Globally, conservation initiatives have been increasingly pushed for as the climate crisis ensues, and threats to biodiversity are exacerbated by habitat loss, industrialization, and rising temperatures. Approaches to conservation have shifted throughout history from colonization to  globalization, attributing to a breadth of different strategies and models which have shaped the livelihoods of many local and Indigenous communities. With the growing demand for natural resources and land, exploitation and overconsumption have greatly impacted our natural world as well as the people who reside within it. The establishment of protected areas (PA) through national parks and game reserves has relied on the ‘fortress conservation model’ which leads to  displacement and increased poverty among Indigenous and local communities. In attempts to combat this harmful model, some organizations and global policy have begun to shift towards conservation efforts that support Indigenous inclusion, participation, and governance within conservation efforts. ‘Indigenous-led’ initiatives are a very new concept, representing a stark and radical shift away from long-established narratives about Indigenous and local communities.  This paper seeks to explore how contemporary and historical conservation practices have impacted Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLC), and how current local, regional, and international organizations are shifting to create a more equitable and effective vision of conservation. I investigate alternatives to the fortress conservation model. Particularly, new and radically different approaches towards Indigenous led and Indigenous Protected Conservation Areas (IPCA). I explore IPCA establishments in regions including Tanzania, Canada, and Australia as a comparative tool for assessing IPCA implementation, success and limitations. The methods for data collection in this paper contain a literature review, mapping software, a web search of organizations, and ethnographic descriptions from the CARE workshop as tools to assess the state of conservation policy and its infringements on Indigenous and local communities. Assessments and perspectives collected during the literature review, and from the workshop, enable a further exploration into the actions current local organizations are taking to improve equity and ecological conservation. The findings of this review investigate protected areas within Canada, Australia/New Zealand, and Eastern Africa, and their assessed effectiveness. This paper will consider what the inconsistencies in PA monitoring and management are, and how limited data presents an issue in evaluating effectiveness. Canada, Australia and New Zealand were selected for a comparative due to a large number of IPLC and Indigenous Protected Conservation Area (IPCA) in these regions.