The Permanent Forum urges the Governments of Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia regions to work in good faith with indigenous peoples for the unqualified endorsement and full implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Human Rights Council include, where appropriate, the question of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements pertaining to indigenous peoples when undertaking its universal periodic review of States members.
The Permanent Forum takes note of the upcoming World Congress of Protected Areas, to be held in Barcelona in October 2008. The Forum reiterates its recommendation to the 2003 World Congress of Protected Areas. The Forum requests that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples be duly considered in the deliberations and results of the World Congress on Protected Areas, and that its participating organizations address the issues of restitution and free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples for conservation activities affecting indigenous lands and territories, sacred sites and indigenous peoples’ conservation activities.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the relevant treaty bodies take into account the Declaration and urges States to include information regarding its implementation in their reports to the universal periodic review of the Human Rights Council.
The Permanent Forum supports the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its current effort to draft a general comment on the status of indigenous children worldwide, supports the Committee’s effort to secure broad input from indigenous peoples and encourages wide dissemination of the final report to indigenous peoples, States and United Nations bodies and agencies.
The Permanent Forum calls upon United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, other multilateral financial institutions and bilateral donors to establish clear policy commitments to protect the ancestral lands of indigenous peoples.
With regard to the development of national action plans, as committed to by Member States at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, the Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption by the Government of El Salvador of a national action plan and encourages its full and effective implementation. The Forum strongly urges other States to follow this good practice and develop their own national action plans for the full implementation of the Declaration. The Forum also encourages States to review recommendations made at past sessions, renew efforts at their implementation and report on progress made by 2021. The Forum invites the United Nations system to support the efforts of Member States in this regard.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the Government of Paraguay should give priority, in its emergency plans, to the protection of vulnerable indigenous children from practices of forced labour and other forms of exploitation.
Celebrating 22 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the first legally binding international instrument affirming human rights for all children, the Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, enabling individual claims and the use of the examination process, and urges States to accede to this important instrument regarding children in the most vulnerable situations, many of whom are indigenous, to allow them access to recourse and redress.
There generally appears to be positive recognition of the approach to Goal 1 suggested by the Permanent Forum, while there has been less attention paid to Goal 2. In both areas, there appears to be an increase in the number of projects being implemented in Latin America, with limited projects in Asia, and one or two projects in Africa. This is particularly the case under Goal 2, where there is a general lack of reporting from Asia or Africa on intercultural/bilingual education projects or programmes in this area.
The Permanent Forum recommends that the themes for the round tables of the World Conference be decided by Member States and indigenous peoples through the preparatory processes. The Declaration provides a substantial framework for the development of the focus of the World Conference.
The Permanent Forum also appreciates the work of FAO, in collaboration with the Forum, on including the issues of indigenous peoples in the Committee on World Food Security and recommends that FAO continue to collaborate with the Forum to open up spaces for dialogue and participation in other technical committees, such as those on forestry, fisheries and agriculture.