The Permanent Forum welcomes the organization of a workshop by the Indigenous People’s Center for Documentation, Research and Information in recognition of the historical role played by indigenous peoples within the United Nations system.
Considering that indigenous peoples are empowered to assume leadership in governments at various levels, particularly at the local level, the Permanent Forum urges the United Nations system, including the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDP and all other relevant agencies, with the support of Member States and donor agencies, to implement, before the convening of its next session, a platform for indigenous local-local cooperation and the establishment of a network of indigenous local governments for information exchange and capacity-building on public administration, local socio-economic governance and participatory approaches to facilitate the implementation of the goals of the United Nations Millennium Declaration and the United Nations development agenda at the local level among indigenous peoples in all regions.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States include in all education curricula, in particular the school system, a discussion of the doctrine of discovery/dispossession and its contemporary manifestations, including land laws and policies of removal.
The Permanent Forum recommends that States recognize the language rights of indigenous peoples and develop language policies to promote and protect indigenous languages, with a focus on high-quality education in indigenous languages, including by supporting full immersion methods such as language nests and innovative methods such as nomadic schools. It is essential that States develop evidence-based legislation and policies to promote and protect indigenous languages and, in that regard, they should collect and disseminate baseline information on the status of indigenous languages. These activities should be conducted in close cooperation with the indigenous peoples concerned.
The Permanent Forum welcomes the measures undertaken by several countries that aim, inter alia, to explore and develop alternative sources of income, significantly reduce the exploitation of natural resources, enhance conservation of biological diversity and establish measures in favour of indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, such as the national initiative undertaken by Ecuador entitled “Yasuni-ITT initiative”. The Permanent Forum recommends that such measures respect the right to free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned.
Scientists, policymakers and the international community as a whole should undertake regular consultations with indigenous peoples so that their studies and decisions will be informed by indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and experiences. The Permanent Forum can play a role in ensuring that the traditional knowledge and best practices of indigenous peoples relevant to fighting climate change and its impacts will be considered in the negotiation processes leading to the Copenhagen Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and beyond, including through discussions with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Forum recommends that the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as the treaty monitoring body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, review the compliance of States Parties with article 24, which recognized the basic right of all children to "the provision of adequate and nutritional foods and clean drinking water, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution", with particular attention to its impact on traditional subsistence foods, and that the Committee address those issues during the day of general discussion on the indigenous child in September 2003.
The Permanent Forum is concerned by the killings, violence and harassment targeted at indigenous human rights defenders, which are also frequently committed with impunity. The Permanent Forum is concerned that, despite international condemnation, these criminal acts of violence persist, especially in a small number of countries in South and Central America, Africa and Asia.
The Forum recommends that States pay special attention to the situation of uncontacted indigenous peoples, peoples in voluntary isolation, and peoples in isolated and remote localities and displaced peoples from indigenous communities. The Forum recommends that the Special Rapporteur on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people pay special attention in his annual reports to the situation of these peoples. The Forum also considers that the situation of these peoples should be the subject of a special international meeting during the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.
Many indigenous peoples described situations where their human rights were being impacted by large-scale infrastructure projects, natural resource extraction and industrial agriculture activities in their territories without their free, prior and informed consent. The Permanent Forum received information to that effect from the Shuar, Sapara, Maasai and Ogaden peoples, among others. The Forum is concerned, in particular, by cases where it appears that the interests of investors are better protected than the rights of indigenous peoples. It reiterates that States and the private sector must respect the human rights of indigenous peoples by ensuring the effective implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
The Forum is deeply concerned that particular problems and discrimination are faced by indigenous children and youth, including in the areas of education, health, culture, extreme poverty, mortality, incarceration, labour and other relevant areas. The Forum notes the need for new indicators to be developed by the United Nations that will specifically target those problems, and in that regard invites UNICEF to develop such new indicators and share them with other entities of the United Nations system, especially UNESCO.
The Permanent Forum requests that UNICEF design, in partnership with other relevant United Nations agencies, a protocol for emergency situations resulting from natural disasters to ensure that, in cases of emergency, there are no violations of the human rights of indigenous peoples, especially indigenous youth, children and women, owing to forced relocation.