A/HRC/34/49 should increase their support for capacity-building. However, in December 2016, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention noted that “only a minority of parties have established targets [in their national biodiversity strategies and action plans] with a level of ambition and scope commensurate with the Aichi Biodiversity Targets”. 70 Unless States effectively address the drivers of biodiversity loss, including by mainstreaming obligations of conservation and sustainable use into broader development policies and measures, the continuing destruction and degradation of biodiversity will undermine the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. C. Obligations in relation to people in vulnerable situations 49. Although the global failure to protect biodiversity ultimately affects everyone, it is already having catastrophic consequences for indigenous peoples and others who depend directly on ecosystems for their food, water, fuel and culture. In all parts of the world, from the Gualcarque River in Honduras to the Kaya forests in Kenya, from Koh Kong in Cambodia to Standing Rock in the United States, indigenous peoples and local communities are working to protect the ecosystems on which they rely from unsustainable development. While they achieve some successes, too often overexploitation of natural resources pollutes their rivers and aquifers, cuts down their forests, destroys their sacred places and displaces them from their homes. Peaceful opposition is often met with harassment, violence and even death. States have obligations not only to protect environmental defenders, but also to protect the ecosystems on which the human rights of so many people directly depend. 50. In general, States have heightened duties with respect to those who are particularly vulnerable to environmental harm (see A/HRC/25/53, paras. 69-78). As section II explains, indigenous peoples and others who closely depend on nature for their material and cultural needs are especially vulnerable to actions that adversely affect ecosystems. States should ensure that such actions, whether carried out by Governments or private actors, do not prevent the enjoyment of their human rights, including their rights to life, health, food, water, housing and culture. 51. The rights of indigenous peoples are recognized in international instruments, including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169), and they have been elaborated by human rights authorities. There is no need to review the corresponding duties in detail here, beyond reiterating that, among other obligations, States have duties to recognize the rights of indigenous peoples in the territory that they have traditionally occupied and the natural resources on which they rely, to ensure that indigenous peoples receive reasonable benefits from authorized activities affecting such territory or resources, and to provide access to effective remedies, including compensation, for harm caused by these activities. States must facilitate the participation of indigenous peoples in decisions that concern them, and development or extractive activities should not take place within the territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent, subject only to narrow exceptions (see A/HRC/24/41, para. 27). 52. Many people who do not self-identify as indigenous also have close relationships to the territory that they have traditionally occupied and depend directly on nature for their material needs and cultural life.71 Although there is no instrument equivalent to the United 70 71 16 Decision XIII/1, para. 6. The line between indigenous peoples and non-indigenous communities is not always clear, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples does not attempt to define it. A key