People and nature: UNESCO safeguarding life and heritage

The report "People and nature in UNESCO-designated sites: Global and local contributions" reveals 2,260 living sites where people and nature coexist, from Dja to Greenland, shaped by climate threats, community stewardship, and indigenous knowledge.

UNESCO-designated sites are places recognised for their exceptional value to humanity. They span a diverse range of landscapes and approaches, including World Heritage sites that safeguard places of outstanding universal value, Biosphere Reserves that promote balanced relationships between conservation and sustainable development, and UNESCO Global Geoparks that integrate the protection of geological heritage with education and local development.

These sites are managed to safeguard their natural beauty, cultural, and scientific values while supporting sustainable development and benefiting local communities.

© UNESCO

In its report People and nature in UNESCO-designated sites: Global and local contributions, UNESCO shows how more than 2,260 sites are vibrant, living landscapes where communities and nature have grown, adapted, and thrived together over centuries.

Together, these sites cover more than 13 million square kilometres, an area larger than India and China combined, which sustains some 900 million people. They protect extraordinary biodiversity, harboring over 60% of the world’s mapped animal species, and their forests absorb about 15% of all carbon absorbed worldwide by forests. Yet nearly 90% face growing risks from climate change, land-use pressures, and other human impacts.

Dja Faunal Reserve: a warning and a source of hope

In Cameroon, the Dja Faunal Reserve, a World Heritage site and Biosphere Reserve, is one of Africas’s largest intact tropical forests. Shaped by generations of indigenous and local communities, it reflects a delicate balance between people and nature. Today, that balance is tested by illegal logging, agriculture, and climate impacts.

Yet Dja is also a place of renewal. Community-led stewardship is restoring ecosystems and trust, while local knowledge, rooted in observation, respect, and adaptation—is being recognized as essential to conservation. Here, people are not separate from nature; they are its custodians, partners, and future.

© UNESCO / Joan de la Malla

People and Nature: Stories of interconnection

Across the globe, similar stories unfold in other UNESCO-designated sites. In Niger, Tuareg pastoralists navigate the Aïr and Ténéré Natural Reserves along ancient routes shaped by water, seasons, and survival. In Japan’s Toya-Usu landscapes, Ainu communities maintain traditions of respect and reciprocity with rivers, forests, and mountains. At Greenland’s edge, Kujataa reflects centuries of adaptation by Norse and Inuit communities. In East Rennell, Solomon Islands, Indigenous stewardship continues to guide life around Lake Tegano.

These diverse experiences share a common thread: human cultures and natural systems are deeply interconnected. Protecting one requires caring for the other.

Safeguarding our shared future

Climate change is intensifying risks across nearly all UNESCO-designated sites. Many ecosystems are approaching critical tipping points, and without stronger, coordinated action, the benefits these landscapes provide to biodiversity, climate stability, and human well-being could be profoundly diminished.

The UNESCO report demonstrates that local action can have global impact. Strengthening community governance, integrating Indigenous knowledge, and aligning conservation with sustainable development offer practical solutions to the intertwined crises of climate and biodiversity loss.  

In Dja, the forest’s renewal is not just a local success, it is part of a global story. A story that reminds us that safeguarding these living landscapes means safeguarding ourselves.

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