The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments, bilateral and multilateral donor and development agencies and other development partners responsible for or assisting in the implementation of sectoral strategies or other programmes affecting lands owned, occupied or otherwise used by indigenous peoples review the consistency of such strategies and programmes with internationally recognized standards for the protection of the rights of indigenous peoples and the impact of such strategies and programmes on indigenous communities and report to the Permanent Forum at its seventh session in 2008 on the results of these reviews and on any strategies adopted to address the challenges they might identify.
The Permanent Forum urges States to include indigenous peoples in decision-making processes in all areas of water management, including commercial use, irrigation and environmental management, and to ensure that such decision-making processes are consistent with the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in particular its article 32, under which the free and informed consent of indigenous peoples is required prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its recommendation on indigenous peoples living in voluntary and semi-voluntary isolation, or “uncontacted”, from its fourth session, and urges Governments, indigenous peoples’ organizations, non-governmental organizations and multilateral bodies to take note of and implement the Belem Declaration on Isolated Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon and Gran Chaco, as well as International Labour Convention No. 169, domestic legislation and court orders that protect and maintain the rights of these indigenous peoples and their designated territories throughout the world to exist in isolation, should they so choose. The Permanent Forum urges Governments, the United Nations system, civil society and indigenous peoples’ organizations to cooperate in immediately ensuring effective prohibition against outside encroachment, aggression, forcible assimilation, and acts and processes of genocide. Measures of protection should comprise the safeguarding of their natural environment and livelihood and minimally invasive, culturally sensitive mobile health-care services.