ICCAs—territories of life
What are ICCAs - Territories of Life?
Territories and areas conserved by Indigenous Peoples and communities are often called ICCAs or territories of life.
The ICCA concept includes a wide range of examples, but ICCAs usually have the following three characteristics*:
- There is a close and deep connection between a territory or area and its custodian Indigenous People or local community. This relationship is usually embedded in history, social and cultural identity, spirituality and/or people’s reliance on the territory for their material and non-material wellbeing.
- The custodian people or community makes and enforces (alone or together with other actors) decisions and rules about the territory or area through a functioning governance institution (which may or may not be recognised by outsiders or by statutory law of the relevant country).
- The governance decisions and rules (e.g., regarding access to, and use of, land, water, biodiversity and other gifts of nature) and the management efforts of the concerned people or community overall positively contribute to the conservation of nature (i.e., the preservation, sustainable use and restoration, as appropriate, of ecosystems, habitats, species, natural resources, landscapes and seascapes), as well as to community livelihoods and wellbeing.
Beyond these shared characteristics, ICCAs are very diverse. Some examples include Indigenous territories, Indigenous protected areas, cultural land and seascapes, sacred natural sites, migration routes of mobile Indigenous Peoples, bio-cultural heritage territories, sustainable resource reserves, and community-managed areas.
ICCAs may or may not meet the definition of a protected area or other effective area-based conservation measure (OECM). A growing number of ICCAs that meet the definitions are being listed in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) and the World Database on Other Effective Area-Based Conservation Measures (WD-OECM). Visit the Protected Planet Initiative page to learn more about how ICCAs can be listed as protected areas and OECMs.
Number of ICCAs globally
The Territories of Life 2021 report estimates potential ICCAs cover at least one-fifth (21%) of the world’s land, an area approximately the size of the African continent. If potential ICCAs were appropriately recognised for their contributions to conservation alongside the existing terrestrial network of state and privately governed protected and conserved areas, the total coverage would increase to 31% of the world’s land.
The analysis show that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are contributing extensively to nature conservation around the world. ICCAs and formal protected areas complement each other and connect biodiversity across the landscape and seascapes and are a crucial part of the global conservation network.
However, no one knows how many ICCAs there are in the world and the Territories of Life analysis highlights the current paucity of data on documented (known) ICCAs. The ICCA Registry and the Protected Planet Initiative are helping to answer this question.
The only way to truly know about ICCAs, including their location, extent and diverse values, is to support Indigenous Peoples and local communities to document and map their own ICCAs on their own terms. The ICCA Registry exists to facilitate this.
For more information about organisations and initiatives that work with ICCAs and their custodians, please use the links below: