United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) – Seventh Session Special theme: Climate change, biocultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges
21 April – 2 May 2008 (New York, USA)
Adapted from the UN Press Release
The Permanent Forum, a 16-member subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), is mandated chiefly to provide expert advice on indigenous issues to the Council and the United Nations system; raise awareness and promote the integration and coordination of activities relating to indigenous issues within the United Nations system; and prepare and disseminate information on indigenous issues. The special theme for its seventh session was on “climate change, biocultural diversity and livelihoods”.
- Climate Change:
In a text relating to its special theme, the Permanent Forum recommended that the international community take serious measures to mitigate climate change, as the survival of the traditional ways of life of indigenous peoples depended in large part on the success of those efforts.
Asserting that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should serve as a “key and binding framework” in the formation of plans for development and should be considered fundamental in efforts to curb climate change at all levels, the Forum also called in that text for “urgent, serious and unprecedented action” by the Economic and Social Council, General Assembly and all United Nations bodies and agencies to prevent environmental degradation.
Stressing that indigenous peoples’ traditional livelihoods and ecological knowledge can significantly contribute to designing and implementing appropriate and sustainable mitigation and adaptation measures, the text also recommended that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and relevant parties develop mechanisms for indigenous peoples’ participation in all aspects of the international climate change dialogue, particularly the forthcoming negotiations for the next Kyoto Protocol commitment period. Specifically, a working group on local adaptation measures and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples should be established.
In the same vein, the text requested the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to undertake a specific assessment of the opportunities and threats for indigenous peoples arising from current and future strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas emission.
Throughout the two weeks of the Permanent Forum, many indigenous community representatives testified about the injustices associated with the clean development mechanism projects and asked that the Permanent Forum not promote the projects. The Forum noted that some mitigation measures seen as solutions to climate change also had had negative impacts on indigenous peoples and reaffirmed that all actors should respect indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and to decide on mitigation and adaptation measures in their lands and territories. It also called on States to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and to call on transnational corporations to respect those standards.
- Indigenous Languages:
Noting that, if current trends continue, an estimated 90 per cent of the world’s languages would become extinct within the next 100 years, the Permanent Forum said immediate and effective measures were necessary to prevent the “impending irretrievable loss” of linguistic and cultural diversity and traditional indigenous knowledge caused by such language extinction.
To that end, the text called on States to immediately support indigenous peoples’ language revitalization efforts, highlighting the processes developed by the Nordic Saami Convention as an example of “good practice” and encouraging Nordic States to adopt those processes. It also invited the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to call jointly for a world conference on linguistic diversity, indigenous languages, identity and education.
- UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:
Hailing the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly in September 2007 as the beginning of a “new era of renewed partnerships”, the UNPFII pledged its commitment to making the Declaration a “living document” throughout its work.
Permanent Forum Chairperson Victoria Tauli-Corpuz said the Declaration had been fought for by many indigenous people since the 1970s and was the result of the work of indigenous people from the ground up. As the main framework that the Permanent Forum would use — and one that indigenous peoples had designed and shaped themselves — it “addressed all the pain and cries indigenous peoples had brought to the United Nations”.
Ms. Tauli-Corpuz added that, coming after adoption of the Declaration, it had been a most remarkable session. Climate change had been a timely theme for this session, as indigenous peoples had largely been kept out of the international dialogue on that issue despite their historical role in resisting oil, gas and coal exploitation and their practice of using their lands, air and forests in sustainable ways, not in pursuit of “giant profits”. Moving forward, corporations, in addition to States, must be guided by the standards set out in the Declaration.
At the closing session, it was decided that economic and social development, indigenous women and second international decade of the world’s indigenous peoples, and Arctic region be the focus of next year’s session while implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples become a permanent item on the forum’s agenda.
