The Permanent Forum invites States to support the strengthening of local and regional indigenous peoples’ institutions on the management of lands, water and resources, as recommended in the Pikialasorsuaq project of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Deatnu (Tana) salmon management project on cross-border cooperation.
The Forum welcomes the establishment of the indigenous fellowship programme in its secretariat, and calls upon Governments, foundations and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to give generously to the Trust Fund of the Secretary-General in support of the Forum, and to earmark their donations for the fellowship programme.
The Permanent Forum fully supports plans by indigenous peoples’ organizations and networks in Asia to undertake assessments of how peace agreements that affect them are being implemented in specific countries, and calls on donor agencies to support those initiatives.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the summary and outcome of the discussion on the post-2015 process held during the twelfth session of the Forum and the outcome of the consultations held with indigenous peoples in preparation for the post-2015 development agenda be transmitted as background documents to the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations agencies and other relevant bodies provide more funds, through appropriate means, to help indigenous peoples for education, in particular, emphasizing the importance of bilingual and inter-cultural training for indigenous persons. Such funds should be used to facilitate the educational exchanges between indigenous peoples and others in order to make contributions to the cultural diversity of the world, as well as to preserve indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage.
The Permanent Forum takes note of the study by Elisa Canqui on forced labour and indigenous peoples (E/C.19/2011/CRP.4) and urges Member States, in collaboration with United Nations agencies and regional intergovernmental organizations, to increase their efforts to combat forced labour and human trafficking and to put in place adequate instruments to protect victims, paying particular attention to indigenous peoples and the restoration of victims’ rights.
The Permanent Forum recalls the fourth preambular paragraph of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms that all doctrines, policies and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust. Legal and political justification for the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their lands, their disenfranchisement and the abrogation of their rights such as the doctrine of discovery, the doctrine of domination, “conquest”, “discovery”, terra nullius or the Regalian doctrine were adopted by colonizers throughout the world. While these nefarious doctrines were promoted as the authority for the acquisition of the lands and territories of indigenous peoples, there were broader assumptions implicit in the doctrines, which became the basis for the assertion of authority and control over the lives of indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources. Indigenous peoples were constructed as “savages”, “barbarians”, “backward” and “inferior and uncivilized” by the colonizers who used such constructs to subjugate, dominate and exploit indigenous peoples and their lands, territories and resources. The Permanent Forum calls upon States to repudiate such doctrines as the basis for denying indigenous peoples’ human rights.
The Permanent Forum appoints Brian Keane and Elifuraha Laltaika, members of the Forum, to undertake a study to examine conservation and indigenous peoples’ human rights, to be submitted to the Forum at its seventeenth session.
The Permanent Forum appoints Darío José Mejía Montalvo, a member of the Forum, to conduct a study on the rights of indigenous peoples facing the global energy mix and to present that study to the Forum at its twenty-first session.
The Permanent Forum notes with concern the slow progress made in the negotiations on the final protocol on access and benefit-sharing. The Permanent Forum reiterates its requests to the parties to the Convention to take into account the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the negotiation, adoption and implementation of the access and benefit-sharing protocol.
As stated in its report on its first session, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues decided to make indigenous children and youth a focal point of its work in the years to come. The Forum reconfirms its commitment to do so, and acknowledges the efforts made by organizations representing indigenous peoples, United Nations agencies and States in the past year to tackle the urgent needs of the young generation, including the decision of the Committee on the Rights of the Child to declare indigenous children as the subject for its theme day, to be held in September 2003.
During the dialogue with indigenous peoples on the Millennium Development Goals, many indigenous organizations made statements about the urgent need to redefine the Goals. While the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues appreciates that it may not be possible to redefine the Goals, it also recognizes that there is a clear need to redefine approaches to the implementation of the Goals so as to include the perspectives, concerns, experiences and world views of indigenous peoples. Statements also confirmed that there was a need for indigenous peoples to provide their own definitions of poverty and development and that there should be full and effective participation of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the Goals.