Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today heard myriad challenges these communities face in pursuing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as calls for indigenous peoples’ inclusion at the highest level of decision-making by granting them Observer Status in the General Assembly.

Indigenous peoples face a worrying escalation in their criminalization and harassment, especially when defending and exercising rights to their territories and natural resources, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues heard today as it continued its third day of discussions.

Traditional knowledge is at the core of indigenous identity, culture, languages, heritage and livelihoods, and its transmission from one generation to the next must be protected, preserved and encouraged, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stressed today, as they opened its eighteenth session.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues concluded its seventeenth session today with the adoption of recommendations to protect and advance indigenous peoples’ rights worldwide, stressing that indigenous peoples’ collective rights to lands, territories and resources not only serve their own well-being, but also help address some of the most pressing global challenges, such as climate change and the loss of biological diversity.

Indigenous women faced myriad forms of violence, and in the United States, murder rates that were 10 times the national average, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues heard today, as participants considered the range of problems impairing or outright blocking the exercise of basic rights.

Government decisions to build roads, power plants and dams in the name of prosperity threatened the lives of indigenous peoples around the world, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stressed today, amid calls to protect native lands and resources from such development aggression.

More than 1,000 indigenous participants from all over the world will be at United Nations Headquarters from 16 to 27 April to participate in the seventeenth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.  This year’s session is focused on indigenous peoples’ collective rights to lands, territories and natural resources.

Without respect and recognition for traditional environmental practices and land rights, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development would fail to achieve its full potential to protect the Earth and all its inhabitants, speakers told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on the penultimate day of its sixteenth session.

Seeking informed consent from indigenous peoples before undertaking projects affecting their territories and resources was crucial to their survival and human rights, participants told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today.