The Permanent Forum takes note of the upcoming World Congress of Protected Areas, to be held in Barcelona in October 2008. The Forum reiterates its recommendation to the 2003 World Congress of Protected Areas. The Forum requests that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples be duly considered in the deliberations and results of the World Congress on Protected Areas, and that its participating organizations address the issues of restitution and free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples for conservation activities affecting indigenous lands and territories, sacred sites and indigenous peoples’ conservation activities.
The Permanent Forum reiterates the need for States to address the impact of militarization, including suppressing constitutional guarantees, appropriation of land, forcible occupation and displacement, on the land, territorial and other collective rights of indigenous peoples, perpetrated by security forces, including the military, militias and other armed groups.
The Permanent Forum notes that in international law, the right to adequate food and the fundamental right to be free from hunger apply to everyone without discrimination. The Permanent Forum is concerned about the implementation gap between what is legally recognized and the reality. The right to food is frequently denied or violated, often as a result of systematic discrimination or the widespread lack of applicability of indigenous peoples’ rights. The Permanent Forum recommends that States engage in an inclusive and participatory process to ensure food sovereignty and security, in accordance with the principles of free, prior and informed consent, and develop standards and methodologies and cultural indicators to assess and address food sovereignty.
The Permanent Forum notes that the Greenland-Danish Self-Government Commission submitted its report on self-government on 6 May 2008. The main task of the Commission has been to submit draft legislation regarding a self-government arrangement for Greenland. A referendum was held in Greenland on 25 November 2008 concerning the act and the process leading up to its entry into force. The Permanent Forum welcomes the successful passage of the act through the Danish Parliament on 19 May 2009.
The Permanent Forum expresses its solidarity with the families of 43 trainee teachers of Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico, who have been missing since 26 September 2014, and supports their efforts to seek justice. The Forum also welcomes and acknowledges the steps taken thus far by the Government of Mexico to resolve this disappearance, and encourages the Government to continue its efforts in collaboration with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and in close consultation with the relevant indigenous peoples and families.
(i) The Forum recalls and reiterates: a. Paragraph 18 of the Durban Declaration which requested States to adopt public policies and give impetus to programmes on behalf of and in concert with indigenous women and girls, with a view to promoting their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights; to putting an end to their situation of disadvantage for reasons of gender and ethnicity; to dealing with urgent problems affecting them in regard to education, their physical and mental health, economic life and in the matter of violence against them, including domestic violence; and to eliminating the situation of aggravated discrimination suffered by indigenous women and girls on multiple grounds of racism and gender discrimination
With regard to the development of national action plans, as committed to by Member States at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption by the Government of El Salvador of a national action plan and encourages its full and effective implementation. The Forum strongly urges other States to follow this good practice and develop their own national action plans for the full implementation of the Declaration. The Forum also encourages States to review recommendations made at past sessions, renew efforts at their implementation and report on progress made by 2021. The Forum invites the United Nations system to support the efforts of Member States in this regard.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations and Member States recognize the cultural rights of indigenous peoples which include the rights to organize oneself freely and to administer one’s own cultural, sports, social and religious institutions. For this purpose, the Forum encourages the United Nations and the relevant specialized agencies to consider establishing an international centre for multicultural and multiracial studies.
Considering the continued threats facing indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact, and given their unique vulnerability in the time of the pandemic, the Permanent Forum recommends that local populations in the territories and adjacent areas of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact be prioritized in COVID-19 vaccination plans. The Forum reminds States that, by virtue of their international obligations, and specifically those contained in the American Convention on Human Rights, they must adopt measures to safeguard the life and integrity of their citizens, especially when it comes to highly vulnerable population groups, as in the case of indigenous peoples living in voluntary isolation and initial contact.
The Permanent Forum invites the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights
Council on the situation of human rights defenders to prepare a study on the drivers
of attacks against indigenous human rights defenders in business contexts and invites
the Special Rapporteur to share information on progress with the Permanent Forum
at its twenty-second session, to be held in 2023.
The Permanent Forum encourages APG to continue to give priority to its endeavours to eliminate the servitude and contemporary forms of slavery to which families and communities in Santa Cruz, especially in Alto Parapetí, and in Chuquisaca, are subjected. The Permanent Forum encourages APG, as the organization that represents the Guaraní people in the Plurinational State of Bolivia, to continue to give priority to combating these extremely serious human rights violations as part of its broader programme of reconstitution of the Guaraní people.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Governments of Canada and the United States address the border issues, such as those related to the Mohawk Nation and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, by taking effective measures to implement article 36 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which states that indigenous peoples divided by international borders have the right to maintain and develop contacts, relations and cooperation with their own members as well as other peoples across borders.