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The text of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the decisions of the Conference of the Parties and its subsidiary bodies use the phrase ‘indigenous and local communities’. At its ninth session in 2010, the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) called upon the parties to the CBD “to adopt the terminology ‘indigenous peoples and local communities’, as an accurate reflection of the distinct identities developed by those entities since the adoption of the Convention almost 20 years ago.”[1]  At its tenth session in 2011, the UNPFII further stated that “Affirmation of the status of indigenous peoples as “peoples” is important in fully respecting and protecting their human rights”.[2]

From 7 – 9 August 2013, representatives  from National Human Rights Institutions of the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Timor Leste and Myanmar and supportive civil society organisations, met in Bangkok to assess developments in the agribusiness sector and human rights since the Bali Declaration on Human Rights and Agribusiness in Southeast Asia in 2011 and the Phnom Penh Workshop on Human Rights and Agribusiness in 2012, and to develop an action plan for the effective enforcement of human rights by State parties in the agribusiness sector. The meeting was convened by the Thai National Human Rights Commission, with the support of the Forest Peoples Programme and the Rights and Resources Initiative. 

On 25 July 2013, 26 Indonesian and international organisations and the Forest Peoples Programme, submitted a report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UN-CERD) requesting its consideration of the situation of the Malind and other indigenous peoples of Merauke in the Indonesian province of Papua under the Committee’s urgent action and early warning procedures (EW/UA procedures).

From 19 - 20 September 2013, representatives from Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and from FPP’s partner organisations attended an international conference in Interlaken, Switzerland, on community land and resource rights, organised by the Rights and Resources Initiative, the International Land Coalition, Oxfam, IUCN and Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation. 

The launch of a long-awaited new British fund for tackling deforestation drivers in forest nations is still on hold as UK government agencies continue to finalise the business case for the initiative. Meanwhile, UK NGOs have continued to press the government to ensure transparency in the governance structure for the fund, which is to be geared towards supporting tropical countries to combat deforestation and curb land use emissions. 

110 representatives of indigenous peoples, community mapping experts and members of support NGOs and academia from 17 countries in Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, North America and Europe, gathered together from 25 -28 August 2013 in the traditional territory of the Batak at Lake Toba in Indonesia, to share and learn from their diverse experiences in community participatory mapping as an instrument to help them assert and claim their rights to lands, territories and resources. 

A group of Colombian indigenous women have prepared a shadow report that they will present to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) during its 56th session, currently underway in Geneva. 

Aware of the historical value of documentation, the Pancur Kasih Empowerment Movement (GPPK) records the experience of its 30-year work to serve as learning for present and future generations of GPPK, as well as activists and organisations of indigenous peoples elsewhere.- Milestones in GPPK Work in Response to Problems of Dayak Community (1981-2011)

Introduction

In this edition of the Partner Spotlight we interview Louis Biswane from the Organisation of Kalin’a and Lokono Peoples in Marowijne (KLIM) in Suriname. Louis recently participated in the Indigenous Fellowship Programme (IFP) of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva from 17 June to 12 July, on behalf of KLIM. In this interview, Louis talks about his experiences in Geneva: what he learned, and how the expertise and knowledge he has gained will support KLIM’s work. 

On 2 August 2013 indigenous organisations and representatives of the Peruvian government reached an agreement to modify controversial aspects of the government’s draft Forest Investment Plan (“FIP Plan”), an initiative financed by the World Bank’s Forest Investment Programme (FIP), to address deforestation. The plan was due to be presented to the World Bank’s FIP sub-committee in October 2013 but a draft version was roundly denounced by indigenous organisations in July as it continued to ignore indigenous proposals and violated Peru’s legal obligations to respect indigenous peoples’ rights to land and resources and the World Bank’s own safeguard policies. 

The UN Human Rights Council – the highest body in the UN tasked with overseeing human rights law – has just finished meeting in Geneva. In a statement, a group of indigenous peoples’ organisations and non-governmental organisations urged the Council to urgently consider, and provide guidance on, the human rights obligations of multilateral finance institutions, an issue of key importance as these institutions review and update their safeguard systems. 

Source: BloombergIndonesia’s forest and peatland fires have flared up again this season, sending smoke and haze from the island of Sumatra north across the Malacca Strait to Malaysia. The fires are now an annual consequence of the mismanagement of Indonesia’s forests. With the removal of a single word from the country’s constitution, however, that may change for the better.

Source: AljazeeraThe "resource curse" is alive and well in the global south, as natural resource development deepens poverty.Geneva, Switzerland - Economic development is widely assumed to bring the blessings of higher standards of living and to be a quick fix for cash poor countries. However, there are many who look at economic development and instead consider it to be a curse in the "global south" - South America, Africa, and Asia - and also in parts of the more industrialised world where indigenous peoples live.

In an embarrassing u-turn the Peruvian Vice Ministry of Culture has withdrawn its formal observations on the proposed expansion of the Camisea gas project within a Reserve for isolated peoples which included the conclusions that the health, traditional economic activities and ways of life of the indigenous peoples in ‘initial contact’ and ‘voluntary isolation’ (‘isolated peoples’) in the region will be severely impacted and two of them, the Nanti and the Kirineri, could be made ‘extinct.’

The Indonesian government has issued an industrial timber plantation licence for use on the Zanegi community’s customary lands to timber company PT Selaras Inti Semesta, a subsidiary of the Medco Group, whose concession extends over 169,400 ha, and which is one of over 80 companies operating as part of the government-sponsored Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) agro-industrial mega-project.

Over 70 activists and leaders of Latin America’s indigenous peoples movement have written to President Maduro of Venezuela urging his intervention to end the repression of the Yukpa people in the Sierra de Perija region. This began with the Yukpa’s violent eviction from their lands in the 1920s and has continued to this day in the form of repeated imprisonment and oppression of their leaders and even their assassination including that of Sabino Romero in March 2013. The organisations urge President Maduro’s intervention to end the militarisation of the area, initiate processes of peaceful dialogue and fully implement Venezuela’s constitutional commitment to recognise indigenous peoples’ ‘original rights over the lands they have traditionally and ancestrally used and occupied’.

Source: The TimesThree ministers in Peru have resigned in protest at plans to drill for oil in a reserve for indigenous tribes, who risk being exposed to diseases that could kill them (James Hider writes). 

En el día internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas establecido cada 9 de agosto por las Naciones Unidas a través de su Asamblea General en el año 1994, la FAPI se dirige a la comunidad nacional e internacional haciendo propicia la fecha por su importancia, para dar a conocer sus consideraciones ante la coyuntura que atraviesa actualmente el Paraguay.

"GENEVA (07 August 2013) –States need to do more to honour and strengthen their treaties with indigenous peoples, no matter how long ago they were signed, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay has said in a statement to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on 9 August.“Even when signed or otherwise agreed more than a century ago, many treaties remain the cornerstone for the protection of the identity, land and customs of indigenous peoples, determining the relationship they have with the State. They are thus of major significance to human rights today,” she said.

Today, we commemorate the world’s indigenous peoples day with our fellow indigenous brothers and sisters across the globe. We gather in different places to celebrate the gains and achievements that we have had in the course of our struggles for the recognition, respect and protection of our rights as distinct peoples with collective rights. At the same time, we continue to address the challenges and emerging issues that seriously impact on our rights and well being.