Respecting Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in Landscape Initiatives: A Guide for Practitioners on Minimum Safeguards and Evolving Best Practices

The integration of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities’ (IPLCs) rights is a key element of any landscape initiative’s success. This guidance is a resource for planners and landscape implementers, that outlines practical approaches to incorporating IPLCs into landscape initiatives through four key steps. These four key steps include identifying local issues and opportunities, planning and partnership, implementation and monitoring and reporting.

The guidance outlines common challenges that exist around the respect and inclusion of IPLCs in landscapes which can exist at different stages of an initiative, and provides suggested solutions to these challenges that landscape implementers can adopt. These common challenges include a lack of trust, power asymmetries, limited knowledge of local context as well as respecting norms and ensuring complete and equal participation.

The guide is informed by research that looks at seven landscape initiatives, including the Asunafo-Asutifi Landscape Programme, The North West Landscape and the South East Landscape and the Siak Pelalawan Landscape Programme, the full list of landscape initiatives is provided as an annex. The authors also conducted targeted interviews with staff from landscape implementing organisations, to inform the guide and the production of its practical steps.