Relations with the Commission on Sustainable Development should be strengthened, inter alia, by ensuring that the Chairpersons of the Commission and the Permanent Forum are invited to present statements at each other’s annual meetings and that cooperation between the secretariats of the Commission and the Permanent Forum is enhanced.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity facilitate the holding of an indigenous peoples’ expert workshop on traditional knowledge in a timely manner in order to feed into the fifth meeting of the Advisory Group on Article 8 (j) and Related Provisions and the fifth and sixth meetings of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group on Access and Benefit-sharing in order to support the elaboration by indigenous peoples of recommendations on an international regime on access and benefit-sharing. The meeting could be organized back-to-back with the meeting of the Inter-Agency Support Group on Indigenous Issues in order to take advantage of the presence of some United Nations agencies, which will be able to provide technical support and information.
The Forum recommends that the United Nations Statistics Division mainstream statistical issues pertaining to indigenous peoples in the development of handbooks and guidelines. The Forum also recommends that the Statistics Division continue to coordinate with the regional commissions and consider that part of their work that is relevant to indigenous people and census operations in the revision of the Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses
The Permanent Forum notes with appreciation the active engagement of UNFPA with indigenous peoples in the regions of Latin America and Asia, as well as its detailed reporting on its work in these areas. The Permanent Forum invites UNFPA to continue reporting on its work and recommends that future reports deal with agency activities in all sociocultural regions or, if no relevant activities are under way in a particular region, the challenges to addressing indigenous issues in such regions.
The Forum recommends that Governments provide public water and sanitation systems to the villages and rural areas where indigenous people live, and control the pollution of rivers and streams affected by pollution from such toxic chemicals as pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and industrial waste. The Forum also recommends Governments to create programmes to clean up the rivers and streams that have already been polluted and to ban further pollution by agribusiness and industries.
The Permanent Forum reiterates its concern about conservation efforts, including the designation of national parks, biosphere reserves and world heritage sites, which frequently lead to the displacement of indigenous peoples from their traditional lands and territories. In this regard, the Permanent Forum requests that a member of the Forum attend the thirty-fourth session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, to be held in Brasilia, Brazil, in August 2010.
The Permanent Forum requests the secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to complete its work on the draft code of ethical conduct for the recognition and protection of indigenous intellectual property and cultural heritage, taking into account the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as a minimum standard, with a view to adopting the code at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties in 2010, the International Year of Biodiversity.eas.
The Forum recommends that the Working Group on Indigenous Populations undertake a study on genocidal and ethnocidal practices perpetrated on indigenous peoples, including programmes for sterilization of indigenous women and girls, the use of indigenous communities as subjects for nuclear testing or storage of radioactive waste and the testing of unapproved drugs on indigenous children and peoples.
National human rights institutions are encouraged to work with indigenous peoples to develop strategies to protect and provide support to indigenous human rights defenders.
The Permanent Forum invites Member States to fully implement recommendations made by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples following her or his country visits.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Governments respect the free participation of indigenous representatives in United Nations meetings and activities relevant to them, including the Permanent Forum and other bodies.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States incorporate adequate information on the implementation of the Declaration in their core reports to the human rights treaty bodies.