The Permanent Forum welcomes the recommendations of the international expert workshop on the World Heritage Convention and indigenous peoples, held in Copenhagen on 20 and 21 September 2012, and the anticipated establishment by the World Heritage Committee of a consultative body on the Operational Guidelines for the Implementation of the World Heritage Convention during its thirty-seventh session, to be held in Phnom Penh from 17 to 27 June 2013, in order to consider, among others, revisions to the guidelines relating to the human rights of indigenous peoples, including the principle of free, prior and informed consent. The Forum recommends that UNESCO and the World Heritage Committee implement the Convention in accordance with the rights enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, taking an approach based on human rights. The Forum members will endeavour to participate in the thirty-seventh session of the Committee, including the meetings of the consultative body on the Operational Guidelines, as observers.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States discontinue all sedentarization and other programmes that coerce indigenous peoples to forsake shifting cultivation for other modes of cultivation without their free, prior and informed consent. Alternative modes of cultivation ensure food sovereignty, livelihood security, health security, educational security and forest conservation and other safeguards.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States: ensure that the collection of statistical data be disaggregated by sex and ethnicity; discourage monitoring that is focused only on national averages; ensure indigenous peoples’ and indigenous women’s effective participation in all stages of the preparation, coordination and implementation of data collection; develop a proper system of indicators in partnership with indigenous peoples and women; and enable a measurement of progress in the different areas.
The Permanent Forum congratulates IFAD for the work undertaken in India on disaggregating the human development index and associated development indicators for indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It further recommends that the Fund, in collaboration with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and other appropriate organizations, undertake similar work in any developing country where existing data allow for estimates of disaggregated development indicators.
The Forum invites the Economic and Social Council and the regional commissions to present reports on the economic situation, scenarios and impacts of free-trade policies, especially the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, with emphasis on indigenous peoples.
The Permanent Forum encourages international financial institutions to establish policy mechanisms and programme frameworks requiring corporations to comply with the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which were unanimously endorsed by the Human Rights Council in 2011, in addition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, International Labour Organization Convention No. 169, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The Permanent Forum commends existing small-grant schemes and programmes, since they often enable indigenous peoples’ organizations to play an active role in implementing the recommendations of the Forum. The Forum encourages the United Nations system to develop small-grant schemes and to increase the level of funding aimed directly at indigenous peoples and also to continue establishing mechanisms to ensure that they effectively reach and benefit indigenous peoples at the local level and provide funds directly to indigenous organizations for socioculturally appropriate project implementation.
The Forum reiterates the recommendations on the dissemination of information on indigenous issues, and invites indigenous peoples organizations, through the indigenous education caucus, to foster new forms and ways to further education and dissemination of information concerning the Forum to indigenous peoples communities and organizations, using radio programmes, publications and other appropriate cultural and educational media. The Forum recommends that the funds, programmes and organizations of the United Nations system assign appropriate resources and funds to achieve that objective.
However, elements of the Tkarihwaié:ri code of ethical conduct are voluntary. The Permanent Forum is concerned that paragraph one of the code is restrictive as it includes the following: “They should not be construed as altering or interpreting the obligations of Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity or any other international instrument. They should not be interpreted as altering domestic laws, treaties, agreements or other constructive arrangements that may already exist.”
The Permanent Forum calls for urgent, serious and unprecedented action by the Economic and Social Council and the General Assembly, along with all United Nations bodies and agencies, recognizing that climate change is an urgent and immediate threat to human rights, health, sustainable development, food sovereignty, and peace and security, and calls upon all countries to implement the highest, most rigorous and most stringent levels of greenhouse gas reduction.
The Permanent Forum calls on UNEP to conduct a fast track assessment of short-term drivers of climate change, specifically black carbon, with a view to initiating negotiation of an international agreement to reduce emissions of black carbon.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States ensure that the territories of indigenous peoples in Asia be free of State military interventions and that military bases, camps and training centres established in indigenous territories without the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples be removed immediately, consistent with articles 19 and 30 of the Declaration.