Engaging with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

To ensure the success and sustainability of Watershed Investment Programs (WIPs), the involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities should be prioritized and initiated at the earliest stages. Building strong, trust-based partnerships with these groups, who depend on and steward many of the basin’s ecosystem services, is essential. Their participation is crucial; without it, there may be poor implementation outcomes, community opposition, or even legal action. Practitioners could overlook areas of high cultural value, and communities may feel threatened. Most importantly, a lack of knowledge and proper engagement could lead to human rights violations.

Furthermore, Indigenous Peoples and local communities may be the most relevant knowledge carriers and partners in WIP preparation and implementation processes, as “they have proven to be the most effective stewards of nature in the world—achieving greater conservation results and sustaining more biodiversity than government-protected areas.” Additionally, “they manage or have tenure rights to over 25 percent of the world’s land, including interconnected systems of forests, grasslands, wetlands, rivers, lakes, the underlying groundwater, and coasts.

See Engaging with Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Deep Dive for further reading.

Understanding the differences between Indigenous Peoples and local communities is crucial for several reasons:

• Cultural Sensitivity: Policies and engagement strategies must be culturally sensitive and appropriate for each group.
• Legal and Ethical Considerations: Indigenous Peoples have specific legal rights under international law that must be respected, such as the right to self-determination and tenure over land and water resources.
• Effective Participation: Ensuring meaningful participation and representation of both groups requires understanding their unique perspectives and needs.
• Conflict Avoidance: Recognizing and addressing Indigenous Peoples’ distinct identities and rights can help prevent conflicts over resources, land, and decision-making processes. By acknowledging and respecting these differences, programs and initiatives can be more effective, equitable, and sustainable

Key moments for Community Engagement in relation to the WIP development cycle include:

1. Pre-Feasibility: Comprehensively understand the Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the program’s areas.
2. Feasibility: Develop a Preliminary Outreach and Engagement strategic plan
3. Design: Co-develop a Long-term engagement Plan with communities in your WIPs area
4. Execution: WIP Engagement Plan should be active, promoting communication and regular updates with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Avenues for community members to provide feedback or report any concerns should also be activated and agreed upon, as they represent a vital component of adaptive management, an approach recommended for all WIPs.

The knowledge and expertise held by Indigenous Peoples or local communities should be granted the respect it deserves and integrated into WIPs, when permitted by the community. Here are some considerations to keep in mind when incorporating Indigenous knowledge:

• Indigenous knowledge is intellectual property that belongs to Indigenous Peoples and is protected under international frameworks.
• Practitioners should follow best management practices concerning intellectual and cultural property as outlined in the extract below from the Human Rights Guide (TNC, 2020).
• This series of background briefs, developed by the World Intellectual Property Organization, provides additional resources on traditional knowledge and intellectual property concerns (WIPO, 2023).