With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing in-person meetings, the Permanent Forum held virtual regional dialogues with indigenous peoples from all seven sociocultural regions of the world in preparation for its twentieth session. The dialogues highlighted cross-cutting issues affecting indigenous peoples across the globe, including the adverse effects of the pandemic, discrimination, the need for disaggregated data, and indigenous peoples’ rights to lands, territories and resources. A full summary of the regional dialogues is available at the Permanent Forum website.[1] The Forum is committed to continuing to organize virtual regional dialogues in the context of building back better and the recovery from the pandemic. The Permanent Forum invites the secretariat of the Forum to continue to support these dialogues.
The Permanent Forum notes the initiative of the United Nations country team in Nicaragua to establish a consultative committee comprising members of indigenous peoples, Afrodescendants and country team staff, in order to promote and strengthen the realization of the rights and principles set out in international human rights instruments. The Permanent Forum urges other United Nations country teams to follow this example and establish similar consultative mechanisms.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the “International Conference on Biological and Cultural Diversity: Diversity for Development and Development for Diversity” (8-10 June 2010, Montreal, Canada) as a useful dialogue on the interface of diversities and development and notes its goal to consider a future collaborative programme of work between the Secretariat of the Conference on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), other relevant agencies, including the Forum and relevant indigenous organizations and non-governmental organizations, and decides to send the Chair of the Forum to report on the outcomes of the ninth session of the Permanent Forum regarding the theme.
The Permanent Forum urges the European Union to include the standards of the Declaration within its corporate sustainability due diligence regulations and rules, in particular in the context of implementing the Critical Raw Materials Act on the territories of Indigenous Peoples, both inside and outside the European Union.
The Permanent Forum welcomes national engagement of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples with Brazil, Finland, Mexico, New Zealand and Sweden on projects related to, among others, the development of national action plans for the implementation of indigenous peoples’ rights, processes related to land demarcation and land titling, and facilitating the repatriation of sacred ceremonial objects. The Forum highlights the agreement facilitated by the Expert Mechanism among the Museum of World Culture in Sweden, the Yaqui people in Mexico and the United States of America on the repatriation of the Maaso Kova as a commendable best practice. The Forum encourages States and indigenous peoples to build on the successful country engagement practices and avail themselves of the Expert Mechanism’s unique analytical capacity and potential to support dialogue between indigenous peoples and Governments.
The Permanent Forum recognizes that the United Nations has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity and that indigenous peoples, as custodians of the Earth’s biodiversity, should be major players in actions planned for 2010. In that spirit, the Permanent Forum calls for close cooperation between the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Forum in promoting the International Year and in highlighting the role of indigenous peoples as custodians of biodiversity.