Rolling back social and environmental safeguards in the time of COVID-19

Summary

Countries have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by weakening or removing legal and policy protections for indigenous peoples’ rights. New evidence reveals a dangerous trend: In the five countries with the world’s largest areas of tropical forest[i]—Brazil, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia and Peru—governments have been rolling back social and environmental laws, regulations and safeguards out of ‘economic necessity’ and exploitative opportunism.

In all five countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterised by policies and practices that violate the rights of indigenous peoples. They include legislative and regulatory change; the exclusion of indigenous peoples from decision-making processes; the expansion of industrial activities; increased land grabbing, illegal mining and illegal logging in or near indigenous territories; and an alarming growth in the criminalisation of, and violence against, indigenous human rights defenders.

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Key findings

1. States are prioritising the expansion of the energy sector, infrastructure, mining and logging and the development of industrial agriculture in or near indigenous territories, while failing to protect the land and self-determination rights of indigenous peoples, including their right to free, prior and informed consent to projects affecting their lands and lives.
2. States are not enforcing domestic or international law prohibiting land grabbing and are facilitating illegal deforestation, agribusiness expansion and mining in or near indigenous peoples’ territories. Despite an overall economic slowdown, deforestation is surging and is likely to get worse in 2021 as governments continue to promote the expansion of industrial-scale extractive industry activities.
3. States have developed and are enacting land-use and planning policies and potentially harmful regulations that violate indigenous peoples’ rights, and have unilaterally weakened regulations for prior consultation, compounding the harm caused by existing policies and regulation.
4. Indigenous peoples who try to assert their rights are facing increased violence, arrests and criminal prosecution in a climate of inflammatory lies and disinformation.

This process of deregulation and associated rights-violating policies and practices, the full extent of which have yet to come to light, is likely to get worse as governments continue to favour economic recovery over human rights and the environment. Already, throughout the pandemic, governments have treated indigenous peoples’ health and lives as less important than the expansion of mining, logging and industrial agriculture in or near their territories, which has often spread COVID-19 within their communities.

The exploitation of the pandemic to grab land for mining, logging and industrial agriculture is a significant threat not just to indigenous peoples but to vast areas of tropical forest within their customary lands and territories.

Indigenous peoples are asserting their rights

Indigenous peoples have taken steps to protect their rights by, for example: continuing to self-demarcate and monitor their lands, territories and resources; developing laws and protocols on free, prior and informed consent; filing legal challenges to government misinformation, harmful deregulation proposals and abusive actions; and using national, regional and international human rights mechanisms to draw attention to their situation and seek remedies.

Advocacy has focused on strengthening indigenous communities’ autonomous self-governance institutions and on securing tenure and the territorial control necessary for them to achieve self-determined development and economic resilience.

What needs to be done immediately?

• All governments must implement economic recovery in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; ensure indigenous peoples’ right to self-determined development; uphold their state obligations under international human rights treaties; and show political support for and commitment to promoting the effective implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
• International financial institutions and multinational corporations with supply chains in tropical forested countries must uphold their obligations to ensure that their business practices do not benefit from or contribute to indigenous rights violations or deforestation and the resulting contributions to global warming.
• The pandemic is being used as an excuse to justify regressions in compliance with international standards on the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples. Therefore, donor governments, international financial institutions, and other international and multilateral bodies must demand that the governments of highly tropically forested countries guarantee the rights of indigenous peoples so that they can freely manage their territories and resources. These guarantees must include protection of indigenous leaders and community monitors who protect their territories from state-sponsored activities conducted without ‘good faith’ consultation and consent.
• Indigenous traditional land management and forest protection systems have proven to be much more efficient and effective than state conservation policies. Therefore, international development institutions, conservation organisations, and those funding them should redirect their funds to indigenous peoples and their institutions, forest management and monitoring programmes.
• Donor governments and international development institutions should encourage the governments of highly tropically forested countries to provide, protect and fund systems of indigenous participation, at all levels, in decisions about programmes and projects that may affect indigenous territories.
• Organisations offering COVID-19 response and recovery funding or programmes must enhance their due diligence and related social and environmental safeguard systems, monitor rigorously, and provide accessible and effective grievance mechanisms to ensure that social and environmental safeguards are fully implemented. These measures are particularly important for international organisations that offer finance or technical assistance to high-risk sectors, such as mining, agribusiness, energy, and large-scale infrastructure, and that help shape public policy and legislation.
• All governments should enact legislation that requires their companies to undertake human rights and environmental due diligence across their supply chains. Consultation should be held with indigenous peoples to capture their perspectives on due diligence measures.

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[i] Rhett Butler, “Largest area of tropical forest, by country,” Mongabay, 11 January 2016.