The Permanent Forum welcomes the consideration of the empowerment of indigenous women as the focus area of the Commission on the Status of Women at its sixty-first session and urges Governments to report on efforts made to fully implement Commission resolution 49/7, entitled “Indigenous women: beyond the 10-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action”, and its resolution 56/4, entitled “Indigenous women: key actors in poverty and hunger eradication”.
The Permanent Forum urges States parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to seriously consider the recommendations of the above-mentioned international expert group meeting.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Environment Programme report on the feasibility of developing mechanisms for indigenous peoples to participate in the persistent organic pollutants global monitoring programme’s evaluation process under the Stockholm Convention. The Forum also welcomes the key findings of the UNEP global mercury assessment, and recommends that the Economic and Social Council recommend that UNEP take immediate action on mercury contamination and work towards initiating a global legally binding instrument and other measures at the next UNEP Governing Council meeting of environmental ministers, to be held in the Republic of Korea in 2005.