Extractive industries

FPP works closely with local communities and indigenous peoples’ organisations to support them in their struggles against destructive development projects. We promote the direct involvement of affected communities in discussions with the private sector to ensure that ‘best practice’ industry standards on forestry, plantations, dams, palm oil and logging respect the rights of indigenous and forest peoples to their customary lands and to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) about industry actions that affect them.

Relevant resources

Experiences of indigenous peoples in Africa with safeguard policies: Examples from Cameroon and the Congo Basin

29 April, 2013

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. The setting up in 2001 by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) of a Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities and the Group’s report submitted to and adopted by the ACHPR in 2003 have brought a new perspective to this problem. In this report for the first time there was a unanimous acceptance of the existence of indigenous peoples in Africa and this kicked off discussions on how countries could begin to integrate the rights of these peoples into the human rights mainstream. The indigenous peoples of Central Africa include the mostly hunter gatherer peoples commonly called the “Pygmies” and a number of pastoralist peoples. These peoples still suffer discrimination experienced through the dispossession of their land and destruction of their livelihoods, cultures and identities, extreme poverty, lack of access to and participation in political decision-making and lack of access to education and health facilities.

The IDB, Camisea and Peru: A sorry, sorry safeguards story

29 April, 2013

Gas pipeline construction in the Peruvian Amazon as part of the controversial Camisea gas project, partly funded by the IADB

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. When the Bank adopted one in 2006, a key provision on isolated peoples was ignored when it made a US$400m loan the following year. Meanwhile, attempts by the Bank to ‘protect’ a reserve for indigenous peoples in ‘voluntary isolation’ directly impacted by the Camisea project have proven almost entirely ineffective and are now being further undermined by plans to expand operations within the Reserve. The IDB is required to approve these plans and could do so imminently.

Studies show serious mercury poisoning of indigenous peoples in Caura, Venezuela

23 April, 2013

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.

Declaration of Merida - Spanish (0.1 MB)

SDI (Liberia), CED (Cameroon) and Forest Peoples Programme Side Event at 53rd Session of the African Commission: Extractive industries, environment and human rights in Africa - 11th April 2013

11 April, 2013

SIDE EVENT AT 53RD SESSION OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES' RIGHTS:

Extractive industries, environment and human rights in Africa: Impacts on indigenous peoples and local communities in Liberia and Cameroon

When: Thursday 11th April 6pm

Where: Main hall at the Kairaba Beach Hotel, Banjul, The Gambia

Organised by: Sustainable Development Institute (Liberia), Centre pour L’Environnement et le Développement (Cameroon) and Forest Peoples Programme.

Side Event Flyer- English (0.5 MB)

Amazonian Indigenous Peoples oppose government mining expansion plans

10 April, 2013

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.

Statement - Spanish (2.7 MB)

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (UNCERD) calls on the government of Peru to suspend plans to expand Camisea gas development in Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti Reserve in South East Peru

18 March, 2013

Click here to read UNCERD's formal communication to the Permanent Mission of Peru (in Spanish only), which calls on the Peruvian government to suspend plans to expand the Camisea gas project in the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti Reserve for peoples in isolation and initial contact. 1 March 2013.

Letter - Spanish (0.1 MB)

Yukpa leader assassinated for resisting coal mining in western Venezuela

4 March, 2013

Yukpa leader and activist, Sabino Romero, was assassinated on 3 March 2013, according to the Venezuelan national human rights organisation, Provea.

Background information - English (0.2 MB)

COIAM Statement - Spanish (0.2 MB)

GTAI Statement - Spanish (0.1 MB)

International organisations request intervention of Peruvian President to prohibit expansion of Camisea gas project within Reserve for isolated indigenous peoples

1 March, 2013

On 22 February 2013, 58 international human rights and environmental organisations (including Friends of the Earth-France, the Sierra Club and Rainforest Foundation Norway) submitted a letter to President Ollanta Humala appealing for the prohibition of expansion plans of the Camisea gas project within the ‘Territorial Reserve for ethnic groups in voluntary isolation and initial contact, Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti and others’ (KNN Reserve). These plans include proposals to carry out intensive seismic testing and build twenty-one wells, a flowline and associated infrastructure within ‘Lot 88’, and possibly establish a new concession, ‘Lot Fitzcarrald’, in the adjacent area.

Letter - English (0.4 MB)

Carta - Español (1.6 MB)

Film produced by PUSAKA, SKP-Kane and Gekko Studio: Our Land Has Gone

28 February, 2013

The Malind Anim tribe in Zanegi village, Merauke, Papua, Indonesia are hunter gatherers who rely on the forest for their livelihoods. They are born, raised and get food from the forest. But in the village of Zanegi, times have changed. The MedCo corporation is clearing thousands of hectares of forest, with plans to convert 169,000 hectares of land to industrial tree plantations as part of the million hectaure Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate, known as MIFEE.

Video: Our Land Has Gone

PUSAKA, SKP-KAME and Gekko Studio

28 February, 2013