Resource Rights

Protecting Biocultural Rights

The world is facing an unprecedented convergence of crises – accelerating climate change, widespread biodiversity loss, and the erosion of Indigenous and local knowledge systems that have sustained ecosystems for generations.

Global scientific assessments, including those of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), affirm what Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) have long known: their stewardship is essential to the survival of the planet’s biodiversity and the stability of its climate.

Yet across Africa, Indigenous Peoples remain among the least protected and most excluded from the decisions that shape their lands, waters, and ways of life. Their rights, governance systems, and customary laws are often ignored, while conservation and development models continue to be designed without them. It is within this context that ACRRA aims to fill a critical gap: the absence of Indigenous-led legal and advocacy institutions dedicated to defending biocultural rights and transforming the way law, policy, and conservation engage with Indigenous Peoples.

Our Core Premise

ACRRA’s work is guided by a transformative conviction:

Lasting climate and biodiversity justice depend on the recognition and enforcement of Indigenous Peoples’ biocultural rights.

Biocultural rights affirm that the well-being of communities and ecosystems are inseparable. These rights recognize that cultural identity, customary governance, and ecological stewardship are part of the same living system and that protecting biodiversity requires protecting the people who sustain it.

Sustainable Use Of Wildlife

Wildlife conservation, which includes reliance on both customary hunting and commercial hunting in Southern Africa, is closely linked to the resource rights, way of life, livelihoods, and governance systems of Indigenous Peoples. This biocultural relationship is not a matter of opinion but is supported by longstanding evidence and documented outcomes across the region, including in Namibia and Botswana.
Read more about specific communities reliant on hunting in ACRRA’s Case Study

However, across the Global North, a growing number of governments are introducing or considering restrictions on wildlife trade and hunting-related activities. While these policies vary in form, they collectively signal a shift toward more restrictive approaches that are increasingly influencing conservation systems beyond their borders. This trend of proposed legislation in the Global North may restrict international hunting-related revenue streams, with seriously harmful implications for these communities, and their Indigenous-led conservation systems as stipulated in the former UN Special Rapporteur Prof José Francisco Calí Tzay in his Tourism and Indigenous Peoples Report to the UN General Assembly in 2023. Sustainable wildlife use, its management and conservation is not separate from Indigenous Peoples rights. This is a critical issue and is affirmed as a key priority as set out in Targets of the CBD and Global Biodiversity Framework, Resolution 489 as adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights and the SADC Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement (1999). It is key to the resource rights of Indigenous communities in the sub-region and is a core focus of ACRRA’s advocacy efforts.

ACRRA’s Case Study

ACRRA specifically advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights to access, benefit from, sustainably use and conserve four groups of biocultural resources

By advancing these rights in law and practice, ACRRA contributes to a future where Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities govern, conserve, and benefit from their territories on their own terms, using their own laws, protocols, customs, and governance systems.