Multi-Stakeholder Processes

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2013, Ariela Summit, Ecoagriculture Partners,   "The Youth Guide to Biodiversity" 1st Edition (Chapter 11) Youth and United Nations Global Alliance. Reproduced with permission.

Chapter 11. Verbatim.

Multistakeholder processes are an important tool for creating lasting solutions for biodiversity conservation. Essentially, they are a process by which different interest groups – whether they be governments, businesses, agriculturalists or real estate developers – consult to create a plan to achieve a particular objective. Though multistakeholder processes may vary widely in scope and scale, they have certain elements in common. Typically, they are based on the democratic principles of transparency and participation.

Transparency, as used in a social science context, means that all negotiations and dialogue take place openly, information is freely shared, and participants are held responsible for their actions before, during and after the process.  

The ethic of participation recognises that without all stakeholders present, solutions will not accurately address real-life pressures, and thus may not succeed.

Rural people, and particularly those who are native to the land where they live (indigenous or aboriginal people), are important stewards of biodiversity (see box: “Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and Biodiversity”). Unfortunately, very often it is precisely these people who are left out of the conversation over land rights and resource management. Stakeholders who have more capital (business) or prominence (government) frequently overshadow the voices of the rural poor. 

The people who have lived on the land for many generations hold invaluable storehouses of information about native varieties of plants and animals, microclimates for growing specific crops and uses of medicinal herbs. Often these same people are dependent upon these resources for survival, and have developed complex systems for maintaining the biodiversity that benefits their day-to-day lives.

Increasingly, however, rural indigenous people are tied into larger systems that profit from the large-scale destruction of these ecosystems. 

When old-growth rainforest in the Amazon is burnt tomake way for the cattle production to feed a growing global market for cheap beef, people who live on the land may benefit in the short term from payments for land rights or jobs. In the long term, however, they are left with the ecological consequences of land conversion, which often include polluted water, degraded fertility of the land and destruction of both plant and animal diversity. 

Successful strategies for biodiversity conservation must include methods of growing or gathering food in ways that do not harm, and may even benefit local biodiversity and the livelihoods of people who depend directly on the land for survival. Crafting these solutions must involve both local people, and the larger globalised markets and power structures that affect them. 

Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and Biodiversity 

John Scott, CBD

Indigenous peoples and local communities (ILC s) have a special relationship with nature in general and local plants and animals in particular, which makes them important partners of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Indigenous peoples and local communities have lived in harmony with nature and looked after the Earth’s biological diversity for a long time. Their diverse cultures and languages represent much of humanity’s cultural diversity. Respect for, and promotion of, the knowledge, innovations and practices of ILC s will be central to our efforts to save life on Earth.

An interesting example to illustrate the important role of indigenous peoples in maintaining biodiversity can be found in the wet tropics of far northeastern Australia. The traditional Aboriginal people of the rain forests, called the Yalanji, have practised fire management in the wet tropics for thousands of years. As a direct result of creating clearings in the jungle, grazing animals such as the kangaroo and wallaby moved into the forests from the western plain. The fire management practices of the Yalanji also encouraged the re-growth of different species of plants and fungi in these clearings.

One particular mushroom species, the main food source of a small marsupial called the bettong, grows only on the edge of such clearings. 

After colonisation, many of the traditional Aboriginal peoples, including the Yalanji, were removed to church missions or government reserves, and could no longer manage their traditional lands or practise their culture. This abrupt interruption of fire management led to a decline in grazing animals found in the forest and the near extinction of the bettong. Plants living in and around the jungle clearings also fell into sharp decline because many local seeds must be exposed to fire before they can germinate.

In recent years, the Yalanji have returned to their traditional lands.

They are working with national park management to reintroduce fire management and the biodiversity that traditional fire management practices bring.

Source: Hill, 2004