Mainstreaming Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights in the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage: The Role and Issues Surrounding Relevant Global Governance Actors
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Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate that a new inclusive strategy is needed to guarantee that the human rights of indigenous peoples are promoted while guaranteeing the protection of cultural and natural heritage to favor coexistence among local communities and relevant endangered species in national parks and other protected areas worldwide. The 2019 allegations against the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that it promoted anti-poaching activities by national rangers in various national parks, most of which are World Heritage sites located in six Asian and African States, thus contributing to serious human rights violations and abuses against indigenous peoples living in or near these sites, constitute the reason for an analysis of the international framework related to, on the one hand, the human rights of indigenous peoples living in or near protected areas and, on the other hand, the protection of cultural and natural heritage.
The conclusions reached and recommendations formulated by the Independent Panel of Experts that reviewed the work of the WWF in 2020 are, in the opinion of this author, very much relevant when promoting a human rights consistent involvement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in environmental protection efforts. Nonetheless, the example at hand demonstrates that NGOs, as other non-State actors, shall abide to sound human rights regulatory frameworks, whose further development would be considered an important milestone. Only a coordinated strategy involving all relevant actors and stakeholders, including in particular State authorities, relevant international organizations, such as UNESCO, nongovernmental organizations, and indigenous peoples may advance a more balanced approach that equally promotes, on the one hand, fundamental wildlife protection activities and, on the other hand, the rights of indigenous peoples.
Description
Date
2024
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Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
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Keywords
Cultural Heritage and Law, UNESCO and Heritage Protection, Indigenous Heritage, Collective Memory and Heritage, Heritage and Politics
Citation
Scarpa, Silvia. Mainstreaming Indigenous Peoples’ Human Rights in the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage: The Role and Issues Surrounding Relevant Global Governance Actors. In Heritage in War and Peace. Legal and Political Perspectives for Future Protection, edited by Gianluigi Mastandrea Bonaviri and Mirosław Michał Sadowski, Springer, Cham, p. 391-402. 2024.