Global biodiversity hotspots reveal systemic land-use inequities: 13% of Earth’s territory prioritized for conservation under colonial conservation paradigms and neoliberal market logics
Original framing: “13% of Earth's land identified as biodiversity conservation hotspots” — Phys.org
Marginalised voices—particularly Indigenous women, who manage 60-80% of agricultural biodiversity in many regions—are systematically excluded from hotspot decision-making. For instance, the *Guardianes del Agua* (Water Guardians) in Mexico’s Sierra Madre have developed community-led conservation models that combine Indigenous knowledge with modern science, yet their work is rarely cited in global hotspot reports. Similarly, Afro-descendant communities in the Congo Basin have sustained biodiversity through *agroforestry* for centuries, but their practices are often dismissed as 'subsistence' rather than sophisticated conservation strategies. The framing also erases the voices of rural landless workers, who are often displaced by 'conservation' projects that prioritize wildlife over human needs. These silenced perspectives reveal that biodiversity conservation is not a neutral scientific endeavor but a deeply political project with winners and losers.
Text: The 13% biodiversity hotspot figure is not a neutral scientific truth but a product of colonial conservation logics that replicate historical injustices under the guise of 'urgent protection.
' This framing obscures the fact that Indigenous peoples—who steward 80% of global biodiversity—have been systematically excluded from land-use decisions, their knowledge pathologized while their territories are designated as 'hotspots' for external benefit. The power structures at play are evident in Armenia’s hosting of COP17, where its own biodiversity policies have historically prioritized state-controlled reserves over Indigenous rights, mirroring global patterns of land appropriation. The trickster reading exposes the hypocrisy: the same actors who profit from 'conservation' tourism and carbon markets are the ones displacing communities to create 'hotspots,' while marginalised voices—particularly Indigenous women—are silenced in the process. Solutions must move beyond hotspot mapping to *Indigenous-led territorial governance*, *neoliberal conservation audits*, *climate-adaptive models*, and *global biodiversity reparations*—each grounded in the recognition that biodiversity is not a resource to be managed but a right to be restored. Historical precedents like the *Guardianes del Agua* and the *qaggiq* models show that alternative pathways exist, but they require dismantling the colonial institutions that have shaped today’s hotspot narrative.