The Permanent Forum reiterates to the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, and especially to the parties to the Nagoya Protocol, the importance of respecting and protecting indigenous peoples’ rights to genetic resources consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Consistent with the objective of “fair and equitable” benefit sharing in the Convention and Protocol, all rights based on customary use must be safeguarded and not only “established” rights. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has concluded that such kinds of distinctions would be discriminatory.
The Permanent Forum urges increased dialogue among Governments, institutions and indigenous peoples concerning the identification, incorporation and value of indigenous knowledge in all disaster risk reduction projects and programmes at the national and regional levels. The Forum recommends that the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction take into consideration the study on engaging indigenous peoples more inclusively in the disaster risk reduction process (E/C.19/2013/14) as part of the official documentation of the third World Conference on Disaster Reduction, to be held in 2015.