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Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 79
Session: 10 (2011)
Full Text:
Indigenous peoples have a profound relationship with their environment. This includes their distinct rights to water. The Permanent Forum urges States to guarantee those rights, including the right to access to safe, clean, accessible and affordable water for personal, domestic and community use. Water should be treated as a social and cultural good, and not primarily as an economic good. The manner in which the right to water is realized must be sustainable for present and future generations. Moreover, indigenous peoples’ access to water resources on their ancestral lands must be protected from encroachment and pollution. Indigenous peoples must have the resources to design, deliver and control their access to water.
Area of Work: Human rights, Environment
Addressee: Commission on Sustainable Development, and other UN bodies, such as UNDP, UNESCO, and UNEP.
Paragraph Number: 48
Session: 2 (2003)
Full Text:
With regard to the environmental issue of water, the Forum, recognizing the indigenous peoples’ Kyoto water declaration made at the World Water Forum, held in Kyoto, Japan, in March 2003, requests that the Commission on Sustainable Development and other relevant United Nations bodies (i.e., UNEP, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNDP) consider the declaration in their discussions on this theme in 2004.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Commission on Human Rights
Paragraph Number: 7
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends that the Commission on Human Rights appoint or designate a rapporteur to undertake a study on genocidal and ethnocidal practices perpetuated on indigenous peoples, including programmes for the sterilization of indigenous women and girls, the use of indigenous communities as subjects of nuclear testing or for the storage of nuclear waste and as subjects of the testing of unapproved drugs on indigenous women, children and peoples.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: Member States, Annex I Countries
Paragraph Number: 38
Session: 7 (2008)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum calls on all States that have not yet done so to implement the 2005 Kyoto Protocol, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international initiatives that address climate change and biocultural diversity in conjunction with indigenous peoples, including indigenous women, in a full and effective way. The Annex I countries should implement their commitments to the Kyoto Protocol by doing all they can to shift their economic systems towards low-carbon systems, instead of relying mainly on the purchase of emission credits to offset their emissions. The fast-industrializing developing countries should also undertake serious efforts to cut their emissions and develop low-carbon energy systems.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 49
Session: 16 (2017)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum urges States to expand opportunities to enable indigenous women to participate actively in the political life of the country in which they live. The Forum also urges States to ensure the safety of indigenous women who are defending the rights of their peoples and territories and to prosecute those persons involved in incidents of violence against them.
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
Addressee: SCBD, SPFII
Paragraph Number: 82
Session: 7 (2008)
Full Text:
A request for the secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Forum to consult and collaborate with indigenous organizations to promote the role of indigenous peoples as stewards of biological and cultural diversity for the International Year of Biodiversity.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Member States, UN entities
Paragraph Number: 12
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
The global engagement of indigenous peoples at the international level has led to some positive institutional developments, including the establishment of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples can play an important role in the fight against climate change. Member States and United Nations entities should ensure that any activities related to the use of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples respect indigenous peoples’ own protocols and consent agreements for managing access to their traditional knowledge. Strengthening and ensuring the full participation of indigenous peoples at all levels is also critical for the design and implementation of climate policies, plans, programmes and projects at the local, national and global levels.
Area of Work: Environment, Culture, Methods of Work
Paragraph Number: 159
Session: 9 (2010)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum welcomes the announcement during this session of the Conservation Initiative on Human Rights by eight global conservation organizations — the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the World Wide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund, Fauna and Flora International, Wetlands International, BirdLife International, the Nature Conservancy, the Wildlife Conservation Society and Conservation International — which aims to promote the integration of human rights in conservation policy and practice, based on their common interest in promoting positive links between conservation and rights of people to secure their livelihoods, enjoy healthy and productive environments and live with dignity. The Forum recommends that these conservation organizations ensure the full participation of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the Initiative. The Forum further recommends that conservation organizations that have projects that have led to the eviction of indigenous peoples from their forests provide redress and restitution to such victims.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: Member States
Paragraph Number: 81
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recommends that Governments provide public water and sanitation systems to the villages and rural areas where indigenous people live, and control the pollution of rivers and streams affected by pollution from such toxic chemicals as pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and industrial waste. The Forum also recommends Governments to create programmes to clean up the rivers and streams that have already been polluted and to ban further pollution by agribusiness and industries.
Area of Work: Environment
Addressee: UNDP
Paragraph Number: 84
Session: 20 (2021)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum is concerned about reports of UNDP entering into a strategic partnership with the oil company GeoPark, a private entity that has been accused by indigenous communities of disregarding their rights, to carry out economic development activities in Colombia without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous communities that will be affected. This partnership contradicts standard 6 (indigenous peoples) of the UNDP social and environmental standards, and the Forum urges UNDP to suspend all related partnership activities until a proper free, prior and informed consent process can be carried out.
Area of Work: Methods of Work, Environment
Addressee: Valmaine Toki
Paragraph Number: 44
Session: 14 (2015)
Full Text:
The Permanent Forum appoints Valmaine Toki to conduct a study on the relationship between indigenous peoples and the Pacific Ocean, taking into account issues of governance, the effects of climate change, deep sea mining, resources and sustainable development.
Area of Work: Environment
Paragraph Number: 16
Session: 3 (2004)
Full Text:
The Forum recalls the Millennium Development Goal to "Achieve universal primary education", especially for indigenous women and girls, as well as the Dakar Framework for Action, "Education for all: meeting our collective commitments", and reiterates its support, with a focus on indigenous women and girls. In accordance with the provision contained in the relevant international instruments, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, International Labour Organization Convention 169 and the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education, some Governments have in recent years, taking into account their specific situations, formulated policies and programmes to safeguard indigenous peoples’ equal rights to education, and have adopted positive measures to address indigenous education issues. These should be promoted as good practices throughout the United Nations system and broadly to all Member States. Furthermore, to achieve equitable
educational outcomes for indigenous peoples, especially indigenous women and girls, Governments should adopt special measures (UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education).
Area of Work: Indigenous Women
