Human rights and nature conservation are interconnected. Every person has a right to a healthy and safe living environment, in which nature has an important role: clean water and healthy soil to grow food are only two examples. When nature is threatened, for example by illegal mining, deforestation or pollution, it harms both biodiversity and the people living in the area.
Headerfoto: Protest demonstration Atewa for Water © A Rocha Ghana
Protecting conservationists
In many areas where we work with our partner organisations, a healthy and safe living environment is not a given and standing up for these rights is often not without risk. Women and Indigenous communities in areas rich in biodiversity are often the hardest hit and least heard.
This is why IUCN NL has been working for years to improve the protection of conservationists and other groups in vulnerable positions. We are also committed to inclusive nature governance, applying a gender and intersectional approach.
Gender and inclusion in nature conservation
Women play a central role in nature conservation: they are often on the front line to protect our planet. Women and girls, in all their diversity, are integral to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. Yet they still face discrimination and are often marginalised when it comes to decision-making processes around forests, water and land. Too often, they are denied access to and ownership over natural resources and their benefits.
IUCN NL works for a just world that values and conserves nature. This is why we believe in an intersectional feminist approach that takes into account different forms of oppression.
Human rights and nature
Everyone has the right to have agency over their environment, which should be safe, clean, healthy and sustainable. But in many of the countries where IUCN NL works, standing up for these rights is not without dangers Women and Indigenous communities are often the hardest hit.
This is why IUCN NL has been working for years to improve the safety of conservationists and other people in vulnerable situations. Together with our partner organisations worldwide, we are committed to inclusive management of nature, applying a gender and intersectional approach.
Community governance
Many valuable ecosystems around the world are managed and protected by Indigenous people and local communities. However, both these ecosystems and the knowledge to govern them are under increasing pressure from powerful economic interests such as the expansion of agriculture, mining and infrastructure. Often at the expense of the rights and needs of the people who have been living there for generations.
IUCN NL is therefore working with local partners for the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to be recognised and to strengthen their efforts to protect and manage natural areas.
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