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Indigenous organisations of the Purus province including ORAU, FECONAPU and ECOPURUS have denounced the intentions of some members of the Indigenous peoples' parliamentary commission to endorse a proposed law that would render the construction of a major highway cutting through the Purus region as a 'public necessity'. If endorsed by the commission, the law could then be considered for approval by the Peruvian parliament.

In 2011, the World Bank Group (WBG) adopted a Framework and Strategy for investment in the palm oil sector. The new approach was adopted on the instructions of former World Bank President Robert Zoellick, after a damning audit by International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) semi-independent Compliance Advisory Ombudsman (CAO) had shown that IFC staff were financing the palm oil giant, Wilmar, without due diligence and contrary to the IFC’s Performance Standards. Wilmar is the world’s largest palm oil trader, supplying no less than 45% of globally traded palm oil. The audit, carried out in response to a series of detailed complaints[1] from Forest Peoples Programme and partners, vindicated many of our concerns that Wilmar was expanding its operations in Indonesia in violation of legal requirements, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standards and IFC norms and procedures. Almost immediately after the audit was triggered, IFC divested itself of its numerous other palm oil investments in Southeast Asia.

By Samuel Nnah Ndobe. The notion of indigenous people has sometimes been controversial in Africa. There are some opinions that consider all Africans as indigenous people liberated from colonial powers, while others simply stress that it is very difficult to determine who is indigenous in Africa.

So-called “safeguard standards” for international finance institutions emerged as a consequence of destructive forestry, agricultural colonisation and extractive megaprojects financed by the World Bank in the Amazon, Indonesia and India in the 1970s and 1980s.[i] Since then many other multilateral development banks and development agencies have adopted their own safeguard policies and related complaints mechanisms. In addition to the need to protect community rights from destructive development investments, it is increasingly recognised that even well-intentioned conservation and ‘community development’ projects can cause damage and violate rights if they are poorly designed and fail to protect human rights and fragile habitats.[ii] 

Projects and programme interventions of multilateral development banks have a record of systematic and widespread human rights violations for indigenous peoples in Asia. In many countries, indigenous peoples have been subjected to widespread displacement and irreversible loss of traditional livelihoods. Behind these human rights violations is the denial of indigenous peoples’ rights to their lands, territories and resources and to their right to give their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to projects and programme interventions, including those in the name of sustainable development and human development. Among them, the large infrastructure (dams and highway construction) and environmental “conservation” projects have had the most detrimental adverse impacts on indigenous peoples. There are a good number of examples of such projects that have negatively impacted indigenous peoples’ communities in Asian countries, some of which follow below.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) played a catalytic role in the development of the Camisea gas project in the Peruvian Amazon in 2002/2003 despite having no specific policy for projects impacting indigenous peoples.

Public indignation about the depredations of ill-regulated business has led to a growing recognition of the responsibilities of businesses to respect human rights, as well as the need for stronger regulations to improve the way products are made and ensure that environments and peoples’ rights are respected and protected. There is now greater awareness that what is urgently needed is strengthened environmental stewardship and land governance, reforms of land tenure, and improved enforcement of revised and just laws.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is nearing completion of its new set of environmental and social safeguard policies. The AfDB is currently the only multilateral development bank without a standalone safeguard policy on indigenous peoples, and the new environmental and social safeguards are not expected to change this. This is despite strong advocacy from indigenous peoples’ organisations in Africa, and despite the existing jurisprudence and standards on indigenous rights in the African human rights system.

The World Bank is currently undertaking a two-year “review and update” of eight of its ten social and environmental safeguard policies. NGOs have highlighted how the World Bank must use the review as an opportunity to upgrade its standards and bolster implementation and compliance systems to increase Bank accountability and deliver sustainable development outcomes. At the same time, they have raised concerns that the Bank’s plan to “consolidate” its policies, with greater emphasis on the use of country systems to address safeguard issues, could end up in weakened standards and less accountability of the Bank and borrower governments to affected communities and the public.

Despite the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) being a signatory of the Green Protocol, which ties favourable lending rates and terms to the adoption of social and environmental standards, and the Bank’s initiative to develop a specific policy for the cattle sector, the Bank’s environmental policy is still very vague and lacks transparency and concrete criteria.

As the World Bank reviews its environmental and social standards, a major opportunity to overhaul World Bank approach to forests must not be missed.The negative impacts of World Bank-financed projects on tropical forests have been an issue of concern for civil society and forest peoples for decades. In the 1980s, World Bank megaprojects in the Amazon and in Indonesia in support for infrastructure projects, agricultural colonisation and transmigration generated major criticism from the public. This in turn generated the political pressure that was a key factor in leading the World Bank Group to adopt mandatory social and environmental standards, known as safeguards, to demonstrate its commitment to preventing harm to people and the environment [See Article 1].

Among the many aspects of REDD+[i] under close scrutiny by indigenous peoples and civil society organisations, the issue of safeguards and their implementation is the one that continues to attract the most concern. This is particularly true now in the current debate on REDD+ and its degree of implementation and operationalisation.

The traditional chiefs of Collingwood Bay in Papua New Guinea's Northern Province have filed a complaint with the RSPO accusing the Malaysian Company, Kuala Lumpur Kepong, of acting contrary to the RSPO Code of Conduct, Certification Systems and Principles and Criteria. In their detailed submission to the RSPO, they note that they have actively opposed oil palm developments on their lands since 2010.

Recent research carried out by scientific research bodies in Venezuela shows that 92% of indigenous women of the Caura river, a major affluent of the Orinoco, have levels of mercury poisoning higher than internationally agreed permissible levels. Over one third of those tested have such high levels of mercury poisoning that they have a 5% risk of their newborn children having neurological disorders. The researchers note that the ongoing contamination of rivers, which results from the continuing illegal gold mining in the lands of the Ye'kuana and Sanema peoples, is getting worse and will lead to progressive bio-accumulation, posing an ever growing risk. 

Terusan village in West-Kalimantan (Indonesia) on the island of Borneo is completely surrounded by oil palm. The villagers grow rice and rubber on their ancestral lands. Recently, an oil palm company made Terusan an offer to convert their village land to an oil palm plantation. The people of Terusan have to make a choice about their future. They decided to map their lands first.

A coalition of NGOs, including Forest Peoples Programme, have written to the President of the World Bank, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, to encourage the World Bank to elevate secure community land rights as a priority, and to ensure that all assistance, advice, and investments promote development models that fully respect local peoples’ human rights.

This video, produced by the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI), includes interviews with individuals from various NGOs, including FPP and Sawit Watch, during the Public Forum on Inclusive, Sustainable Foreign Direct Investments in Agriculture in South East Asia which took place in Bangkok in March 2013.

The "land grabbing" in Africa and elsewhere often triggers conflict, an underreported financial risk.Samuel Nguiffo is the Secretary General of the Centre for Environment and Development (CED), Cameroon. He is currently being sued by the government of Cameroon for tarnishing the state's reputation when he advocated against an oil palm plantation concession.

Side event at 53rd Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights

In a public statement the indigenous organisation COIAM, representing all the most active indigenous peoples' organisations in the Venezuelan Amazon, have expressed their opposition to government negotiations with foreign companies to open up their ancestral territories to mining without consultation or sharing of information. There are especially concerned by the advanced plans of a Chinese Corporation named as Citic Group with prospecting camps in a number of strategic locations in the indigenous peoples' heartlands.