International organizations and government agencies providing funds to support conservation have at times found that their money has been tied to human rights violations. This can include armed eco-guards they pay injuring or even killing locals, or, programs they sponsor having a historical legacy that continues to dispossess Indigenous peoples from ancestral lands in protected areas.

Sometimes, this conservation funding is also the only support for the protection of species’ habitats or for sustainable community initiatives that aid nature and livelihoods.

When such human rights abuses are detected, alleged or confirmed, how are organizations and government agencies supposed to navigate the financial path, legal requirements and commitment to the ecosystem? Should all funding just be pulled out? Can it be temporarily suspended? How can it safely be reinstated to prevent future human rights violations? Can the “nonproblematic” parts of conservation projects still receive funding? And what’s the best recourse when investigations are underway and abuses haven’t yet been confirmed?

“There are many reasons for these [human rights] abuses and failures, but one important factor is a lack of clarity as to the responsibilities of private conservation organizations and funders,” says John Knox, co-author of a U.N. Environment Programme report ‘Core Human Rights Principles for Private Conservation Organizations and Funders’.

To answer all our questions and clarify the path forward in these situations, Mongabay’s Latoya Abulu spoke recently with Knox, former and first U.N. special rapporteur on human rights and the environment. An expert in human rights law, Knox also served on the independent review panel commissioned by conservation NGO WWF to determine its role in alleged human rights violations against communities in Africa and Asia. He also gave written testimony to a U.S. congressional committee deliberating U.S. government oversight of conservation grants.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mongabay: When a conservation NGO finds out that there are human rights violations in a park that it either manages or provides funding to, what is the organization supposed to do in this situation? And does this mirror what it’s legally required to do?

John Knox: International human rights law applies directly to states, except in extremely unusual circumstances. It doesn’t usually apply directly to nonstate actors. The unusual circumstances might be if the human rights violations are so bad that they rise to the level of a crime against humanity or something like that. Then yes, the law could apply directly to the conservation organization.

But even if the abuses aren’t crimes against humanity, that doesn’t mean that the conservation organizations don’t have any responsibility. It means that these conservation organizations would look to human rights standards to set out the societal expectations about how they’re supposed to behave. This has been the source of a lot of discussion and debate, but I think there’s a lot of agreement, including on the part of conservation organizations, that they have a responsibility to respect human rights in everything they do.

That responsibility to respect is also held by multinational corporations and other types of corporations, which were clarified and resulted in the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. I think it’s pretty clear that these U.N. guiding principles, even though they were developed in the context of for-profit businesses, also apply equally well to not-for-profit conservation organizations.

In fact, when I was on the independent panel that reviewed the allegations against WWF, that panel looked at the U.N. guiding principles. Other human rights bodies have looked at them too. So, what do those principles say? What do they require?

Basically, they say that the organization in the context you just described has a responsibility to do a kind of a human rights due diligence procedure before they get involved in the park or the protected area to figure out where the likely possibilities are for human rights abuse. Even if they don’t do it when they’re supposed to, they should still take steps as soon as they can to be aware of this likelihood.

They need to determine whether, with respect to particular issues, they might be causing the problem themselves, they might be contributing to the problem, or they’re neither causing nor contributing to it, but they’re nevertheless involved with it because they have a direct link to a partner that is the cause of the problem. Their responsibility then depends on which of those categories they fall into.

If they’re causing it or contributing to the problem, then they should stop and make remediation for whatever they did. If they’re just directly linked to the problem — and it’s easy to imagine a situation like this, you are partnering with the government — in the sense that maybe you’re just providing technical advice in the protected area, but the government’s rangers are committing human rights abuses, then the conservation organization should use whatever leverage it has with the government to try to improve the situation, to try and stop the abuses or violations.

And if it really can’t stop them, it doesn’t have that much leverage, then it needs to decide whether it makes more sense to stay involved or to pull out.

Maybe it’s not going be an easy answer. Maybe it makes more sense for them to stay involved because they’re actually helping this situation as best they can.

I realize that’s a long answer, but to sum it up, they have to decide: First, how big of part of the problem they are. And if they are part of the problem, they really have to cut it out and make remediation for it. But even if they’re not directly causing or contributing the problem, they still have a responsibility to do what they can to try and ameliorate, mitigate or improve the problem.

Mongabay: So, let’s say a conservation organization does find out that it is either causing a problem or directly linked to it. For example, they’re providing technical assistance or maybe they’re helping fund some unit in the park, but the government’s involvement in that unit is doing something problematic. So they’re linked in some way. And I know how it is in the media world, once you’re linked in some way, and it comes out, it looks really bad. And advocacy human rights groups get very angry. In this kind of situation, would you say that they should pull out funds used for conservation totally? And then perhaps do some kind of investigation? Even if these funds may be the only ones funding conservation in this park? Is completely cancelling funds the best protocol to have in place?

John Knox: It really depends on the situation. If they really are not part of the problem, they’re just directly linked to it because they may be providing technical advice, then normally I would say that is not enough reason by itself to pull out. They should instead try and stay engaged and help both with conservation and with the local communities or Indigenous peoples as best they can.

In my experience, for example, conservation organizations are often contributing to community forests, or they’re even supporting complaint mechanisms, or they’re helping in other ways. For local communities and Indigenous peoples, pulling out means that they’re cutting off support for all those things. No one really thinks — or I think, almost no one thinks — that would be a good idea.

And I agree with what you said that often, when it hits the media, there is a strong urge on the part of the conservation organization, and often the funders, behind them just to pull out and cut their losses, so to speak. I don’t think that’s a good knee-jerk reaction in some circumstances.

Yes, if there’s really no alternative, and staying in there means that you’re giving your name and are just so associated with these horrible human rights abuses that there’s just no way you can stay without seeming to support them — then, yes, maybe you really should pull out.

But I don’t personally like the fact that often we have this situation where the conservation organization, or more often, the funder, as soon as the story hits the media, decides, “OK, now we pull out.” That’s a failure. I think that’s a sign that the situation has been mishandled.

They should have been more engaged earlier, so that they knew it was happening. They shouldn’t be surprised when they hear about it in the media. And they should have been doing something already to try and improve the situation so that they can then point to their efforts when the story hits the media.

Mongabay: When you’re talking about conservation organizations being directly linked, you say the best reaction is not a “knee-jerk reaction.” But once they’re in the other category of “actively causing human rights abuses,” like actively funding and training rangers accused of raping somebody, for example, is the “knee-jerk reaction” a good reaction in this case? Just pull out, because you’re in the “actively causing” category now?

John Knox: Let’s take that example: It comes to your attention as a conservation organization that a ranger has been accused of raping somebody in the course of their work as a ranger for a park that you are supporting. You’re actually directly supporting that ranger’s salary, which is not an unusual situation, right? I think that gives the conservation organization a lot of leverage in that context.

In that case, the conservation organization should stay engaged to make sure that the ranger is actually being held accountable, that the correct legal processes are being followed in order to provide civil remedies to the victim, and also pursuing criminal punishments for the ranger.

If you just pull out, then that may not happen. That process doesn’t necessarily just happen. You don’t necessarily make the situation better by leaving. So yes, in that situation, I would say the conservation organization absolutely has a responsibility to stay in to make sure that justice is done, so to speak.

Though, I would back up and say the conservation organization had a responsibility before that to make sure that the ranger was getting the appropriate kind of training and that there was a grievance mechanism or some other way that these kinds of allegations can be brought up. And if they weren’t doing that, then it may be partly their responsibility. In other words, they may share some of the responsibility if they are, for example, in charge of hiring the rangers — which is unusual, but it does happen — then that increases their level of responsibility.

In all those situations, the ideal result would be that the conservation organization would improve its performance, so to speak, rather than just say, “OK, well, our work is done here,” and pull out, because that doesn’t leave anybody better off.

Mongabay: In this particular example, we’re talking about an individual ranger, or a couple of rangers violating human rights on their own. But what if we’re talking about a larger issue where a conservation organization is part of a trend of human rights violations. For example, you’ll often see with Indigenous peoples that they’ve been evicted from an area either before the conservation organization came in or even during its time managing an area. Here, there is a trend where somebody or a group of people lost their land and a conservation organization is managing a territory which is tied to eviction. It also does not let communities come back in. What should happen with funding in this case? Should the organization stay engaged? Do they pull out? Do they try to get people back to their land in this conservation area?

John Knox: The legacy situation where there’s a park that previously expelled its Indigenous people, for example, and now the conservation organization is coming in, is an extremely difficult situation. If the conservation organization was involved at the time of expulsion, then they should share some responsibility for that.

But let’s assume that they got brought in after that was all done. My general attitude is they’re not responsible for what happened when they weren’t involved. In other words, the status quo is what it is at this point, but they’re not responsible for everything that happened before they showed up.

However, before they get involved in a situation like that, they should: First, be aware of what the history has been and what the claims of the land are, if there still are active claims for Indigenous people to have to have access back to their land. And second, they need to try and make the situation better.

That is, it’s not enough for them to wash their hands and say, “Well, this is really the government’s fault. We have nothing to do with it. It’s not on our watch.” As long as the claims are still active and the people would still like to have access to their land, there’s work to be done. And I do think the conservation organization has a responsibility not to be complicit in the ongoing violations. That means they have responsibility to try and push for increased access.

Now, I don’t think everybody has the right to access to protected areas. I want to be clear about that. We’re talking about Indigenous peoples who were expelled from their ancestral land, who therefore have the right to return to the land and have access to its resources.

For them, yes, I do think a conservation organization should go into that situation with their eyes open and say, “We want to be on record as saying that we would support renewed access, in ways that make sense given the Indigenous people’s rights and the conservation needs of the area, or whatever given the context, but still, we would support renewed access for them.”

Now, how can they support that? That’s just going to depend the situation. But again, I think there’s a big difference between saying, “We’ll do what we can, knowing that we can’t make the government do things that it really doesn’t want to,” and saying, “We’re not going to do anything. It’s none of our business.” I think they need to be in the first category.

Mongabay: If they are in that first category and they’re actively trying to find remediation or a solution, they are then of course going to support continued funding and providing technical assistance to that park?

John Knox: Again, it depends. It’s hard to have bright lines in that context. If the expulsion just happened, or it’s continuing to happen, then I think the conservation organization shouldn’t be providing support. In other words, it needs to be careful not to be in a situation where it’s effectively actually supporting the continued expulsion of the Indigenous people.

The question is, are you actively working to make the situation better? If you are, great, then you can support the park. But if you’re not, then you need to think carefully about why you’re there, and maybe not be there. Use your leverage to try and get the government to actually improve the situation. And if it really doesn’t work that way, if the government refuses, be aware that it’s going to be a real mess if you go in, and you may well end up being held responsible for part of it.

Mongabay: Let’s put the conservation organization back in the “actively causing” category, not the “directly linked” one. If there’s an allegation that’s coming out (like continued murder, rape, torture, evictions, etc.), do you think they should stop funding while an investigation is actively underway? I’m talking from a PR and optics look, too. This is also what advocacy groups will ask for once an allegation comes out. They’ll ask, “Why are they still funding? They’re still finding x, y, z.” Do you think that there should be a suspension or a pause to funding during investigations where allegations aren’t confirmed? Or a pause to funding to the units directly involved while maintaining funding to other units? How do they maneuver around such allegations and investigations?

John Know: I can’t really talk about PR, because that’s not my area of expertise. But in terms of their legal responsibility, they do have an obligation to stop contributing or causing the problem. That requires a determination of what exactly their role is in causing the problem.

For example, if they’re funding rangers with no training whatsoever, and they’re just sending them out there, which is bad in itself, then they find out that these underpaid, undertrained rangers are committing abuses, yeah, then they should stop doing that. Like right now, they should stop. They should say: “OK, no more patrols. We’re not going to keep sending you out there. We’re not going to keep paying you to basically abuse people. So, we have to get on top of this now.”

And what that means exactly will, again, depend on the context. Is it just one unit of bad apples and everybody else is fine? Well, then focus on that unit. Is the whole system so messed up that you need to stop all funding for patrols in that park until you get it sorted out? Then maybe you need to do that.

I don’t think this is in some ways that different from how it would be in any other business. If you own a pizza delivery business and you find out that your pizza delivery men are abusing your customers, you wouldn’t be like, “Well, let’s have a study, you know, but for right now let’s keep going. We’re going to keep delivering the pizza even though, every once in a while, someone gets killed.”

Actually, you would say, “No, we’re stopping this right now until we figure out what’s going on. And we’re only going ahead with it after we can make sure that we’re not, in fact supporting human rights abuses like murder, rape, torture. That’s unacceptable. We’re not going to do that.”

Mongabay: On that point, though, of deciding whether it’s a bad apple or a systematic problem, what happens with funding in this case? There has to be an investigation now to see whether this a bad apple situation or if it’s a trend? Do you think that there should be a pause to the funding of the particular area in question while conservation organizations or funders try to figure this out?

John Knox: I think it can definitely be appropriate to temporarily suspend while you’re figuring out whether it’s a systematic problem or not. And again, it would depend on the context. I’m not trying to say this is would make sense in every single case. But sure, I can certainly imagine situations where you, the funder, the outside conservation organization, say, “We’re going to suspend support for patrols or whatever, until we get a sense of what’s going on.”

But I do think you have to be aware of the human rights consequences of simply suspending funding if you’re the only source of the salaries for these pretty impoverished members of the park rangers staff. Here, again, you could use that leverage in different ways. Perhaps suspend support for patrols. Or, no more bonuses for going out on patrol until we figure out what’s going on.

But we’re not going to completely cut you off so everybody doesn’t have enough money to buy meals. At the same time, know that if you are worried that this is a systematic problem, you’re not going to keep supporting the system. We need to change the system immediately.

Mongabay: Now, let’s use the big conservation NGOs like Wildlife Conservation Society or World Wildlife Fund as an example. They’re providing funding to multiple different units of a particular park. They’re funding community forestry, they’re funding a woman’s artisan program, they’re funding the rangers, etc. They’re funding a lot of things. And after abuses come to light, the organization may pull funding from a particular unit causing the issue, but then still fund other parts of the park management. And even if these other parts of park management are not linked to the abuses, there’s still funding going somewhere. Following this, there can be a big press release by an advocacy group criticizing continuing funding. Do you think it’s fine for an organization to provide funding to other units that are not tied to any allegations, but suspend funding for the particular unit actively causing, or alleged to be actively causing, the issue?

John Knox: To me, that’s a clear example of how you might be contributing to a problem and then, even after you deal with the contribution by maybe cutting your funding to that particular unit, you might still be directly linked to it as long as you’re providing other types of support to the park.

If you’re talking about WWF or WCS, and they’re publicizing the fact that they’re supporting this park, and they’re encouraging people to go there, and they’re trying to get funding from other sources for the government — they’re pretty directly linked to that park. In that case, they have a responsibility to do more than simply decide whether or not to cut their funding to a particular unit. So yes, if they’re funding park rangers like eco-guards in the Congo Basin and they’re committing abuses, then they need to suspend that or get on top of it if it’s a systematic abuse.

Does that make sense to pull all your funding for the park, for everything else you’re doing, like the technical support in other areas? Not necessarily. But that’s where I would say you need to use that leverage in order to improve the behavior that needs to be fixed.

In other words, that’s an example of how you still have a direct linkage and under the norms I started off talking about (even if not causing it yourself, but you’re directly linked to human rights abuses), then you need to do everything you can to try and improve the behavior of your partner, the government or the agency that you’re working with.

So again, normally that would mean don’t immediately pull out, because then you’ve given up all your leverage. But it does mean use that leverage. That may also mean you have to threaten to pull out if things don’t improve. Now, would you actually pull out?

To me, it just depends so much on the situation. What do the local people want you to do? In some cases, they may not want you to pull out because they want you to stay engaged. In other cases, frankly, they may want you out because they may feel like you’re so tainted by what’s happened that they blame you. If that’s the situation, you need to respect that, right? It doesn’t make any sense for an organization to be insisting on staying in a place where the local people don’t want things there. But again, it’s hard to generalize about that.

My main point about this would be you should not have a knee-jerk reaction. You should consult with the people affected. You should think through carefully what the different options are, and you should make a decision that tries to address the human rights and abuses in a way that improves the situation, and not just make a knee-jerk reaction in any particular direction.

Mongabay: Do you think a conservation organization can completely ensure that no human rights abuses ever take place in a park due to their funding or linked to their funding?

John Knox: No. The obligation is not to ensure, the obligation is to do your due diligence. To take all the reasonable steps you can to try and prevent human rights abuses. Human nature being what it is, you can never be sure that there’s not going to be some bad actor in the park ranger unit or whatever that does a bad thing. I don’t think that’s a reasonable standard.

I do think a reasonable standard is that you have a responsibility to make sure that the incident, whatever it is, is investigated and remediated, that victims are compensated, that appropriate punishments are imposed. That kind of individual abuse is not normally, by itself, a reason to pull out. However, you do need to decide: Is this really just an individual bad actor, or is it a sign of a more systematic problem? And if it is a more systematic problem, then that takes it to a different level.

Mongabay: If national law in the country where that conservation organization is operating in doesn’t follow international law or any human rights standard, what course should the organization take in this case?

John Knox: The organization should first determine if the organization itself is causing or contributing to these violations. In which case it needs to cut that out immediately. But even if it’s not that it may still be directly linked to those violations, it needs to use all the leverage it can, all the leverage it has, or all the leverage it can acquire, to try to improve the behavior of the government, to try and end the human rights violation.

Mongabay: Sometimes government agencies and development banks will rub their hands clean of a situation. In November 2024, Mongabay reported that the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights decided that the Indigenous Batwa people have a right to return to their lands in Kahuzi-Biega National Park in the DRC, among 18 other recommendations. Human rights organizations said the park’s donors should support the ruling and no longer fund it if the government doesn’t take action. When we approached German development bank KfW, a donor of the park, for their response, they said the commission’s decision was not applicable law and that it was directed at the DRC government, not to them. Others called the decision nonbinding. In this kind of case, do development banks, government agencies or conservation organizations have any obligations when court rulings are nonbinding?

John Knox: Absolutely. First all, government organizations, even if they’re agencies of governments or a development agency of a government, have obligations — direct obligations under human rights law, because they are part of the state.

But even if they’re a nonstate actor, if they’re truly a private funder, then they still have the responsibility to respect, which I was talking about. Even if they’re not directly bound by a treaty, like the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, they still have a responsibility to respect human rights, just as multinational corporations do, just as other conservation organizations above a certain size or ability to have a certain impact on human rights do.

So when the African commission issues a decision like that one, I think it is incumbent upon the conservation organizations and other actors that are not part of the state to nevertheless take seriously the decision and try and make sure that their own actions are in compliance with the human rights norms as they’ve been explained by the African commission or the other human rights body.

Mongabay: Conservation NGO WCS said they are trying to find the best ground to engage with the DRC park management in a way that conserves both Kahuzi-Biega National Park and complements human rights. Concretely, I’m thinking about the private-public partnership with the government to manage this park in the way that tries to remedy human rights and conservation. This middle ground or leverage they have, however, doesn’t reach the full standard of international rights law or Indigenous rights, since the Indigenous Batwa have the right to return to the park and are still unable to. In this kind of case, what is WCS supposed to do?

John Knox: In a situation where they’re not directly causing or contributing to the harm, the human rights abuse or the adverse human rights impact, but they’re nevertheless partnering with the government by helping the government, advising the government, or even co-managing the park with the government, then they do have a responsibility to use the leverage that they have to try and improve the government’s behavior to the point where it’s not violating human rights.

That is, they have a responsibility to try to make sure that human rights violations aren’t occurring.

It may be that they’re not able to completely prevent human rights abuses from occurring, and in that case, they do have to think pretty hard about whether they should stay engaged, at least at this level of cooperation with the government.

If the government is, through its own agencies, committing pretty severe human rights abuses, then I don’t think it’s a tenable position for conservation organizations to say, “Well, yeah, we have nothing to do with that. We’re just helping them co-manage the park. Too bad about those human rights abuses that happen to be occurring in the park!”

Pulling out should be the last resort, but I do think at some point the conservation organization has to think about it seriously if there’s just no signs of improvement or real way to change the situation, and they really have tried to use the leverage that they have access to.

Mongabay: For this particular case in Kahuzi-Biega National Park, the African commission said the Indigenous Batwa people have the right to return to the park. WCS said they noted the commission’s decision but didn’t comment on actions to let the Batwa people return. They might be leveraging the situation as best they can, but like you said, if the government doesn’t want them back, they’re not coming back. Again, your answer would be: Leverage the situation as best you can and decide where to go from there, because what can WCS really do?

John Knox: Yeah, I would rather not try and speculate about a particular case, because I just don’t know enough of the facts to know what the reasonable options would be for an organization like WCS in that situation. I would just say that, in general, in every other situation like that, the organization should be taking seriously the African commission decision, and it should be doing all it can to try to rectify the human rights abuses and violations that the African commission has identified.

What that would look like is going to vary from situation to situation. The only overarching point I would really want to emphasize is that the organization should not simply wash its hands. I’m not suggesting that is what WCS is doing, I just don’t know. But I think it should be a given that the organization needs to do what it can to try and restore or improve the human rights situation and the abuses and violations.

Mongabay: Sometimes the situation is not black and white. We can have communities, including Indigenous peoples, who are actively taking part in activities causing mass destruction of species’ habitat in a conservation or protected area located on ancestral or community land. This tends to happen for subsistence reasons or as part of illegal trade. Sometimes they are armed and taking part in violent resource extraction. In this case, you have armed park guards having to intervene with armed individual actors: There are now two armed groups on both sides. It seems like quite a sensitive situation that’s ripe for human rights abuses or violence in the name of self-defense. How do you think conservation organizations should try to maneuver in these kinds of situations where they’re operating in terrain with armed groups or armed Indigenous people, and they have armed guards themselves? How do they make sure that their funding is not implicit in human rights abuses?

John Knox: In some ways, this is an extremely difficult situation. If we’re talking about actual armed conflict, that’s not something you would expect conservation organizations would be trained to deal with or trained to try and intervene in. They’re not peacekeepers, in that sense.

I will say, though, that the overall human rights responsibility of conservation organizations in that context doesn’t change. That is, they still have a responsibility to make sure that they’re not causing or contributing to the human rights abuses. So, before they are providing direct support for law enforcement efforts of any type, they need to make sure that those law enforcement efforts are themselves going to be generally carried out in compliance with human rights norms.

If it comes to their attention in any context — like in the context of what you’re describing of a more active armed conflict — that the units or rangers or law enforcement officers that they’re supporting are committing human rights violations, then they need to stop their contribution to those human rights violations. It’s as simple as that.

Or, take steps to make sure that the human rights violations stop. Under no circumstances can they simply wash their hands and say, “Well, we just provide the money. Where the money goes is not really our concern.” That’s never going to be acceptable.

But I’m not speaking about any particular instances of armed conflict or giving that kind of specific evaluation, because I just don’t know. I’m just talking about in general, kind of norms that apply. I’m not saying how exactly they would apply in a particular context.

Mongabay: In 2021, you gave written testimony in front of the U.S. Congress about WWF’s alleged responsibility in violations in certain conservation areas. A draft bill apparently followed this that would require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to vet the human rights record of conservation grantees. Do you have any updates on this bill?

John Knox: The bill was passed by the House by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the summer of 2022. But it was not introduced in the Senate, so it did not become law. I don’t think it went anywhere in the last session of Congress, I didn’t hear about it, and so I don’t honestly know what its current status is.

Mongabay: Not simply in terms of international human rights law, but in general, would you say that there’s a bigger onus on government funding agencies, like USFWS or German government agencies, who give funding to conservation NGOs, to make sure human rights obligations in protected areas are followed? Or is there a bigger onus on the conservation NGOs who are themselves there on the ground, seeing what’s going on?

John Knox: I don’t mean to totally avoid the question, but I would say they both have a responsibility. When we developed the Core Human Rights Principles for Conservation Organizations and Funders, we intentionally covered both sets of organizations. That is, both conservation organizations and conservation funders. Because I think they both have a responsibility to make sure that they’re not causing, contributing or being directly linked to human rights abuses as the result of what they’re doing now.

The funders need to keep track of what it is they’re funding, to make sure that their funds aren’t being used in these ways. And the implementing agencies, the conservation organizations on the ground, need to make sure as well, not just that they’re not funding, but also that they’re not doing other things. As in: they’re not otherwise taking actions that would cause, contribute or be directly linked to these human rights abuses.

And I’ll just say, as between the two of them, I think conservation organizations, at least in recent years, have often tried to take seriously their own responsibility. I think conservation organizations still have a ways to go, but I think funders often have left it to the conservation organizations, largely without really taking enough care themselves as the funders to make sure that they’re fulfilling their own responsibility not to inadvertently fund or otherwise support human rights abuses.

So, part of our goal with these Core Human Rights Principles was to try to make sure that funders are aware of their own responsibility going forward.

Mongabay: We’ve come across situations where government funders have gotten really scared of human rights abuses linked to the funding they give to a conservation organization, and threatened to pull all funding out completely. Kind of like that “knee-jerk reaction” you were talking about earlier, where they said, “No, we absolutely don’t want to be tied to this.” What are two examples of steps you think they should take once they discover human rights abuses, before they do that knee-jerk reaction?

John Knox: First, they should think really seriously about increasing their funding in ways that would improve human rights outcomes. Instead of stepping back, they should think seriously about stepping in, but in ways that would actually focus more on human rights than just conservation in the vacuum, so to speak. In other words, they should see if there’s something they can do that improve human rights outcomes.

But another step they should take is to obviously to make sure that the recipients of their funding are actually going to make the necessary changes. As I’ve said before, I don’t think termination of funding should be the first response, but it should be on the table if it turns out to be the case that the recipients of the funding simply are engaged in systematic abuses and they’re not going to change their behavior. In this case, yes, I do think funders have a responsibility not to continue to support those kinds of abuses.

Mongabay: Thank you so much, John Knox, for taking the time to answer all our questions. I think you answered over 25 questions of mine!

John Knox: I’m happy to do it! My only thought is that I should have spent more time talking about the Core Principles. Because I do think a lot of what I talked about, the Core Principles are trying to address.

To describe them a bit more, I’d say an important effort that just reached its culmination last month was to have the U.N. Environment Program facilitate the development of core human rights principles for conservation organizations and funders that try to set out these norms I’ve been talking about, in ways that make clearer what conservation organizations and funders responsibility are with respect to human rights and conservation.

The principles explain how human rights standards, including the U.N. Guiding Principles and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, apply to conservation organizations and funders. They resulted from over two years of consultations with Indigenous peoples, with other rights-based organizations, with conservation organizations and funders, with U.N. special rapporteurs, and they have received a huge amount of support across the board. So, I hope that these principles will make a difference in this area as we go forward.

Banner image: Two rangers in Kasigau Wildlife Sanctuary, Kenya. Several European and American companies support the Kasigau Corridor REDD+ Project as part of their carbon offset programs. Image by Geoff Livingston via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

How German government funds are used to dispossess Tanzania’s Maasai in Serengeti land grab

Latest Mongabay podcast episode: Turn problems into solutions for culture and agriculture across Australia and the Americas, Anthony James says. Listen here:

FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.