The Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity of two additional indicators for traditional knowledge: (a) status and trends in land use change and land tenure in the traditional territories of indigenous and local communities, and (b) status and trends in the practice of traditional occupations, to complement the adopted indicator on status and trends in traditional languages. The Forum urges the secretariat of the Convention and agencies working on these issues, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), ILO, FAO, IFAD and the International Land Coalition, to collaborate with a view to fully operationalizing those indicators.
The Permanent Forum recommends that donors and United Nations agencies give more support to indigenous peoples in Africa, where appropriate, to promote, recognize, protect and enhance indigenous traditional knowledge.
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 Permanent Forum recommends that the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies, university research centres and relevant United Nations agencies conduct further studies on the impacts of climate change and climate change responses on indigenous peoples who are living in highly fragile ecosystems, such as low-lying coastal areas and small island States; semi-arid and arid lands and dry and sub-humid lands (grasslands); tropical and subtropical forests; and high mountain areas.
The Permanent Forum urges States responsible for major sources of pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases to be accountable by enforcing and upholding stricter global pollution regulations that will apply to polluting parties.
The Permanent Forum invites the agencies of the United Nations system, including UNDP, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), in cooperation with the secretariats of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as well as other relevant stakeholders, to convene a workshop on African pastoralism, indigenous peoples’ rights and climate adaptation.
OHCHR, the secretariat of the Permanent Forum, ILO, the World Bank Group and other relevant United Nations entities, including United Nations country teams, should focus on increasing the understanding of indigenous peoples’ underlying material rights to land and the need to give material rights priority over process rights. These agencies should undertake analytical work on how the intensity and exclusivity criteria that are commonly encompassed in domestic property rights systems could be understood in the context of international human rights standards related to indigenous property rights.
States, United Nations agencies, funds and programs should mobilize support for indigenous peoples who are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters.