The Permanent Forum reiterates to the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and especially to the parties to the Nagoya Protocol, the importance of respecting and protecting indigenous peoples’ rights to genetic resources consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Consistent with the objective of “fair and equitable” benefit sharing in the Convention and Protocol, all rights based on customary use must be safeguarded and not only “established” rights. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has concluded that such kinds of distinctions would be discriminatory.
The Permanent Forum notes the initiative of the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) to develop a new health plan for indigenous youth in Latin America and invites PAHO/WHO to report on progress achieved in implementing the plan to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
The Permanent Forum requests the Global Environment Facility, as well as other funding mechanisms, to prioritize support for conservation approaches that are led or co-managed by indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its concern over environmental violence, in particular the pervasive impacts of such violence on indigenous women and girls. The Forum takes note with appreciation of the recommendations from the third International Indigenous Women’s Symposium on Environment and Reproductive Health, held at Columbia University in New York on 14 and 15 April 2018. The Forum recommends that members of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Peoples’ Issues and the relevant special procedures of the Human Rights Council consider ways to address and incorporate the recommendations from that Symposium.
The Forum calls on the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to continue its support to the national indigenous peoples biodiversity participatory mechanisms of the small island developing States through the Convention's island and biodiversity project and indigenous peoples program, in the promotion of sustainable biodiversity
The Permanent Forum calls upon Member States to analyse the compatibility of domestic laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular with a view to harmonizing laws dealing with Arctic renewable resources upon which indigenous peoples depend, and to include the indigenous peoples of the Arctic in a direct and meaningful way in this analysis.
The Permanent Forum calls on all United Nations agencies and States to support the reclamation of traditional practices and laws leading to global solutions to climate change.
The Forum recommends that all United Nations environmental bodies, in particular the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNEP, GEF, the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme, make the necessary efforts to mobilize resources for projects by indigenous peoples, and provide financial support to strengthen the international indigenous peoples Forum on biodiversity and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the International Council on Mining and Metals provide a list of and invite members of the Forum, members of affected indigenous peoples and indigenous experts to visit the project sites for the purpose of reporting back to the Forum at its tenth session.
The Permanent Forum heard from many Indigenous women’s organizations and networks, including the national movement of midwives, Nim Alaxik, of Guatemala, on its work for the rights of Indigenous women and girls and their contributions to ensuring access to comprehensive and culturally appropriate health care, including sexual and reproductive health. The Permanent Forum welcomes the 2019 ruling by the Constitutional Court of Guatemala on the promotion of actions that guarantee access to culturally appropriate sexual and reproductive health for women and the rights of midwives as guardians of ancestral knowledge and practices and recommends that the ruling be implemented by the State.