The Permanent Forum recommends that United Nations organizations provide technical assistance and convene, in cooperation with indigenous peoples’ organizations, regional workshops on the special theme of the sixth session of the Permanent Forum, namely, “Territories, lands and natural resources”, with the participation of Permanent Forum members, and other experts, indigenous peoples’ representatives, indigenous parliamentarians, State representatives, and representatives of the United Nations system, in order to formulate recommendations for consideration, as part of its preparatory work for the sixth session. The Permanent Forum further recommends that States, organizations and donors provide resources for these regional workshops.
During the pandemic, indigenous peoples have been seriously affected by a lack of access to energy, health-care establishments, education centres, infrastructure that supplies clean water, and communication services and information technologies. Governments have made a range of efforts to support economic activity in their responses to the economic impacts of the pandemic. The relaxation of environmental and human rights standards in order to support activities that will promote economic growth, such as logging, mining, large-scale agriculture and various infrastructure and energy projects, threaten indigenous peoples’ territories. The Permanent Forum requests Member States to include indigenous peoples in the preparatory process and the outcome of the high-level dialogue on energy to be held by the General Assembly in September 2021, in order to accelerate action on achieving Goal 7 and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the specialist group on indigenous peoples, customary and environmental law and human rights within the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature host a series of regional meetings to discuss the development of standards for the conservation of indigenous peoples’ lands and waters by 2020, together with indigenous peoples, NGOs and other stakeholders, in consultation with the Forum, United Nations special rapporteurs and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum decides to appoint a member to participate in any future meetings of the Working Group on access and benefit-sharing and the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the efforts of Member States, United Nations entities and other intergovernmental organizations to implement the Declaration, as reaffirmed in the outcome document of the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, as well as the recommendations of the Forum, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous People in various regions, and urges them to take specific measures in this regard.
Member States must take urgent measures to guarantee adequate and effective participation by indigenous peoples in the design and implementation of national plans for the transition to clean and green energy. Where States have already begun the development of such plans without the participation of indigenous peoples, they must take remedial action.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the preparation by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean of the study entitled “Rights of indigenous peoples: achievements and challenges in the Latin American countries”, and encourages other regional commissions to undertake similar studies.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change consider the possible establishment of an ad hoc open-ended intersessional working group on indigenous peoples and local communities and climate change, whose objectives would be to study and propose timely, effective and adequate solutions to respond to the urgent situations caused by climate change that indigenous peoples and local communities face. The Forum furthermore recommends that the Convention consider providing necessary funding support to Forum members and indigenous peoples to guarantee their participation and to strengthen their participation.
The Forum intends to pursue the agenda of mainstreaming indigenous issues into the process of the Millennium Development Goals and applying the thematic approach to build up a three-year programme of work. The Forum intends moreover to focus on implementation and urges United Nations bodies, States and indigenous peoples to engage actively in the dialogue on these issues, sharing good practices and barriers to implementation.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States ensure that the participation of indigenous peoples in subnational and local decision-making bodies is based on equality and non-discrimination and on respecting indigenous peoples’ rights to choose their own representatives in accordance with their own procedures.
The Permanent Forum urges States to recognize indigenous peoples’ customary laws on genetic resources and traditional knowledge and to consider the development of sui generis systems based on such customary laws, as appropriate, for the protection of traditional knowledge and access and benefit-sharing of genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge.