66. Deforestation and worsening climate change are understandable impetuses to increase the number of protected areas. However, increasing the number protected areas cannot effectively address the causes or consequences of climate change; major changes in cultures of consumption and huge reductions in emissions are ultimately required. In the meantime, indigenous peoples should not be made to pay the costs of inaction on consumption and emissions by non-indigenous societies. There can be no shortcuts to sustainable and effective conservation; it needs to be done together with those who have protected these areas of rare biodiversity for thousands of years. Indigenous peoples must be recognized not only as stakeholders, but as rights holders in conservation efforts undertaken in their lands and territories. Their way of life and knowledge need to be preserved and protected, together with the lands that they inhabit. Respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, and not their exclusion from their territories in the name of conservation, will ultimately benefit the planet and its peoples as a whole.

67. Tangible progress in the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights has been made since the report of the previous mandate holder on this topic in 2016, giving hope for the universal acceptance of new conservation approaches that assert the rights of indigenous peoples. However, better recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights urgently needs to be translated into action. States and all other conservation actors, as well as financial institutions, must apply new conservation models, while immediately addressing historical and contemporary wrongs caused to indigenous peoples by conservation projects.

68. It is imperative that, in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, genuine commitment to a human rights-based approach to conservation be demonstrated by including express recognition thereof in the final text to be adopted at the fifteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity.

69. The Special Rapporteur recognizes the efforts of UNESCO, notably the adoption of the policy on engaging with indigenous people and revisions to the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention. These are concrete steps in the right direction, but further steps must be taken to implement these policies within the World Heritage Committee and on the ground at World Heritage sites. As the previous mandate holder noted (see A/71/229), it is possible for the nomination of sites for, and their inclusion in, the World Heritage List to be carried out constructively and with the consent of the indigenous peoples affected, ensuring that such procedures would in practice provide an effective contribution to conservation and the protection of human rights. Indigenous peoples should be the ones to nominate and manage their own sites and should fully and effectively participate in processes related to World Heritage sites to ensure respect for their rights, livelihoods and self-determined development.

70. The Special Rapporteur wishes to make the following recommendations. States should:

• (a) Recognize indigenous peoples’ special and unique legal status;
• (b) Provide indigenous peoples with legal recognition of their lands, territories and resources; such recognition should be given with due respect for the legal systems, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned;
• (c) Apply a strict rights-based approach to the creation or expansion of existing protected areas;
• (d) Only extend protected areas to overlap with indigenous territories when indigenous peoples have given their free, prior and informed consent;
• (e) Ensure that indigenous peoples have the right of access to their lands and resources and undertake their activities in accordance with their world view, which has ensured the sustainable conservation of the environment for generations, and halt the criminalization of indigenous peoples carrying out sustainable activities linked to their way of life, activities that may be forbidden to non-indigenous peoples;
• (f) Protect indigenous peoples from encroachment on their ancestral lands and strictly forbid logging and extractive activities in protected areas;
• (g) Accept official country visits by special procedures to investigate alleged human rights violations at World Heritage sites and in other protected areas.

71. Member States, United Nations agencies, donors and all actors involved in conservation should:

• (a) Allocate funding to support indigenous-led conservancies, and create intercultural channels of communication to encourage the full participation of indigenous peoples in the management of protected areas and the inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems in conservation;
• (b) Implement efforts to ensure that indigenous peoples, including indigenous women, are well represented in decision-making processes, and adopt a rights-based approach at each stage of the design, implementation and assessment of conservation measures;
• (c) Learn from indigenous knowledge systems to determine, together with indigenous peoples, conservation protocols related to sacred areas or spaces and important species;
• (d) Protect and promote the role of indigenous women in preserving, transmitting, applying and developing indigenous scientific knowledge related to conservation and the protection of biodiversity;
• (e) Include, in collaboration with indigenous peoples, the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples in conservation-related education curricula;
• (f) Institute and apply indigenous hiring preferences when recruiting officials for the management of protected areas and environmental protection;
• (g) In consultation with indigenous peoples, ensure transparent and equitable benefit-sharing for their contributions to biodiversity protection on their lands and territories, and ensure that funding directed towards indigenous peoples is managed by them;
• (h) Support the development of the capacity of indigenous peoples to participate in and influence international conservation processes, including the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, the nomination and management of World Heritage sites, and the planning and monitoring of, and reporting on, REDD-plus and other conservation and climate change mitigation projects;
• (i) Adopt a culturally appropriate human-rights based approach when planning and implementing conservation projects, including REDD-plus initiatives, taking into consideration indigenous peoples’ distinct and special relationship to land, waters, territories and resources, and ensure that indigenous peoples receive culturally appropriate funding for climate finance opportunities;
• (j) Establish or strengthen grievance mechanisms that are independent, accessible and culturally appropriate for indigenous peoples;
• (k) Protect indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact by taking into account their nomadic lifestyle and voluntary isolation as a right of indigenous peoples.

72. UNESCO should apply a strong human rights-based approach to the inclusion of sites in the World Heritage List. Such an approach should include:

• (a) Human rights impact assessments carried out together with indigenous peoples before the nomination process begins;
• (b) The revision of the World Heritage Committee’s rules of procedure to ensure the effective participation of indigenous peoples and United Nations human rights experts in decision-making processes affecting indigenous peoples before the Committee makes its final decision;
• (c) Periodic reporting on, and reviews of, the human rights situation at World Heritage sites and measures to reconsider World Heritage status if requirements are not met;
• (d) The establishment of an independent grievance mechanism for violations at World Heritage sites.