Indigenous peoples in the Pacific rely on marine resources and fisheries for both livelihoods and as a food source. The Permanent Forum encourages United Nations entities to incorporate traditional knowledge into all their work in the region.
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.
The Permanent Forum recommends that, prior to its seventh session, United Nations organizations should provide technical assistance and convene, in cooperation with indigenous peoples’ organizations, regional workshops on the special theme of the seventh session, “Climate change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship of indigenous peoples and new challenges”, with the participation of the members of the Forum 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 seventh session. The Permanent Forum further recommends that States, organizations and donors provide resources for these regional workshops and that the report on the human rights situation of indigenous peoples in States and Territories threatened with extinction for environmental reasons be included in the discussions held at the workshops.
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 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 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.