Rights and Communities

Across the planet we collaborate with Indigenous Peoples and local communities to achieve a shared vision for a more secure, inclusive, just, equitable, and resilient future, where wildlife remains a visible, thriving, and culturally valued part of the wild places where our partners live and we work.

At WCS, we choose to work in some of the most remote and high-integrity places left on the planet. For the Indigenous Peoples and local communities that call such places home, these forests, grasslands, and coastal reef systems are their ancestral and traditional territories, the foundation of their cultural identities, and the source of their families’ livelihoods and wellbeing.

By respecting and protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities and amplifying their voice in conservation policies, practices, and governance structures, WCS Global is traveling the best and necessary pathway to equitable, just, and durable conservation. We employ a human rights-based approach to give effect to this value statement that seeks to protect Key Biodiversity Areas, high-integrity terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and to more effectively mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Their direct and continuing interest in the health of these systems makes Indigenous Peoples and local communities our natural partners and most important political constituency for conserving natural resources in the wild landscapes and seascapes where we work.

Simply said, WCS wants to save wildlife in wild places, and so do the people who live there.

Through our Global Rights + Communities Program, we support many Indigenous Peoples' and local community-led conservation efforts in this shared vision, and also facilitate spaces to bring their perspectives and rights into other conservation models.

Meet the WCS Rights & Communities Team

WCS Statement Delivered by Dawa Sherpa on April 23, 2025, at the 24th Session of The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Read Statement

Conservation and Human Rights First Convening

Conservation and Human Rights Second Convening

Conservation and Human Rights Third Convening

French
Spanish

Our human rights-based approach

Securing Rights

Exercising Rights

Benefiting From Rights

*Learn more about our human rights framework and safeguard procedures.

Articles

Why human rights matter for marine conservation

Frontiers
A thriving planet cannot be one that contains widespread human suffering or stifles human potential; and a thriving humanity cannot exist on a dying planet.

Act Now