The Permanent Forum urges UNESCO to develop an indigenous peoples’ platform within the agency to ensure that UNESCO language programmes provide tangible benefits to indigenous communities and ensure that indigenous peoples are active in all aspects of the work of UNESCO.
The Permanent Forum expresses concern for the state of the world’s indigenous languages. It is estimated that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 oral languages in the world today, most of them spoken by very few individuals. The Forum recommends the adoption of a rights-based approach towards indigenous language issues that considers the full spectrum of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the Declaration. The Forum also recommends that Member States, the United Nations system, indigenous peoples’ organizations and other stakeholders share initiatives and strategies undertaken for, with and by indigenous peoples in order to recover, use and revitalize indigenous languages, including through the use of information and communication technologies.
The Permanent Forum encourages all States to endorse the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, considering the need to protect and enhance indigenous peoples’ distinct identities and cultural institutions, philosophies and world views, customary laws, indigenous political governance and justice systems, indigenous knowledge systems and sustainable traditional livelihoods and other economic systems, as well as to rebuild in urban centres the cultures and communities of indigenous peoples displaced from their traditional territories. The Forum calls upon States to build on good practices to ensure, safeguard and protect indigenous knowledge and intangible heritage and to promote indigenous peoples’ cultural expressions.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, and the advisory bodies IUCN, ICOMOS and ICCROM, scrutinize current World Heritage nominations to ensure they comply with international norms and standards of free, prior and informed consent.
The Permanent Forum calls upon UNESCO, the Secretariat of the Conference on Biological Diversity, UNDP, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations Development Group to support indigenous peoples in their process of cultural heritage restoration and strengthening. This process should be guided by indigenous peoples in order to avoid the misuse and distortion of indigenous peoples’ culture, practices and knowledge and to respect their perspectives and aspirations.