Definitions and Scope: There is no internationally agreed definition of Indigenous Peoples (IPs). In practice at the international level, the term includes a very wide variety of human societies including the ‘native’ and ‘aboriginal’ peoples of the Americas and the Pacific, the ‘tribal peoples’ and ‘minority nationalities’ of Asia and many non-dominant and discriminated ethnic groups in Africa. IPs insist on the principle of self-identification and see efforts to impose definitions on them as an affront to their right to self-determination. The principle of self-identification has been accepted by the International Labour Organisation (Convention 169 Article 1(2)) and by the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and is adhered to in this document.

For the purpose of its operations, the World Bank adopts a broad approach and treats as IPs those “social groups with a social and cultural identity distinct from the dominant society, which makes them vulnerable to being disadvantaged in the development process”. Key characteristics used by the Bank for identifying such peoples include:

·         close attachment to ancestral territories and to natural resources in these areas

·         self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct group

·         an indigenous language, often different from the national language

·         presence of customary social and political institutions

·         primarily subsistence-oriented production.

A people need not demonstrate all these characteristics to be considered as an IP by the Bank. The Bank’s inclusive approach thus includes as Indigenous Peoples, the ‘tribal peoples’ of Asia, Afro-American groups in Latin America and many marginalised ethnic groups in Africa.

Special characteristics:Indigenous Peoples themselves emphasise that they differ from many other marginalised social groups in their relative lack of incorporation into the State or administrative apparatus. In some cases their special relations with States may be codified in Treaties, or special laws establishing autonomous regions, or laws recognising the exercise of customary law and the authority of customary institutions. IPs also stress the distinctiveness of their world-views, or ‘cosmovisions’, and the need for governments and development agencies to respect them. Many governments have adopted special policies to deal with IPs as distinct social sectors. In many cases these national laws and policies (or their lack) are disputed by IPs who seek to renegotiate their relations with States. Key issues of concern to IPs include recognition of:

·         their rights to the ownership, control and management of their traditional territories, lands and resources.

·         their right to exercise their customary law

·         the authority and legal personality of their customary institutions

·         the value of, and their rights to control, their traditional knowledge

·         their right to self-determination

·         their right to be recognised as distinct peoples

Although international law is still in the process of clarifying the nature of the political relations that should obtain between IPs and nation states, international standards do clearly recognise that IPs comprise a distinctive social sector or ‘Major Group’ and recognise their specific rights to territories, land, the exercise of customary law and to represent themselves.

National Policies on Indigenous Peoples: Government policies towards IPs vary widely. In general, African States tend to deny the relevance of ‘tribal’ identities and institutions, which are seen as obstacles to nation-building. In Asia, IPs are commonly seen as ‘backward’ and national policies are primarily orientated to promote the rapid assimilation or integration of IPs into the national mainstream, by re-education, resettlement and the prohibition of traditional cultural and religious practices. In some countries a policy of positive discrimination is adopted, reserving quotas in education and administration for IPs. In other countries, papers conferring citizenship on indigenous persons are commonly denied until they are assimilated into national administrative processes. Until the 1980s, most Latin American countries also pursued integrationist policies. In Asia, Latin America and some parts of Southern Africa, specialised state agencies are entrusted with implementing these policies, or these duties may be delegated to churches or other religious institutions. More recently, especially in Latin American countries, Governments are beginning to accept the multi-ethnic nature of States and are adopting policies promoting cultural tolerance, bilingual education, regional autonomy and collective territorial ownership and control by IPs, including Afro-Americans.

Tenure: National laws vary widely in the extent to which they provide security of tenure to IPs. Whereas many Latin American countries have begun to adopt constitutional and legal provisions recognising IPs’ territorial or land rights, the titling processes often lag far behind. Although some Anglophone African states and a few Asian States recognise customary tenure systems, in most of Africa and Asia IPs’ tenure rights are weak or not legally recognised. By contrast, most Pacific Island States do provide strong tenure rights to IPs. Not all IPs retain or seek to reclaim their ancestral territories. Many IPs have become ‘peasantised’, seek community or individual land titles and have accepted imposed governance systems. Forest-dependent IPs, however, tend to retain territorial ties and customary social orders. In all cases, powerful interest groups competing for access to natural resources on indigenous lands are found to challenge IPs’ rights.

Inappropriate land titling and agrarian reforms may present special problems for IPs. Titles may be too small, fail to correspond to customary boundaries, freeze or interfere with flexible, customary systems of rights allocations and land use regulation, and introduce land markets. Legal personality may be unclear or undefined and titles may be vested in inappropriate institutions. This may encourage the emergence of unaccountable indigenous elites, who negotiate for personal benefit at the expense of the wider group. IPs urge recognition of customary boundaries and their own representative institutions.

Health and Education: IPs, especially more isolated groups, often have unique health care and educational needs. In many countries these needs are disregarded. Imposed development projects can introduce new diseases to isolated areas, provoking epidemics and high mortalities. National educational programmes often ignore cultural differences, disallow indigenous languages and introduce values, expectations and curricula ill-adapted to indigenous ways of life. Even where special health programmes and bilingual, inter-cultural education programmes have been established, they often suffer from inadequate funding,poorly trained staff and lack of political support.

Indigenous Peoples in Forests: Adopting the encompassing approach of the World Bank, the number of indigenous people living in or near forests worldwide may total as many as one hundred and fifty million. Others offer a figure nearly twice this. The peoples represent as much as one half of the world’s linguistic diversity. These figures are inevitably approximations as census data on forest-dependent IPs are often absent, out-dated or inaccurate. IPs differ very widely in their relations both with their forests and with the national societies which enclose them, making generalization difficult.

Such peoples are often characterised as hunters and gatherers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, swidden farmers and settled cultivators. In fact, the great majority of these peoples practise mixed economies, and, while they may retain a subsistence base, most are also actively engaged in the cash economy and in markets in crafts, forest products, agricultural surpluses, land, labour, services and even intellectual property.

Forest Policy and Indigenous Peoples: IPs’ tenure rights tend to be especially insecure in forest areas. Perhaps a majority of forested lands in developing countries are classified as State or Crown lands and, especially in Africa and Asia, are subject to the jurisdiction of forestry departments. Forestry laws often expressly deny the tenure rights of IPs in forests, deny or limit their tree rights and deny or curtail their usufruct rights to non-timber forest products. Even access and residence rights may be denied. Historically in many parts, and still today in some countries, government agencies oblige the involuntary resettlement of forest-dwelling IPs from forest reserves. Alternatively, special regimes may be applied which grant conditional rights or privileges to IPs in forests, subject to the authority of forest departments. The dependency that results can encourage the emergence of damaging, exploitative, even corrupt patron-client relations between forestry officials and IPs.

Shifting Cultivation: Prejudice against shifting cultivation is a widespread problem. The practice is seen as backward, wasteful, hard to tax, environmentally imprudent, occupying too much land and competing with timber companies. Recent research emphasises the wide variety of shifting cultivation systems, its complex interdependence with other economic activities and, often, its sophistication and environmental appropriateness. Destructive forms of shifting cultivation are commonly linked toinsecure tenure, reduced land bases and political instability. Particularly in Asia, Governments have waged active and indiscriminate campaigns to eradicate shifting cultivation, although alternative systems of upland agriculture have often not proved viable. By contrast, in Latin America and Africa ‘tala y quema’ and ‘bush-fallow’ systems have been more widely tolerated.

Land Use Classification: Forest zoning, and the establishment of Permanent Forest Estate, is often imposed according to technical criteria without taking into account the needs and rights of IPs. Likewise, concessions or permits are often granted to forestry enterprises to harvest natural resources from forests without prior consultation with IPs and without their needs and rights being considered.

Conflicts: As a consequence of these limitations and impositions, conflicts between forest-dependent IPs and State agencies or private companies are widespread. Restrictive policies and regulations, which make traditional economic and cultural activities illegal, leave many IPs with little option but to become law-breakers. Such conflicts are most commonly expressed in the form of avoidance tactics and passive resistance, but not rarely have escalated into public protests, the erection of barricades, incendiarism, attacks on government or company property and even violence to persons. Government and private sector responses range from fines, arrests, forced relocation of communities and imprisonment, escalating to human rights abuses including paramilitary harassment, arbitrary arrests, denial of legal assistance, torture, extra-judicial killings and even genocide. In extreme cases, the breakdown in relations between forestry departments and IPs may contribute to armed rebellion.

2.     Impacts of Forest-Related Development:

Structural Adjustments: Under some circumstances, structural adjustment programmes intensify pressure on forests and have corresponding impacts on forest-dwelling IPs. SAPs may be explicitly designed to promote exports of commodities that involve forest exploitation or clearance for large-scale logging, mining and plantation development or may induce migration into forest areas.

Impact assessments: Agencies prescribing structural adjustment policies do not carry out social or environmental impact assessments as part of normal procedures. Even though social safety nets are built into some structural adjustment programmes, they are primarily targeted at the urban poor or rural peasants. Only very exceptionally do these measures reach forest-dwelling groups.

Forestry: Large-scale forestry projects have often proved damaging to IPs and provoked strong reactions from those affected. Imposed projects that fail to address structural problems inherent in State policies and laws may worsen IPs’ situations. Land rights are further denied, resettlement policies and forest zoning imposed and competing interests introduced into indigenous territories. Logging operations may also have serious direct and indirect impacts.

Livelihoods: At least in the short-term and sometimes permanently, logging operations deplete game and other forest resources that IPs rely on. Increased hunting with flash-lights and guns further depletes game. Availability of forest products used for food, crafts, shelters, weapons, and medicines may be affected. Drinking water is soiled and polluted. Fish stocks decline. The restricted availability of land for swidden rotations leads to land degradation and reduced yields of staple foods.

Roads: Logging roads bring very mixed benefits to forest-dwelling IPs. They may be welcomed for providing access to markets and urban-based services, but may also entail serious costs due to increased access by outsiders to forests along roads and skid trails, intensifying trade in bush-meat and wildlife. Roads stimulate migration and settlement, leading to land alienation and competition for resources and jobs, and non-traditional small-scale mining with further environmental and social impacts.

Employment: Because IPs often lack formal education or training, they tend to be employed in low-paid, short-term arduous and dangerous occupations such as tree-spotters, fellers and debarkers. Labour, health and safety regulations are often weak or not enforced. Although the cash incomes may be welcomed by those who get work, jobs are either lost when the industry moves on or indigenous workers are obliged to migrate to new forest camps away from their families and traditions.

Services: Logging companies may be welcomed because of promised benefits in terms of schools, clinics and religious centres. Typically, where provided, such services fall into disrepair when the industry moves on.

Women: Indigenous women, children and the elderly suffer disproportionately from logging. Those left behind in their villages are left to survive without able-bodied males, who are away wage-labouring. Those who migrate to logging camps become dependent on their husbands’ wages. Indigenous women may turn to prostitution to supplement family incomes and regain a measure of independence.

Health and nutrition: Marked declines in health and nutrition, especially protein shortages, are common in communities in logged-over forests. Introduced diseases, notably STDs, brought in by migrant forest workers, lead to worsening morbidities and mortalities. Contamination with insecticides and fungicides used in timber treatments is also reported.

Cultural impacts: These impacts combine to disrupt IPs’ social systems. New inequalities are introduced, customary laws, social support networks and systems of land management may be undermined, gambling and alcoholism increase, and migration to urban centres accelerates.Lack of experience with cash and the implications of large-scale habitat changes can lead indigenous forest-owners into imprudent deals with forestry companies, which many later regret. Internal conflicts over decision-making, resource allocation and use of cash often result, further undermining social cohesion.

Politics:Internationally financed, large-scale forestry operations shift the balance of power over forests in favour of industry and political elites, at the expense of forest-dwelling IPs.The reinforcement of patrimonial political systems and rent-seeking behaviours become major obstacles to sustainable forest management and to policies that respect IPs’ rights. In the long term, this may be the most serious of all the impacts of logging on IPs.

Plantations: Forest conversion for plantations intensifies many of these impacts. Rights to land may be permanently extinguished. Compensation, if paid, may be nugatory. Habitat loss undermines traditional livelihoods. The establishment of estates may transform hydrological cycles, meaning loss of drinking water, bathing and fishing. Pollution with effluents from plantation processing compounds these problems. Changes in disease ecology lead to rising incidences of malaria, dengue, scrub typhus, leishmaniasis and filariasis. Estate clinics may treat workers, but nearby IPs suffer the consequences.

Workers: IPs may be incorporated into the plantation workforce as labourers or as small-holders on NES estates. However, conditions are often poor: wages are low, workers’ rights are commonly denied, and promised land titles, marketing facilities and services are slow to appear, while repayments from workers and small-holders for housing and start up costs are demanded immediately. Conditions of ‘debt-slavery’ sometimes result. Adjusting to life on the estates may be difficult: working regimes do not fit customary labour patterns and life-styles; division of communities into nucleated households disrupts traditional social networks and rituals. Many have problems handling money, spend cash imprudently or are easily cheated.

Women: Indigenous women and the elderly are especially affected. Traditional subsistence and social support networks are undermined but not replaced with viable alternatives. Compensation, when paid, for alienated lands, though customarily held communally or by both men and women, is handed over to men. Where communities are incorporated into estates, small-holder titles are provided to male heads of households, not females. Employment opportunities for women are fewer and wages are lower.

For these reasons and because they fundamentally limit the autonomy of indigenous communities, the establishment of plantations in indigenous territories is considered ‘ethnocidal’ by many indigenous spokespeople. Indigenous mobilisation against plantations is widespread throughout the tropics.

Conservation: Forest areas are often designated as protected areas(PAs) for biodiversity conservation and watershed management. The ‘old model’ of conservation entrusts PAs to State agencies, and residents are either expelled or subject to restrictions on resource use and access. IPs may be permitted to remain in PAs on condition they conform to stereotype and do not adopt advanced technologies. The Bank rejects such policies of ‘enforced primitivism’. De facto, most PAs are inhabited. Partially enforced regulations have the effect of turning indigenous residents into illegal ‘poachers’ and ‘squatters’. IPs suffer impoverishment, loss of their cultural repertoire, social disruption, involuntary resettlement, a diminished and consequently degraded land base, loss of autonomy and subjection to (sometimes manipulative) parks officials. Conflict between parks management and the IPs results. Occasionally these conflicts escalate into incendiarism and violence.

Obstacles to change: New models of conservation are now accepted internationally (see below), but national PA laws, institutions and policies remain shaped by the ‘old model’.Novel, participatory, PA projects, which respect IPs’ rights to own, control and manage their territories, may be contrary to national law and/or go against the institutional grain. Inappropriate national policies towards IPs, especially those relating to land tenure and customary institutions, compound the problem. Conservation NGOs may also show little respect for IPs’ rights and may impose priorities and procedures unacceptable to them.

Ecotourism: Eco-tourism may be encouraged in PAs to generate foreign exchange and service foreign debts incurred in setting up PAs. IPs may be encouraged to remain in or near PAs as tourist attractions, to act as guides, porters and to sell craftwork. Some IPs reject such practices outright as outside impositions. Experience shows that the benefits are mixed. Employment opportunities and cash incomes may be welcomed but IPs often complain of the dependency that results and the ‘folklorisation’ of their cultures. There are frequent complaints about tourists’ licentious behaviour.

Cross-sectoral Impacts: Roads, Mines, Dams, Frontier Colonisation: Forest-dependent IPs are also affected by cross-sectoral pressures on forests. Roads, mines, oil exploration and development, dams, ranches, frontier colonisation schemes and pressure from landless farmers are major forces of dispossession. These large-scale processes and the power of the interests behind them create serious problems for IPs. Mangrove conversion for aquaculture has severe effects on IPs, including artesanal fisherfolk dependent on fish-stocks that breed in mangroves. Frontier colonisation, stimulated by road-building, frequently moves ahead of effective administration and the rule of law, meaning that even where IPs have recognised rights they are ignored with impunity by rich and poor alike. Many government-sponsored development projects are pushed through against indigenous opposition in the ‘national interest’, and the State, if it recognises indigenous tenure, may exercises its power of ‘eminent domain’ to alienate lands through Land Acquisition Acts. Commonly, sub-surface resources are considered State property and surface owners, where their rights are recognised, are only entitled to mining royalties or compensation for damage. Many IPs claim their territorial rights include sub-surface resources and dispute the State’s power of ‘eminent domain’.

Environmental Impact Assessments: EIAs are sometimes legally required to screen out damaging projects or help mitigate their impacts. Where conscientiously carried out, EIAs can help identify threats to IPs from imposed schemes and propose solutions. However, slipshod or token EIAs, with inadequateoversight and quality control by the responsible agencies, are common. IPs insist that EIA standards and controls should be higher and should include measures for the real participation of IPs.

3.    Alternative Approaches:

Sustainability of indigenous systems: The last 30 years have witnessed a re-validation of Indigenous Peoples. Societies once characterised by outsiders as ‘backward’, ’conservative’ and‘doomed to extinction’ have proven forward-looking, innovative and vigorous. Environmentalists and indigenous rights advocates stress that indigenous systems of land use and management are often more sustainable than the alternative land use systems imposed on them. International law reflects this changing attitude to Indigenous Peoples.The ILO’s revised Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (#169) stresses respect for customary law, rights to manage their territories and informed participation, in place of integration. The Convention on Biological Diversity enjoins State parties to respect, preserve and maintain indigenous knowledge and protect customary use of natural resources.

Many IPs still inhabit relatively undegraded forests and regulate use of their common lands and forests through customary legal and political systems. Academics dispute the extent to which indigenous economies are environmentally sustainable and it is unwise to generalise, yet the relatively pristine nature of many IPs’ habitats means their territories are often prioritised for conservation. Prudent resource use depends as much on the maintenance of customary decision-making systems and secure land tenure, as on the promotion and protection of indigenous forest-related knowledge.

Changing practices: Pressures on indigenous territories now threaten these habitats and systems of resource use. Erosion of IPs’ resource base, by land alienation or by exploitation by outsiders, upsets their systems of land management. New tax burdens force these societies into the cash economy. Imposed systems of local governance transform decision-making processes within communities. At the same time, endogenous changes may also increase pressure on resources: population increase; the adoption of new technologies like new crops, farming techniques, steel tools, shotguns, chainsaws and outboard engines; the consequent need for cash through the generation of surpluses; new values; transformed social and political systems; individualist profit-seeking.

Indigenous perspectives: Aware that these changes threaten their long term welfare, many indigenous organisations seek to rebalance their societies with their environments, through reclaiming their territories, restoring the authority of their customary institutions, adopting new regulations to manage their commons and more appropriate new technologies to exploit them.

Conditional rights: However, many reject proposed tenure reforms or forest management contracts that extinguish their territorial rights or make their rights conditional on environmental performance. Such arrangements raise the questions: who will assess environmental performance and according to what criteria? IPs claim that their rights to their territories are inherent and precede the creation of nation states. Many interpret attempts to condition their rights as efforts by external authorities to exercise power over them and as obstacles to useful dialogue about prudent resource use and management.

Assessing land needs: The huge variety of IPs’ societies, ecosystems and degree of dependence on forests makes generalization about how much land they need to sustain them unwise.Scientists lack data to assess the sustainable yield of more than a few species. Amazon Indians have population densities as low as 1 person/14km2, Congo basin villagers around 6 persons/km2, Central Highland New Guineans as high as 170 persons/km2. All depend on forest resources to some degree. Participatory mapping techniques, with hand-held Global Positioning Systems and computers, have proved valuable for assessing lands used and claimed by Indigenous Peoples. They can be managed by community-based organisations and integrated into land titling or land use planning processes.

Recognition of Indigenous Territories: Following constitutional and legal reforms and the adoption of new policies on IPs, a number of Latin American countries and the Philippines have begun processes of recognising indigenous territories. In the Pacific these rights have long been recognised. Important lessons have already been learned from these experiences, inter alia:

·        forms of tenure should be adapted to local aspirations and customary institutions

·        the legal personality of the indigenous landowners should be made clear

·        beneficiary communities should participate fully in deciding boundaries

·        the status of competing claims to land and natural resources should be clarified and resolved

·        the jurisdiction of state authorities over natural resources should be clarified and agreed

·        effective indigenous management depends on clear mechanisms to ensure accountability

·         complementary and fully participatory programmes for poverty alleviation, schooling and the provision of health care should be devised.

Indigenous Peoples and Community Development: Recent decades have seen a proliferation of national and internationally financed programmes designed aimed at poverty alleviation in indigenous communities. Many of these programmes have been welcomed or requested by IPs, while others have been imposed. Reviews of these experiences suggest that successful community development schemes:

·         build on indigenous initiatives

·         guarantee indigenous control or at least effective co-management

·         gain active support from government agencies

·         involve integrated plans that simultaneously promote income generation, land security, appropriate health care, culturally appropriate education, involvement of women and environmental planning.

·         provide capacity building to indigenous institutions

·         ensure equitable sharing of benefits

·         avoid the creation of dependency on grants and outside technical assistance. Micro-credit schemes which do not involve land as collateral are strongly indicated.

Indigenous Peoples and Participatory Forest Management: Efforts to accommodate IPs into imposed forestry regimes began in the last century. They vary widely in the degree to which they accommodate indigenous demands to own and control their forests. Some provide only temporary inter-cropping rights, others full recognition of indigenous ownership and control. International Tropical Timber Organisation Guidelines for Natural Forest Management accept ILO and World Bank standards towards IPs. Recognition of indigenous tenure and participation is also enjoined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. Principles and criteria #2 and #3 of the Forest Stewardship Council for voluntary certification are explicit on the need to recognise IPs’ legal and customary rights and for them to be legally established.The World Bank has accepted these principles in its promotion of forest certification. IPs recommend that C&I for SFM should include full recognition of their rights.

Social Forestry: Social forestry programmes of the 1970s and 1980s sought to alleviate poverty by reforesting degraded ‘wastelands’ with fast-growing species in wood-lots to relieve pressure on natural forests. Although some needs were relieved, many of these projects failed to suit IPs’ because:

• inappropriate species were chosen;
• participation was inadequate;
• tenure was not reformed;
• forestry personnel were inadequately motivated and re-trained;
• harvesting plans were imposed by forestry personnel;
• the most indigent social groups, who may have depended on the 'degraded' lands in the first place, were often excluded.

Joint Forest Management: India’s experiments with JFM grew out of attempts by forestry officials to accommodate tribal demands to manage their own forests. Under JFM, forests remain the property of the State under the jurisdiction of Forest Departments but local communities are contracted to manage the forests and retain a portion of profits from the sale of harvests. While an important advance, from the IPs’ point of view the results have been mixed. Among the lessons learned:

·         communities can only benefit if they also have adequate lands for subsistence outside forests

·         long term benefits require that a major share of the profits be retained by the communities

·         forestry officials need re-training and given incentives to devolve decisions to communities

·         forestry department commitment must be real and not a token response to aid agencies

·         arrangements should be fitted to local forest management traditions not prescribed from above

Community Forestry: Community forestry options vary in the extent to which they recognise IPs’ownership of forests. Control of forest management and marketing is devolved to communities or sections of communities (user groups). ‘Projects’ have experimented with the extraction and marketing of a wide-range of products including: timber, NTFPs, wildlife, butterflies, eco-tourism etc. Results have been very mixed but successful enough to encourage wider application. Among the problems encountered:

·         community forestry contracts may be rejected by IPs if they extinguish or limit land claims

·         ‘user groups’ may not correspond to customary institutions or forest owner groups

·         ‘user groups’ may be dominated by local elites and exaggerate caste, class and gender divisions

·         land use decisions may favour the personal interests of the few over the need and rights of all

·         lack of familiarity with extraction, management and marketing may lead to poor decision-making or create heavy dependence on external expertise, and demand high capacity-building inputs

·         over-extraction may result from market, community and individual pressures

·         markets prove unreliable or demand greater quality or quantities than communities can supply

·         start-up capital requirements oblige contracts with outsiders who then dominate decision-making

·         external programme proponents see IPs as poor people with ‘ethnicity’ not as peoples seeking to clarify their political relations with the State as well as overcome their poverty.

Indigenous forest-related knowledge: Increasing interest in IPs’ knowledge and the possibilities of commercialising it, raise ethical and legal questions about bio-prospecting. IPs are demanding new legal mechanisms to secure their cultural heritage and ‘intellectual property’ but solutions are disputed.

New protected area models: The IUCN’s new protected area (PA) categories accept IPs as owners and managers of PAs. IUCN resolutions and WWF policies, adopted in 1996, endorse the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, recognise IPs’ rights to own, control and manage their territories, and accept the principle that conservation initiatives should only go ahead in indigenous areas with the free and informed consent of the traditional owners. The World Commission on Protected Areas adopted guidelines in 1999 designed to implement these principles. Few PA initiatives yet adhere to these standards. IPs advocate full recognition of their territorial rights as the best basis for conservation and question whether IUCN PA categories and policies really suit them or accommodate management according to traditional knowledge. The lack of correspondence between IP territories and the borders of PAs can create special problems. IPs recommend broader sustainable development and conservation approaches that encompass their full territories.  

Participation in forest policy making: Since the Earth Summit there has been intergovernmental consensus that IPs should be involved in policy making. IPs have asked for the establishment of new mechanisms to facilitate this participation at international, regional and national levels.

4.    Recommendations for the World Bank:

The World Bank and Indigenous Peoples: World Bank activities affect IPs in forests in many ways. Appropriate standards and procedures should be adopted by IBRD, IDA, IFC, MIGA and GEF. All lending decisions should be preceded by assessments of whether IPs are to be affected.Currently, Bank operations likely to affect IPs are guided by Operational Directive 4.20. This policy, which is under review, is designed to ensure that indigenous concerns are addressed prior to project implementation. Adequately interpreted (or revised), the policy should ensure that:

·         there is a clear borrower government commitment to adhere to the Bank’s policy

·         acceptable mechanisms are in place to ensure indigenous participation in the full project cycle

·         an IPs component is developed which

-          makes an assessment of the national legal framework regarding IPs

-          provides baseline data about the Indigenous Peoples to be affected

-          establishes a mechanism for the legal recognition of IPs’ rights, especially tenure rights

-          includes sub-components in health care, education, legal assistance and institution building

-          provides for capacity-building of the government agency dealing with IPs

-          establishes a clear schedule for fitting actions related to IPs into the overall project, with a clear and adequate budget

·         final contracts and disbursements are conditional on government compliance with these measures

The Bank has not carried out an implementation review of its IPs policy for over 10 years. It should do so, with the full participation of IPs. Although the Bank has made impressive progress in addressing IPs’ concerns in selected countries in Latin America, as a whole adherence to the policy has been patchy. In practice, OD 4.20 is often not applied in SAPs, agricultural projects, infrastructural and energy schemes and conservation projects. In addition, NGOs observe the following main obstacles to effective implementation:

·         failure to address the disparity between Bank and Government policies towards IPs

·         inadequate indigenous participation in project planning and implementation

·         lack of staff time, resources and incentives to apply the policy

·         lack of accountability of the Bank to IPs over the full project cycle

Procedural and institutional reforms are needed to overcome these problems.

Structural Adjustment: The Bank should make strategic environmental and social impact assessments a standard feature prior to SAPs. In countries where previous SAPs have led to increased pressure on natural resources, such assessments should be mandatory. SAPs which promote exports in primary commodities (minerals, oil, timber, plantation products etc.) or are likely to stimulate migration into forests should include sub-components to ensure government capacity to regulate these expanding sectors. Adherence to OD 4.20 should be mandatory for such programme loans.

Country Assistance Strategies: Preparations of CAS should include comprehensive, participatory national policy reviews to assess impacts on IPs and define strategies for addressing their concerns.

Forest Policy: The inclusion of IPs in national planning should be a Bank requirement where it is involved in national forest policy reform. Effective participation should be ensured in line with OD 4.20 and the further recommendations made below.

Forest-related projects: Current Bank policy proscribes the funding of logging in primary tropical moist forests as incompatible with socially and environmentally sustainable development. As large-scale forestry operations have serious impacts on IPs, the Bank should consider extending this proscription to other forest types including dry tropical, temperate and boreal forests.

Conservation Projects: In seeking to achieve the protected area targets of the joint Bank/WWF Alliance, the Bank should adopt the WWF’s guidelines on Conservation and Indigenous Peoples. Establishing PAs based on securing indigenous territories should be prioritised, with full indigenous participation. GEF grants for such projects should be considered. If the ‘incremental costs criterion’ is thought to be an obstacle to such projects, it should be revised.

Real Participation: Many IPs have become disillusioned with the rhetoric of ‘participation’, which often translates in practice into token consultation. Ensuring the effective participation of marginalised IPs, who may be discriminated against by government officials and policies, is especially difficult in internationally financed projects developed with government agencies. Bank staff can find themselves caught between disputing parties. Bank staff need to be made aware of the ambiguous and often legally ill-defined nature of the relations between IPs and governments and should take legal counsel to help find acceptable solutions.

·         The principle of prior and informed consent should guide the Bank throughout the project cycle.

·         Where governments are not prepared to observe Bank policy on IPs, the ‘no project option’ should be considered and discussed with the IPs concerned.

·         Special training should be given to Bank staff to help bridge the cultural gap between the Bank and borrower governments, on the one hand, and between Bank staff and IPs on the other.

·         Sometimes non-indigenous NGOs can help promote effective participation by IPs in Bank projects. However, they can also be barriers or filters to effective communications. The acceptability to the IPs of proposed NGO partners should be ascertained before they are involved.

Project preparation and appraisal should provide:

·         a long lead in time to ensure effective communications and planning

·         timely and full access to project related documents in the right languages and in forms intelligible to participants

·         workshops and public meetings to discuss findings, proposals and plans

·         adequate resources to allow effective participation, including funds for training, institution- and capacity-building

·         clear enforceable contracts between IPs, borrower governments and the Bank

·         effective participation of IPs in monitoring and mid-term evaluations