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International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity: Opening statement

COP 6 The Hague April 8, 2002

Dear Madame Chair, I have the honour of addressing this Conference of the Parties on behalf of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, which convened in the City of The Hague from April 6-7, 2002. First I would like to take the opportunity to thank the government of the Netherlands for its hospitality.

During the 5th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in its decision V/16, the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity was given advisory status. Therefore it is our role to call attention to our concerns and issues at this sixth meeting of the Parties.

Madame Chair, we have repeatedly emphasized that defining the estimated 600 million members of the world's diverse Indigenous Peoples who speak over 3000 languages as stakeholder is inadequate and inappropriate. We are rights holders.

Our territories and lands contain the highest level of biodiversity on the planet. Our unique spiritual relationship and lifestyles we have maintained with Mother Earth and have guaranteed her conservation since time immemorial. Indigenous Peoples have a fundamental role to play in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and in the pursuit of sustainable development.

We wish to stress that Indigenous women's participation is vital at all levels in this process. Indigenous women possess a unique and essential body of knowledge that is critical to the protection, conservation and sustainable use of the environment.

Madame Chair, this year marks the 10 years since of the signing of the environmental agreements coming out of Rio. This year, has been declared the International Year of the Mountain and the International Year on Eco-Tourism. We are concerned that greater emphasis is now being placed on international agreements promoting globalization and trade agreements such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. These are at the expense of the obligations and spirit of the Rio Summit.

These agreements in practice mean the violation of our territorial rights and rights as Indigenous Peoples. Beyond environmental degradation, they have resulted in the unrecoverable loss of languages, knowledges and cultures and the impoverishment of our Peoples, all of which are contrary to the objectives and spirit of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Even 10 years after Rio, Indigenous Peoples are still confronting hydroelectric development, mining, oil exploration, and forestry projects in their traditional lands.

Madame Chair, in eleven of the 29 decisions adopted at COP 5, the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples was called for. However this has yet to be achieved due to the lack of political will of the Parties. Further, Madame Chair, our collective rights as Indigenous Peoples are recognized within the following international instruments including:

  • the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues;

  • the International Covenants on Human Rights;

  • the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination;

  • the Convention on the Rights of the Child;

  • the ILO Convention 169;

  • the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and;

  • the Draft Inter-American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of the Organization of American States.

 

The rights enshrined within these instruments and agreements include:

  • self-determination,

  • rights to our lands,

  • territories,

  • customary legal systems,

  • institutions,

  • languages,

  • cultural heritage,

  • control over our own knowledge,

  • self-development,

  • free and prior informed consent to many activities that affects our peoples, and

  • the right to participation in all decisions that concern our peoples.


Madame Chair, as an advisory body to the Conference of Parties the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity has developed general and specific recommendations on the issues within the agenda for COP6 that we will present for consideration by the Parties at this meeting. We hereby request that this statement and future recommendations that we present during the meeting be formally incorporated into the final report of COP6.

Thank you, Madame Chair.