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While conservationists say the act is a good step toward protecting biodiversity, they raise concerns about its implementation and whether the promised benefits of protected areas will reach landowning communities. “Previously, there was no guiding legislation to establish protected areas in the country,” says Phelameya Joku Haiveta, CEPA program officer, adding that past legislation aimed at conservation and species protection hasn’t worked. “The communities have not really seen the benefits of conservation at their level.”
As part of the new act, communities can work with CEPA to designate their land as a protected area. “They decide if they want to allocate the areas for conservation, and if they don’t, then we don’t force them,” she says, adding that the process follows free, prior and informed consent, a right guaranteed under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
In addition, the act provides a uniform legal and regulatory mechanism to define a protected area. Previously, many NGOs that established protected areas worked with the communities to design restrictions on using these areas. “We sort of introduced some kind of bylaws, which the communities agreed on and signed the deal,” Peso says, adding that these areas weren’t regularized at the national level.