The Permanent Forum, recognizing that indigenous peoples can contribute greatly a range of issues on the international agenda, encourages the President of the General Assembly to consider inviting representatives of indigenous peoples to other hearings and events.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the work carried out by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in preparation for the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages and welcomes and supports the action plan for the International Year that was developed in cooperation with Member States, the Forum, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as indigenous peoples and a range of different stakeholders. The Forum calls upon Member States to implement the action plan in partnership with indigenous peoples, respecting the principle of “nothing about us without us”, including the establishment of national steering committees and national action plans for the International Year. States should allocate adequate funding for the successful implementation of the International Year.
Recalling articles 3–4, 8, 18, 25–26 and 32 of the Declaration, the Permanent Forum urges African States to promote, recognize and protect the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their lands, territories and resources through the development of mechanisms to ensure the legal recognition of land and resource rights, the resolution of land disputes, fair and equitable redress, and the creation of permanent dialogue frameworks to facilitate political participation and representation of indigenous peoples in decision-making.
The Permanent Forum urges the Secretary-General to convene, in consultation with the Forum and before its eighteenth session, regional consultations in each of the seven indigenous regions to discuss the modalities for the participation of indigenous people at the United Nations, including how the participation of indigenous representatives can be enhanced. The Forum urges Member States to support the organization of these regional consultations.
The Permanent Forum calls on States, in consultation with indigenous peoples, to establish national judicial institutions tasked with identifying lands, waters, coastal waters and other resources to which the indigenous peoples concerned have established ownership and usufruct rights, and to demarcate such lands and resources.
Given that the United Nations relies on the cooperation of the people whom it serves and that everyone, individually and in association with others, has the right to unhindered access to and communication with the Organization, the Permanent Forum requests the Secretary-General, through the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and in consultation with other relevant United Nations mechanisms, to report on trends related to intimidation and reprisals against indigenous peoples who seek to engage with the United Nations, including by providing suggestions to prevent and address reprisals through reporting from all parts of the United Nations system and with input from indigenous peoples, to the Forum at its eighteenth session, in 2019.
The Permanent Forum recalls that in paragraph 7 of its report on its tenth session (E/2011/43-E/C.19/2011/14), it congratulated the International Fund for Agricultural Development on the establishment of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum as an example of good practice that should be followed by other United Nations entities. The Forum urges other United Nations entities to report on their progress achieved in this regard to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
The Permanent Forum notes the challenges of accreditation of indigenous peoples’ representative institutions. The Forum recommends that selection criteria for accreditation be developed by indigenous peoples to be applied by a committee that comprises representatives of States and indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum requests FAO to enhance the participation of indigenous peoples and representatives from the Forum in the work of the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Forestry, the Committee on Fisheries, the Committee on World Food Security and the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.
The Permanent Forum appreciates the efforts made by El Salvador, Guatemala and Paraguay to develop national action plans in consultation with indigenous peoples and encourages them to share best practices. It further encourages Member States to continue to effectively engage with indigenous peoples at the national, local and community levels to develop and implement national action plans, strategies or other measures to achieve the ends of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum also recommends that the Economic and Social Council and the Human Rights Council note the proposal to accredit indigenous peoples’ representative institutions as observers in the General Assembly and to consider accreditation for indigenous peoples’ representative institutions to participate in their meetings and meetings of their subsidiary bodies on issues affecting them.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the approval of the approach to recognizing and working with indigenous and local knowledge adopted at the fifth plenary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, in 2017, and the establishment of a participatory mechanism for indigenous peoples and local communities in the work of the Platform. The Forum urges the identification of procedures and methodologies for effective implementation of the approach and the participatory mechanism, in partnership with indigenous peoples.