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Addressee: Member States, Donor Agencies, IPOs, NGOs, Intergovernmental Organisations, OHCHR and UN agencies

Paragraph #39Session #6 (2007)

Full Text

The Permanent Forum welcomes the initiative taken by indigenous peoples’ organizations, States non-governmental organizations and OHCHR to improve the visibility of the situations faced by indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact and recent efforts to respect and protect the rights of these peoples, particularly in the Amazon and Chaco regions of South America and the Andaman and Nicobar islands in India, including the Penan peoples of the forests of Sarawak in Malaysia. The Permanent Forum highlights, in particular, the Santa Cruz de la Sierra Appeal (“Llamamiento de Santa Cruz de la Sierra”), which was the outcome of the regional seminar on indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and in initial contact of the Amazon Basin and El Chaco held from 20 to 22 November 2006 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, with the sponsorship of OHCHR, the Indigenous Work Group for Indigenous Affairs and the Confederacion Indigena del Oriente de Boliva, and with the support of the Government of Bolivia, and the partnership of Denmark, Norway and Spain. The Permanent Forum recommends that OHCHR, other international agencies and States, in partnership with indigenous peoples’ organizations and non-governmental organizations, further replicate and follow up similar initiatives in order to achieve and consolidate sustained long-term policies, mechanisms and procedures that can assure the security and self-determined livelihoods of these peoples, including the guarantee of the inviolability of their territories and natural resources.

Responses

The Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian Peoples’ Directorate (DGPOA) in the Ministry of Women and Social Development, through its Environmental Health and Land Management Study and Research Unit and in accordance with its mandates and functions, is the body responsible for formulating, promoting, proposing, harmonizing and coordinating with national bodies the recognition and legalization of indigenous, rural and native communities property and the formal establishment and protection of the territorial reserves of peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact.
One of the Directorate’s acts was the signing of a convention with the Commission for the Formalization of Informal Properties (COFOPRI), which is the national body responsible for all aspects of the legalization of property. It has also been assigned to implement the Special Land Titling and Rural Cadastre Project (PETT) in order to provide environmental clean-up for and establish the borders of indigenous communities’ lands.

In Spain, with regard to improving the visibility of the situations faced by indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, the project being implemented in the Amazon and Gran Chaco by the Native Federation of Madre Dios and Tributaries (FENAMAD), with funding from AECID, should be noted. This project began at the end of 2006 with an indigenous regional seminar held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, to establish common ground among the different stakeholders involved in the protection of this community. To that end, invitations were issued to government representatives, indigenous organizations and experts from the seven countries of the Amazon and Gran Chaco (Bolivia, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru) and from international organizations that are particularly influential in this area.
The seminar was organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Vice-Ministry of Lands of the Government of Bolivia, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and the Confederacy of Indigenous Peoples (CIDOB). Funding was provided by AECID, the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).

Final Report of UNPFII Session 6 (2007)

Area of Work

Human rights