Involving indigenous people benefits business, environment: UN expert

August 10, 2017

indigenous tourism development

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Gov­ern­ments too often sidestep indi­gen­ous people when approv­ing new infra­struc­ture pro­jects on their land, ignor­ing the poten­tial for sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and envir­on­ment­ally-friendly devel­op­ment, a UN expert said on Tuesday.

A land­mark United Nations declar­a­tion adop­ted 10 years ago declared author­it­ies should seek con­sent from indi­gen­ous people before start­ing new infra­struc­ture pro­jects like mines and dams.

But even gov­ern­ments that adop­ted the declar­a­tion some­times seek short­cuts to work around it, said Vic­tor­ia Tauli-Cor­puz, UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the Rights of Indi­gen­ous People.

“There is really a great mis­con­cep­tion and mis­un­der­stand­ing that enfor­cing indi­gen­ous peoples’ rights is usu­ally an obstacle to nation­al devel­op­ment,” she told the Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion in an interview.

Indi­gen­ous people and rur­al com­munit­ies have cus­tom­ary claims to two thirds of the world’s land but are leg­ally recog­nised as hold­ing only 10 per­cent, accord­ing to the Rights and Resources Ini­ti­at­ive (RRI).

UN stand­ards stip­u­late com­pan­ies should adhere to the prin­ciple of free, pri­or and informed con­sent, mean­ing a com­munity has the right to give or with­hold its con­sent to pro­posed pro­jects that may affect the lands they cus­tom­ar­ily own, occupy or oth­er­wise use.

indigenous tourism inclusive growth

Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the rights of indi­gen­ous peoples Vic­tor­ia Tauli-Cor­puz. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

A 2016 study of 50 com­pan­ies showed only 10 per­cent referred to the prin­ciple when nego­ti­at­ing with com­munit­ies over land.

Without title deeds prov­ing own­er­ship, com­munit­ies may find their land is taken over for major devel­op­ment pro­jects, which Tauli-Cor­puz said gov­ern­ments often wrongly assume loc­als would oppose even before speak­ing to them.

“In many cases indi­gen­ous people just want to be con­sul­ted, they want to be par­ti­cip­at­ing in the decisions that are made,” she said by phone on the eve of the Inter­na­tion­al Day of the World’s Indi­gen­ous Peoples on Wednesday.

Involving indi­gen­ous people in the man­age­ment of nat­ur­al resources also ensures these are exploited in a sus­tain­able way, said Tauli-Corpuz.

Research showed indi­gen­ous com­munit­ies played an import­ant role in the pre­ser­va­tion of forests in the Phil­ip­pines and Brazil, she said.

“If indi­gen­ous peoples’ rights are respec­ted then there are bet­ter chances of sus­tain­ably con­serving and using these nat­ur­al resources,” she said.

Fail­ing to engage with indi­gen­ous com­munit­ies gen­er­ally leads to dis­con­tent and con­flict, which also hampers eco­nom­ic growth, said Tauli-Corpuz.

At least 200 land rights act­iv­ists were killed in 24 coun­tries in 2016, mak­ing it the dead­li­est year on record, accord­ing to human rights watch­dog Glob­al Wit­ness. Almost 40 per­cent of those murdered were indigenous.

An estim­ated 370 mil­lion indi­gen­ous people live spread across 70 coun­tries, accord­ing to UN data.

Source: Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reuters.

Fea­tured image: Indi­gen­ous people peel­ing maize while over­look­ing Quito from El Pan­e­cillo, Ecuador. By Diego Del­so (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wiki­me­dia.

Lirrwi Indigenous Tourism in Arnhem Land NT. By Lirrwi Tourism via Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rodeime/14639285538

Lir­rwi Indi­gen­ous Tour­ism in Arnhem Land, North­ern Ter­rit­ory, Aus­tralia. By Lir­rwi Tour­ism via Flickr.

What is the Rights & Resources Initiative?

As a diverse coali­tion of devel­op­ment organ­isa­tions ded­ic­ated to advan­cing the land and resource rights of indi­gen­ous peoples and loc­al com­munit­ies, RRI fosters the cre­ation and imple­ment­a­tion of innov­at­ive solu­tions to land ten­ure secur­ity to advance three glob­al goals:

  • Sub­stan­tially increase the forest area under loc­al own­er­ship and administration.
    Pre­vent all changes to nation­al laws and reg­u­la­tions that weak­en the cus­tom­ary and stat­utory land rights of Indi­gen­ous Peoples and loc­al com­munit­ies and sim­ul­tan­eously pro­mote new laws that strengthen cus­tom­ary and stat­utory rights.
    Dra­mat­ic­ally reduce poverty in the for­es­ted areas of the world.

Source: RRI.

What is Global Witness?

Glob­al Wit­ness says it “exposes the hid­den links between demand for nat­ur­al resources, cor­rup­tion, armed con­flict and envir­on­ment­al destruction”.

Its mis­sion: “Many of the world’s worst envir­on­ment­al and human rights abuses are driv­en by the exploit­a­tion of nat­ur­al resources and cor­rup­tion in the glob­al polit­ic­al and eco­nom­ic sys­tem. Glob­al Wit­ness is cam­paign­ing to end this. We carry out hard-hit­ting invest­ig­a­tions, expose these abuses, and cam­paign for change. We are inde­pend­ent, not-for-profit, and work with part­ners around the world in our fight for justice.”

Source: Glob­al Wit­ness.

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