Environmental defenders are essential partners in the conservation and protection of nature, and yet they are being murdered, criminalised and persecuted with impunity all over Uganda. We explore and bring to light the role that the conservation community plays in securing or compromising the protection of environmental defenders. Women are targeted with judicial threats and harassment for defending Indigenous women’s movements in Uganda. There is an urgent call to re-examine and confront issues of human rights, equity, Indigenous ecological knowledge, intangible or ‘biocultural’ heritage, and environmental justice as they concern biodiversity conservation, protected areas, ‘natural capital’ valuation (and ‘nature-based solutions’), and climate change.
In recent years, conservation initiatives have come under fire for land grabbing and human rights abuses. Basic measures like FPIC (free prior and informed consent), designed to protect Indigenous women and local communities from dispossession and abuses, are often not respected; at the same time, conservation efforts have become increasingly militarised, creating an environment of fear and surveillance. Mining continues to pose a significant threat to environmental defenders, notably women, something the conservation community must open its eyes to.
Despite this, there is a growing evidence base that Indigenous peoples and local communities – many of whom are environmental defenders – play a critical role in the conservation, governance and sustainable use of the world’s biodiversity and nature. Even in the face of immense threats, environmental defenders have had extraordinary resilience and determination to maintain their dignity and the integrity of their lands and territories. Defenders of Nature provide policy recommendations for how to improve and explore solutions to environmental problems that are holistic, equitable and ecologically sound. Through poetry, art, music and stories, we engage and push the conservation community to recognise and respect the central role that women environmental defenders play in sustaining nature, and to embed and uphold their human rights.
