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In context of the recent emergence of the debate on rights-based approaches (RBA) to conservation, this paper provides a collaborative piece of work on the constitution of RBA’s and some of the key issues surrounding them. It also looks at some examples from countries where there is a need for RBA’s. The editors explain that the need for conservation to recognise the rights of those people who are most directly impacted by global conservation initiatives makes rights-based thinking not only a question of ethics and social justice but also a practical imperative for saving species and ecosystems. A rights-based approach is not about fulfilling a utopian dream of people and nature living in perfect harmony. When individuals and communities have rights over an area, they may act to safeguard some of its conservation values; however, they will only do so if the right incentives are in place. It is asserted that there is no guarantee that people will exercise their rights in ways that preserve the ‘non-instrumental’ values, such as species diversity, that conservationists are particularly concerned about. Contributors to this paper write on a number of areas and raise numerous key points. These include:
forest restoration, rights and power in the Ngitili forests of Shinyanga: while various reforms in Tanzania have encouraged the large-scale restoration of small woodlands, poor women explain that wealthy men were rapidly acquiring land for private ngitili forests for grazing their cattle, and too little land was being set aside for the needs of poorer users
Colombia’s new forest law rejected: Colombia’s Constitutional court ruled that the country’s General Forestry Law, enacted two years ago, was unconstitutional. This move follows an intensive campaign by a coalition of campaigners and legal experts and representatives of forest communities who opposed the law on the grounds that it violated the rights of Indigenous People and Afro-Colombians
human rights and forest conservation: there is no comprehensive instrument specifically designed to address the links between conservation and human rights. RBA may be a powerful instrument to combine conservation interests with human rights protection
righting the wrongs done to India’s forest dwellers: a new has been developed to counter the unequal distribution of power between forest departments and communities.
