👣🌳🦋The widely reproduced claim that 80% of global biodiversity is found on the lands of Indigenous Peoples has been used to support a just cause. But it's wrong.
A new report led by ICTA-UAB researchers reveals that the 80% statistic seems to have emerged in a 2002 United Nations document that said that Indigenous Peoples “nurture 80% of the world’s biodiversity on ancestral lands and territories”, without a citation, from which it spread into the scientific literature. Researchers found the 80% claim mentioned in 186 peer-reviewed journal articles.
"Challenging the 80% figure was hard because people were fearful that doing so would harm Indigenous Peoples,” explains coauthor Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares. "After five years of much reflection, we came to the conclusion that, sooner or later, someone would try to debunk the figure, perhaps with much less consideration for Indigenous Peoples and their hard-fought rights. In the wrong hands, exposing the deficiencies of this statistic could be used to dismiss all claims by Indigenous Peoples regarding biodiversity, potentially undermining their position in global discussions about the planet’s future."
"The issue here is not whether Indigenous Peoples’ territories harbor significant biodiversity, because it has been consistently evidenced that they do. It is that maintaining accuracy and integrity is crucial for advancing social advocacy. Failing to correct errors, no matter how inconvenient, only serves to perpetuate disinformation. Advocacy will be much stronger and effective if grounded in robust and verifiable evidence."
To learn more about the study, listen to the entire Nature podcast or head to the Nature article: [ Ссылка ]
