The Permanent Forum appoints Ms. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Mr. Pavel Sulyandziga as special rapporteurs to elaborate papers on indigenous peoples and relevant thematic issues relating to sustainable development (for example, sustainable agriculture, land, rural development, drought and desertification), for consideration by the Commission on Sustainable Development and for the submission of its reports to the Secretary-General and to represent the Permanent Forum in the Commission’s interactive dialogues with United Nations agencies. The Commission is urged to invite a member of the Permanent Forum to attend its annual sessions.
The Permanent Forum notes the intention of the International Indigenous Women’s Environmental Justice and Reproductive Health Initiative to organize an expert group meeting on the environment and indigenous women’s reproductive health and requests that the organizers invite members of the Permanent Forum to participate in the meeting. Further, the Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization participate in the expert group meeting.
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.
The Permanent Forum urges States to recognize and protect indigenous peoples’ cultural right to water and, through legislation and policy, to support the right of indigenous peoples to hunt and gather food resources from waters used for cultural, economic and commercial purposes. This is consistent with article 25 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum notes the organization of preparatory meetings for indigenous youth for its sixteenth session, including the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus meeting hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The Forum recommends that this practice be scaled up in 2018, with representative participation of indigenous youth through indigenous peoples’ organizations from all regions, and invites FAO to report on progress achieved to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
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.
The Permanent Forum also welcomes the interest of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children in joining the Inter-Agency Support Group and calls upon the Special Representative to work closely with the members of the Forum in preparing a section on the situation of indigenous children in the Special Representative’s annual reports to the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.
The Permanent Forum invites United Nations bodies with expertise on human rights, cultural rights and the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples to provide legal and technical comments on the revised draft protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilization for transmission to parties to the Convention for consideration in their final negotiations.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the fact that the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in cooperation with indigenous peoples, is undertaking preparations for the World Summit of Indigenous Peoples and Nature to be convened during the upcoming World Conservation Congress, which will be held in Marseille, France, in September 2021. The summit is aimed at providing an opportunity to highlight and exchange information about the contributions of indigenous peoples to sustaining biodiversity, combating climate change and promoting sustainable development. The Forum recommends that Member States, international organizations and NGOs support the participation of indigenous peoples in the summit. The Forum invites the International Union for Conservation of Nature to share the outcomes of the summit at the Forum’s twenty-first session in 2022.
The Forum urges the members of the advisory council for the Voluntary Fund for the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People to allocate funds to indigenous youth-initiated projects and activities
The Permanent Forum welcomes the measures undertaken by several countries that aim, inter alia, to explore and develop alternative sources of income, significantly reduce the exploitation of natural resources, enhance conservation of biological diversity and establish measures in favour of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, such as the national initiative undertaken by Ecuador entitled “Yasuni-ITT initiative”. The Permanent Forum recommends that such measures respect the right to free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned.
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