press release
how nlc members in kenya & the philippines are leading a new era of biodiversity monitoring
12 March 2026 - At the end of February, 125 countries submitted their National Reports to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – the first reports to employ the long-awaited monitoring framework for the Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF), including the traditional knowledge and headline indicator 22.1 on land use and tenure in the traditional territories of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The indicator was hailed as an unprecedented opportunity by the land community and now, we get a glimpse of that promise as governments are developing inclusive processes and incorporating community-based monitoring into their reports:
In Kenya, the government has built a multistakeholder process to guide reporting and has reported on the land indicator using diverse data – from national datasets, LandMark, and Prindex, as well as data generated by International Land Coalition members IMPACT Kenya, which has secured land use and tenure of nearly 700,000 hectares across 33 community lands in northern Kenya.
In the Philippines, although the government did not report a national figure, they cited the critical mapping done by member PAFID to document ancestral domains, ICCAs and their overlaps with protected areas and key biodiversity areas (KBAs). Done in the context of the pioneering Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, the work points to the fundamental links between land tenure and conservation, including the central role of customary sustainable management practices by Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
These efforts matter. Recognising and integrating people’s data helps ensure that biodiversity monitoring reflects the realities on the ground — and strengthens accountability for people, land, and nature.
community-led mapping organized by NLC member PAFID
These national reports are the backbone of the world’s first global review of progress on the KM-GBF.
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