Some 150 indigenous groups, including the Coica community in the Amazon in South America, the San people from Botswana's Kalahari game reserve and the Katu from a national park in Indonesia, are united by a caucus that is using the fifth World Parks Congress (WPC) as a platform to plead their case.

The WPC, hosted by the World Conservation Union, opened Monday and is being attended by 2,500 delegates from more than 170 countries who are discussing how to safeguard the world's 100,000 environmentally protected sites, and the conditions of communities living in these areas.

The Indigenous Peoples Caucus will recommend that a resolution on the rights of communities be adopted at the congress, under way in the eastern port city of Durban, in South Africa.

"We want a recognition of our rights to control the natural resources of our land and to determine developments on the land," spokeswoman Joji Carino told AFP at the 10-day congress.

The once-a-decade conference will come to an end Wednesday when it will accept a "Durban accord" mapping out goals for the next 10 years.

The Indigenous Peoples Caucus issued a declaration at the start of the event requesting special attention to their "expulsion and exclusion" from protected areas.

"According to international laws, we have a right not to be forcibly removed from our land," Carino said.

She said the management system of indigenous communities differed drastically from Western ideas, but had a proven track record of sustaining the environment.

"The Western concept of protected areas is that if humans use the resource, they destroy it. But indigenous areas are still the best preserved areas because they use their resources well.

"We depend on it for our survival, which means there is a requirement that we have to protect our resources. We use it mostly for subsistence instead of commercial uses," Carino added.

She cited the example of nomadic groups living in deserts, saying these communities stayed on the move to avoid exhausting the area's resources.

Several of the groups represented at the congress had been removed from their lands, while others are living in protected areas, but are not involved in their management.

"It's very hard for indigenous people to survive without their land," Carino said, but added that the feedback from congress delegates on the issue had been positive.

The caucus has also expressed concern about mining groups wanting to operate in protected areas, which include national parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Carino's colleague, Sebastiao Haji Manchineri of the Coica community who live on the banks of the Amazon River, said in a presentation to the congress that the creation of protected areas had had a negative impact on the environment.

"The impacts on our territories have been enormous due to the imposition of false interests to preserve our territorial rights, however ignoring our existence since immemorial times," he told delegates.

"We demand the pre-eminence of our territorial rights over any figure of protection, as well as free access and control of natural resources."

The Katu people in central Indonesia are currently discussing a cooperation agreement with the Lorelindu National Park authorities.

The community's land has been threatened since the early 1900s, but they have managed to remain on the land -- in line with the Traditional Oath of Katu Peoples which states: "Katu Peoples who dare leave the Katu land will be crushed by the trunks of the trees ... (and be) cursed in his or her life."

TERRA.WIRE