The 4C factor: Community conservation and climate change

Abstract

ICCAs are sites of biodiversity significance that are being voluntarily conserved by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. They include those indigenous territories, catchment forests, coastal and marine ecosystems, heronries, individual wildlife populations, and many others. The key features include a high degree of community control and decision-making, and the actual or potential to achieve conservation of key ecosystem/biodiversity elements.

While the role of ICCAs in conserving various aspects of biodiversity and ecosystems is being increasingly documented and recognized, a seriously underestimated and understudied value of ICCAs is their role in mitigating and adopting to climate change.

The article will explore these aspects, focusing on them in a conceptual sense, bringing in the somewhat scarce empirical information that exists on these aspects, and putting out questions for further in-depth assessment. It will also briefly discuss the question of whether ICCAs can and should be brought into the discussions on carbon trading, especially into the debate on “avoided deforestation”. This will include the views of Indigenous Peoples and local communities on this issue.