Press Conference: Breaking Barriers, Returning Conservation to the Hands of the Communities, UN Convention on Biodiversity - COP 17

communities of practice and everybody is welcome. Please join us in those community of practice and share your experience. And we have a dedicated website to share those case studies and we will be very happy to make it available to you after this call. Thank you.

I would be very interested to make a comment on your question. Yes. One Health is very broad and this is why the guidance provided by such organizations, by WFA or by UWA, is very important for the governments, but also for every stakeholders involved in the field. This is how actually we are building our standards, how our instruments, our policies, And I have two aspects that I would like to share. First of all, it's about the open governance, open governance that we are building together, the instruments, the policy, the standards, the monitoring tools, together with the NGOs, with every stakeholders involved around animal health. And also, the governance should be open in terms of topics, including covering biodiversity and climate. This is the approach that this One Health perspective offers to us, guided by the guidance from those organizations. And we are very pleased that we receive the support from those guidance.

Does that answer? But we would also be happy for you to also join us in the next events. But could we take one more question as we are running out of time? Anyone with any final question? Okay. So I really want to thank you all for coming here today and I hope that you can engage with the guidance. There should be, yes, the QR code on the screen that would allow you to access the entire guidance and just see how we make these connections across conservation, agriculture, health and other relevant policies. Thank you so much for coming in today. And one final thing, we do have an event for this guidance this Friday at the Armenian Pavilion, 4:45 to 5:45 PM, where we will go through the entire guidance and present it to you. And you'll hear more also from the government of Brazil, Bonfils Foundation, WOA, and WFA. Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. So since we have very limited time for this press conference, so welcome to everyone to our press conference. This press conference was organized by the working group ICC Indonesia and the organizations that support the People's Conservation Summit. So our title for this press conference is Breaking Barriers, Returning Communities, Returning Conservations to the Hand of the Communities, Delivering Calls from the People's Conservation Summit. So in this opportunity, we will have four source persons that will share. the outcomes of the People's Conservation Summit. So my name is Cindy Julianti. I'm from a working group ICC Indonesia and now moderating also the press conference. And for the centuries, conservation has often been shaped by the idea that nature must be protected from the people, rooted in colonial approach to conservation. This model has separated from the people and their territories and disrupted the deep an often sacred relationship between communities and the natural world. But today we must ask, if conservation is meant to protect life, why are the homes and habitats that sustain both biodiversity and humans community continuing to disappear? Across Indonesia, ecosystem and community territories face mounting pressures from extractive development and climate crisis. while conservation itself too often treats indigenous people and local community as object of intervention and beneficiaries of the projects rather than as a rights holders, knowledge holder, and decision makers. So this is contradictions we seek to address through People's Conservation Summit in 2026, which carries the theme, decolonizing conservation, affirming people's sovereignty over knowledge and biodiversity governance in Indonesia. It is also mean confronting deep injustice in productions of knowledge. Indigenous peoples and community have developed generations of knowledge to the relationship with forest, river, coast, seas, and small island. Yet this knowledge is often dismissed as is insufficient scientific. even as a knowledge derived from communities has contributed to scientific research, industry and technological innovations, sometimes without adequate recognitions, concerns of fair benefit sharings. So held on one until 3 September, 2026 in Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia, the People's Conservation Summit brought more than 600 participants, including 250 representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities, farmers, fishers, women and young people. And the summit also brought government representatives and academics to have a dialogue with communities, creating space for different disciplines and knowledge systems to meet and crucially, policymakers to hear directly from the people whose lives and territories are affected by conservation decisions. We also developed recommendations for the government of Indonesia at its delegation to CBD COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia, alongside with the local biodiversity outlook Indonesia, which brings community knowledge and experiences into global biodiversity conversation. This agenda is particularly important as Indonesia seeks to demonstrate leadership in global biodiversity government and explores possibility of hosting COP 18 CBD in 2028. So therefore, in this opportunity, we will dive into more information and also outcomes from the People's Conservation Summit for further. speaker. So the first one I would like to invite Pak Marco to share his thoughts and also outcomes that we can deliver throughout People's Conservation Summit.

Hi everybody. My name is Marco Mahin. I am from the Ngaju Dayak people who live in the Kalimantan island in Indonesia. I was a participant in the People Conservation Summit held last September in Indonesia, and now I'm here in COP17. So before the nation of Indonesia was formed, we were a people who hunted, gathered, fished, and practiced the shifting cultivation to sustain our lives. We did that so based on our knowledge, our tradition, and our customary law. We did all things naturally as our daily life because the forest, river, and swamp are our territory of life, are our living space. Later on, we realized that what we did naturally is what is called as conservation. For example, by practicing shifting cultivation, Dayak women have conserved hundreds of paddy rice seed in situ. For the Dayak people, for us as indigenous people, conservation means living harmonies with the with the nature. Harmonious means not harming one another, but rather caring for and sustaining one another. In my mother tongue, we call it as.. Mean living in harmonies with the nature. So we have the strong relation with the earth, with the forest, with the swamp, with the river. We understand that because the forest, the swamp, the river, that is not only for the human, for the people, but also for the and another that we believe that is our protectors. So therefore, we really see what is the conservation that is actually in our daily life. When we stay in some area, we try to conserve that area because that is our living, our life. So when I attend the PGS, People Conservation Summit in Yogyakarta, I meet a lot of indigenous people from all over the Indonesia. They also have the same knowledge, same tradition, and same practice about the conservation from the Aceh until the Papua. So I heard that this practice of the indigenous people conservation actually, this is already practice in a lot of community in Indonesia. Therefore, I think, and I also think that we should be recognized that the knowledge of conservation that already belong to the indigenous people and put it into the practice that is already put it in their practice of daily life. So this knowledge and this practice must not be ignored. They must be recognized by the world and serve as the foundation for the decision making. However, when I meet all indigenous people in the People of Conservation Summit, I think that just like the Dayak people in Kalimantan, they also possess conservation knowledge and are active conservationists. They are truly conservationists. However, later on, we were introduced to another form of the conservation. one that did not originate from us, that is, originate from the outside, from the foreigner. A form of conservation that view us as destructive pests. A form of conservation that has stripped away many of our fundamental rights as indigenous people and local communities. So through this COP17 event, I retire what we decided at the People Conservation Summit on September, that we must return conservation practice to the hand of the true steward of conservation, that is indigenous people and local communities. That's all. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much, Pat Marko, for a very strong message on decolonizing conservations, putting community as stewards and also the actors, subjects of the conservations itself. So next we have Ka'uli Atasiagian from Waialae. She will share on the perspective of injustices on biodiversity governance, please.

Okay, thank you, Cindy. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Suliyarta Syagian. I'm from WALHI, Friends of the Earth Indonesia, also a member in WGEE. In this time, I can share regarding root causes of biodiversity loss and 30x30 target. Biodiversity loss is a governance and justice crisis, not only an environmental one. It results from political and economic decisions that let nature be destroyed legally. Attention must go beyond illegal encroachment to the permit and policies that open the way for deforestation and habitat destruction. A growth-first development model treats nature as a commodity. Forests, coasts, seas, and small islands are converted to source of commodities and space for investment. In Indonesia, the expansion of oil palm, mining, and forest industry, national strategic project, infrastructure, and food and energy project pressures forests and other ecosystems. in coastal area and small island mining reclamations and seap mining threaten mangrove sea grass coral reef and people's living space weak environmental protection amplifies the pressures When ecological impact, community right and carrying capacity are not the main basis for decisions, biodiversity loss become a consequence of the development model itself. Communities bear the cost. Companies gain legal certainly through permit, while community that have protected their territories for generations face criminalizations, disposessions, and loss of the livelihood. Indigenous people and local community are right holders and guardian of ecosystem with their own management system, not morally research users. Conservation alone is not answer. Protecting or restoring areas elsewhere cannot solve the root problem. Will this surge of damage continue? Conservation must not justify continued destructions through offset or biodiversity credits. What must change? Stop the surge of damage. review permit that threaten ecosystem, enforce the law against corporations, and recognize the protect community management territory. This means shifting from growth at nature expensive to an economy that respect ecological limit, distributive benefit fairly, and recognize community right and authority over their territories. It is 30 by 30 target really a solution or protecting biodiversity. The 30 by 30 target in the Kunming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework aims to ensure that at least 30% of terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine area are conserved by 2030. However, the success of conservation should not be measured only by the size of the disconnected. The target risks become a number driven approach if area are disconnected in a centralized way without recognizing the nature rights, management authority, and concern of indigenous people and local community. Indigenous people and local community have protected many area through knowledge system and conservation practice developed over generations. These are have ecological value as well as social, culture and economic value, which cannot always be measured by area-based indicator or administrative target. Territory and area conservation by indigenous people and local community therefore need to be recognized and recorded spread or distinct from state designated protect area and other effective area-based conservations. This recognition must ensure that communities' contribution are not taken over is achievement of the state or corporations, while communities' authority over their own territories is weakened. This concern is relevant is the Indonesia context, especially when area designating schemes, including preservation area, could shift authority over natural resource Resources management to the central government is such designated restrict community over their customary territories. Conservation could become an instrument of centralize and control over space. The 30 by 30 target must be implemented in a way that guarantees recognition of customary territories, tenure right, meaningful participation, and free prior and informed consent. Conservation must strengthen it, not replace the authority of the community that have long protected ecosystem.

Thank you, Kaoli, for sharing on the the context of bringing the authority back to the community. So next one is Tori Kuswardono. He would speak in the context of finance. Please.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tori Kuswardono. I'm from Yaisan, Kupang. And I was also attended the People's Conservation Summits in September 2026 in Yogyakarta. So I'm going to talk about the crisis when we are coming to COP, especially COP 17. Everybody was talking about the financial gap as one of the main issues. But I think the crisis is not only about money. When we talk about biodiversity finance, we often begin with funding gap. We ask, how much money is needed, where it will come from, and how we can mobilize more private investment. But we need to ask a more fundamental question: whose knowledge defines conservation? Who decides who is worth protecting and who controls the money? For indigenous peoples and local communities, biodiversity is not simply an economic asset or a collection of resources to be managed. It is connected to their territories, knowledge systems, identities, livelihoods, and relationships with the living world. If we fail to recognize these realities, we risk building a financial system that claims to protect biodiversity while reproducing the injustice that we have marginalized its custodians. Our starting point must be epistemic justice. This means recognizing different knowledge systems, including indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and scientific knowledge, without automatically placing one above the others. Indigenous peoples and local communities are not merely sources of information, beneficiaries of conservation, projects or participants invited to validate decisions already made elsewhere. They are the authors, knowledge holders and active agents of conservations. Recognizing communities as authors and actors of conservations has concrete implications. It means recognizing Their authority to define conservation priorities, determine what constitutes a meaningful outcomes, govern their territories, and decide how their knowledge can be used. It also means that their knowledge must not be extracted, commodified, or incorporated into conservation projects and financial products without their consent, control, and fair benefit sharing. Conservation must not take knowledge away from communities while leaving decision-making power and financial benefits elsewhere. Epistemic injustice is closely connected to financial injustice. Today, we face fundamental contradictions. Enormous financial flows continue to damage nature, while resources for protecting biodiversity remain insufficient and unequally distributed. According to United States of Finance for Nature in 2026, financial flow with negative impacts to nature reached approximately 7.3 trillion in 2023 compared to the approximately 2020, 2,220 billion for nature-based solutions. This tells us that challenge is not simply to mobilize more money. We must transform the directions of finance, the power to make decisions, and the distribution of benefits. Reforming biodiversity finance means redirecting finance, reducing harmful subsidies and financial flows that drive biodiversity loss, strengthening public responsibility, ensuring that governments fulfill their obligations, rather than relying on communities or private investors to carry the burden. Democratizing access, creating simpler, more direct, predictable, and flexible funding mechanism for IPLC. Redistributing power, ensuring that communities help decide how funds are allocated, what priorities they support, and how benefits are shared. Private finance may contribute, but it cannot replace public obligations or become justifications to turn to turning nature and communities territories into financial assets. From our from our perspective COP 17 must advance biodiversity finance architecture built on three principles. First, flow. Where does the money go? We need to redirect harmful financial flows and prioritize funding that supports biodiversity and community rights. Second, power. Who decides? Indigenous peoples and local communities must have meaningful decision-making power, including access to funding and the ability to shape conservation priorities. Third, equity. Who benefits and who bears the cost? Funding must respect territorial rights, protect traditional knowledge, ensure fair benefit fair benefit sharing, and provide effective mechanism for remedy when harm occurs. These three principles must work together. As we gathered at COP17, we must move beyond the assumptions that the future of biodiversity depends primarily on finding new financial instruments and attracting more investors. The future of biodiversity also depends on whose knowledge is recognized, whose rights are respected, and whose decisions shape the use of financial resources. For us, the direction is clear. Epistemic justice must be at the core of biodiversity governance. Financial reform must dismantle the structures that exclude communities from resources and decision making. We need finance that recognizes communities as authors and actors of conservation, not as instruments for delivering conservation target. There can be no just biodiversity finance without epistemic justice. And there can be no lasting conservation if the people who sustain biodiversity are denied the power to shape its future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sori. So we have the last speaker.

Okay, thank you everyone. My name is Fikrman Saragi. I am from the People Coalition for Fisheries Justice as the new general secretariat, general secretaries. There are seven points that I want to say to you. The first one is now in Indonesia, indigenous people and local communities as the right holders that living in the coastal areas and small island are currently facing various challenges and injustice in Indonesia, such as mining, tourism, land reclamation, aquaculture, IUU fishing, national strategic project, and also conservation, that initiative by the government and also the private sectors. Second, land and marine tenure conflicts starts from the unmeaningful participation or manipulation participation and unfair political and policies justice policies on coastal and small island spatial planning. because due to a lack of recognition, IPLC, that base in spatial management, was deleted. From 2014 until 2025, Kiara documented there are 246 cases of coastal and small island communities that facing intimidation and also criminalization in connection with their efforts to defend their managed areas. And 30 of these related to the conservation areas in Indonesia. In the perspective of outsiders, coastal and marine areas are merely fishing just only for fishing grounds. But for the local people and Indonesian people, the sea is their life. They are living culture there, and also there are local wisdoms, norms, and the way of fisherfolk that are living in the small island and the coastal areas. So the conservation conservation management should prioritize community-led based management as people know that their areas best have and have established practices cultures and relationship with the with their territories now We call for the rigorous protection and recognition of land and the tenure rights and the biodiversity management practices that are rooted in the local wisdom and comprehensively included the rights, governance systems, cultures, and livelihoods of communities in the coastal, marine, and small island territories. We strongly reject all of the forms of natural resources extraction, particularly the critical minerals mining in the coastal and small island in Indonesia. In our perspective for COP17, all of the government must hear our recommendation. That is, one, recognize the rights managed areas and also the governance of communities in marine and coastal conservation. Second, ensure that indigenous people and local communities as the right holders are fully involved in decision making. Third, ensuring that marine conservation and also economic development must be protected, the rights and the livelihoods of the communities. Bring back the social justice and ecological justice. Now for the better future. Thank you.

Thank you. So as we conclude we want to make one thing absolutely clear. That the people's conservation summit declaration is not merely a collective recommendation. It is a collective demand and fundamental change in Indonesia's conservation policy and practices. We also Our message to our Indonesian government is also clear. Do not take the voice of the people to negotiating table only to leave their demands behind. Bring the rights, knowledge, and aspiration into decisions you make. You can also find the declarations of the people's conservation in the QR code below through your device. So thank you very much and see you again.