gate National Park in Naivasha, Kenya, a conflict between conservation efforts and community rights has left several Maasai families without homes, sparking protests and cries for justice.

University of Arizona Law Professor, Robert A. Williams, Jr., critiques conservation strategies that displace Indigenous Peoples in a New York Times essay. He emphasizes Indigenous-led conservation as more effective, highlighting global examples.

Students will work to document the human rights abuses perpetrated by actors from the Tourism and Conservation industries and to identify and use UN mechanisms which could be activated to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Displaced from their lands in the eastern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 20th Century, with neither consultation nor compensation, the Batwa People (formerly known as Pygmies) are struggling to return to their forest home in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (PNKB). But the Park Authorities are attacking them once again.