A/71/229 Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, in 2014, less than 5 per cent of protected areas worldwide were governed by indigenous peoples and local communities. 8 16. Conservation efforts traditionally were state-centric and based on expropriation of lands subsequently placed under government control. Indigenous peoples were displaced, denied self-governance, deprived of access to natural resources for their livelihood and their traditional and spiritual links to ancestral land were disrupted. Marginalized and impoverished indigenous peoples have continued to struggle for access to their territories and tenure rights, resulting in enduring friction and conflict. 17. From the conservation perspective, the loss of the guardianship of indigenous peoples and the placing of their lands under the control of government authorities who have often lacked the capacity and political will to protect the land effectively, has left such areas exposed to destructive settlement, extractive industries, illegal logging, agribusiness expansion and large-scale infrastructure development. Even where national policies and laws require strict protection for protected areas, in many countries State agencies have still authorized mining, oil and gas extraction, logging, dams and reservoirs, highways and other projects in direct conflict with conservation goals. 9 18. Mobilization of indigenous peoples’ movements has led to advances in international law recognizing their collective right to their traditional lands and growing awareness among conservationists of the important role indigenous peoples play in conserving biodiversity are factors which have led to relatively recent, yet significant, shifts towards greater recognition of indigenous peoples ’ rights in the context of conservation. Leading conservation organizations have adopted commitments and policies seeking to adopt a “new paradigm” of undertaking conservation, while respecting the rights of indigenous peoples. However, significant gaps remain between these policies and their effective imple mentation on the ground. 19. Furthermore, among the principal challenges that indigenous peoples continue to face globally are difficulties in gaining legal recognition of collective ownership over their ancestral lands, especially when these have already been declared protected territories. National legislation is often contradictory. Laws pertaining to conservation and forestry are commonly not harmonized with subsequent national legislation and international law asserting the rights of indigenous peoples and the authorities responsible for enforcement of the different laws frequently fail to coordinate. __________________ 8 9 8/25 United Nations Environment Programme, Protected Planet Report 2014: Tracking Progress Towards Global Targets for Protected Areas (Cambridge, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 2014). See A/HRC/4/32/Add.2 and A/HRC/33/42/Add.2; see also, Marcus Colchester, Salvaging Nature: Indigenous Peoples, Protected Areas and Biodiversity Conservation, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Discussion Paper, No. 55 (Geneva, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 1994). 16-13163