COP15 Montreal: ‘30×30 will create more militarised Protected Areas’

Subject: Environment

Context-

The ongoing 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, is pushing for a 30×30 Target to protect and conserve at least 30 per cent of land and ocean biodiversity by 2030 to avoid a crisis.

About 30X30 target-

The foundation of the GBF agreement is a pledge to protect 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030, usually referred to as the 30X30 goal.
The 30X30 target was first floated in 2019 in an article A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets published in Science Advances.
This then became the global call of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People in 2020 and as of October 2022, more than 100 countries are part of it.
Countries have to commit to protecting 30 per cent of the land and sea by 2030 under this goal.

Concerns over the target-

It will oust around 300 million indigenous people from their native lands and forests in the name of conservation.
As soon as an areas is notified as Protected areas (PAs), indigenous and local communities will lose access to these areas.
Even after declaring 15-16% of world areas as protected areas, wildlife loss has not been reduced.
The Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which talks about 30×30, does not address indigenous rights and territories.

Other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs)-

An OECM is defined by the CBD as:

A geographically defined area other than a Protected Area, which is governed and managed in ways that achieve positive and sustained long-term outcomes for the in-situ conservation of biodiversity, with associated ecosystem functions and services and where applicable, cultural, spiritual, socio–economic, and other locally relevant values.
Governments, relevant organizations, Indigenous peoples and local communities are invited to apply voluntary guidance on OECMs to identify, recognise and support OECMs, and report data on OECMs to the World Database on OECMs.

Concerns over OECM-

OECMs will undermine India’s Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (FRA).
Under FRA, people from tribal and forest-dwelling communities do not have to show how well they protect the forests to claim rights over their ancestral lands.
Under OECMs the indigenous communities have to show, through a very long and complicated process, that they are able to protect the biodiversity.