ICCA Consortium Steering Committee members and colleagues
Stan Stevens (Senior Lecturer, Geography) participated in the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (the UN environmental treaty developed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio) in Nagoya, Japan, Oct. 18-29 as a member of the delegation of the ICCA Consortium ( www.iccaforum.org). The COP10 meeting in Japan was one of the major international conservation events of 2010 and was a particularly important meeting for reviewing and revising the Programme of Work on Protected Areas
In co-ordination with the COP10 the ICCA Consortium organized two side-events on ICCAs (Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas), the many thousands of terrestrial and marine regions where Indigenous peoples and local communities contribute to biodiversity conservation through their stewardship of livelihood commons and sacred places. The ICCA Consortium also held a one day General Assembly meeting and convened a 3 day ICCA Workshop in the Japanese cultural World Heritage Site mountain village of Shirakawa-Go which was attended by approximately 60 people. These events were attended by representatives of many Indigenous peoples’ and community organizations, support NGOs, and partner organizations including IUCN, UNEP, Global Environmental Facility, GTZ, and the Christensen Fund.
At COP10 IUCN announced to the Parties to the CBD that it commits to working with the ICCA Consortium and UNEP on making recognition of ICCAs as protected areas a priority for its conservation efforts in coming years. The Consortium also received expressions of support for its work from the GEF Small Grants Programme and the Christensen Fund. GEF-SGP and the Christensen Fund supported the holding of the General Assembly and the Shirakawa-Go ICCA Workshop.
Stevens was reconfirmed at the Nagoya General Assembly as one of the Consortium’s three officers and continues to serve on the Steering Committee. Informally established at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in 2008, the Consortium became a Swiss-registered NGO in July, 2010 at a General Assembly meeting convened on the occasion of the IIIrd UN Expert Mechanism of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples meeting at UN headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Stevens was a member of the committee that drafted the statutes of the Consortium and as one of its officers took part in the process of legally establishing the organization.
The ICCA Consortium (www.iccaforum.org) is an association of 30 organizations headquartered near Geneva, Switzerland which works worldwide in support of conservation by Indigenous peoples and local communities.