View previous stories
	Recommendations for Post-Pandemic Measures for Indigenous Peoples by Socrates Vasquez Cultural Survival   July 2021   In April 2021, the 20th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was held. A new precedent was established with a hybrid model meeting with most of the event being held online. In this context of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants presented a series of recommendations to the National States about the post-pandemic measures to be taken to respect, protect, and fulfill Indigenous Peoples’ rights.   A report presented by Dario Jose Mejia Montalvo (Zenu), a member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues, emphasized how Indigenous Peoples have been respectful of other beings on Earth, but nation States, through laws and ill-designed policies have stripped away what Indigenous communities have occupied since time immemorial times continuing the cycle of life.   The same communities that have comprehensively managed and conserved large territories are now increasingly threatened. The right to territory and to protection of the same are fundamental for the lifeways of Indigenous communities and society in general.   Mejia stressed that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the States already abandoned Indigenous communities through discriminatory policies, historical racism, and marginalization.   Some of these exclusions are the lack of access routes and roads to communities; the lack of information and translation about the COVID-19 pandemic into Indigenous languages; barriers in accessing vaccines; and an adequate preventative mobilization in the communities due to inability in accessing information in Indigenous languages.   "The pandemic also evidenced pre-existing inequalities, in many cases, it deepened them. The impact has been greater in the areas of health, economy, and food security, but especially on women, girls and boys."   During this COVID-19 pandemic, many Peoples continue to be dispossessed of their lands and their leaders killed. They die from the pandemic but also from the greed of a consumer society whose happiness is measured in accumulated goods. Throughout the history of Indigenous Peoples, pandemics were used as extermination and colonization strategies, today it also continues in other ways.   The report also mentions: “Some of these causes are due to injustices and historical inequalities that give rise to extreme poverty and exclusion. Indigenous Peoples represent almost 19 percent of the people who suffer extreme poverty and are almost three times more likely to find themselves in that situation than people who do not belong to an Indigenous community.”   Furthermore, Indigenous Peoples “continue to be among the groups with limited access to social protection, in part due to the broader patterns of marginalization, discrimination, and exclusion that affect them. Existing policies and measures to promote Indigenous Peoples' access to social protection are considered insufficient and do not always have their full and effective participation.”   In this session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Indigenous leaders mentioned the importance of calling for “the establishment of effective mechanisms that include the participation of Indigenous leaders, entities, and institutions in decision-making processes, since this is a step important to facilitate inclusive and culturally appropriate measures to address the crisis.”   The importance of carrying out a continental campaign by international organizations and local governments was emphasized so that Indigenous communities can have adequate access to vaccines and overcome the gap of delay that has always been seen in Indigenous territories.   Likewise, it was recognized that “despite all these challenges, Indigenous Peoples are custodians of a large amount of traditional knowledge, practices, languages, ​​and cultures that include responses to crises that have proven their validity over time.   Indigenous Peoples' organizations around the world have quickly organized to respond to the pandemic and have provided food and health aid to remote locations.”   Myrna Cunningham (Miskitu), a doctor from Nicaragua, participated in the session and emphasized that the intercultural approach must permeate throughout the vaccination process, taking into account languages ​​and the ways in which Peoples and communities resolve their health issues, stressing that sufficient resources should be allocated as a means to historical restorative justice.   The most outstanding recommendations mentioned by the panelists and should be addressed urgently are summarized below:   Governments should ensure the effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in all recovery efforts, for example, where culturally relevant health and education services were an integral part of these recovery plans.   It is critical that recovery efforts take into account the effects of the pandemic on Indigenous women and girls and include measures to address them.   States should develop various tools to collect and disseminate quality disaggregated data and indicators that serve as the basis for the development of policies that address the health and socioeconomic impact of the pandemic on Indigenous Peoples.   States and international organizations should also prepare and disseminate culturally appropriate information in Indigenous languages. This would build trust, for example in vaccination campaigns and in the application of social protection programs for Indigenous Peoples.   Governments, financial institutions, and the private sector must end the land grabs, evictions, criminal activities, and general violence that had increased on Indigenous territories during the pandemic, putting people at risk, particularly Indigenous women and children.   In addition, major development projects and natural resource extraction should be carried out in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, respecting the right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determination and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.   In addition, the recognition of the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples to land and territorial security must be enforced, since they increase resilience in the face of crises such as COVID-19.   http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/recommendations-post-pandemic-measures-indigenous-peoples http://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/unpfii-sessions-2/unpfii-20th-session.html http://www.culturalsurvival.org/covid-19 Visit the related web page
	Why local and Indigenous communities are vital to sustainable human development by Krushil Watene United Nations Development Programme New Zealand   Recognizing the role of local and Indigenous communities in creating and charting global change is vital, says Krushil Watene, associate professor at Massey University in New Zealand.   According to the United Nations Development Programme’s “Human Development Report 2020” — of which Watene was an advisory board member — many of the world’s healthiest ecosystems are managed by Indigenous peoples and local communities, whose governance systems, values, and traditions often support biocultural diversity and promote environmental stewardship.   Watene explained that Indigenous and local communities often have rich knowledge of an area, of how areas have changed over time, relationships between species, and how sustainability can be practiced based on many thousands of years of stewardship.   “Indigenous knowledges are really valuable for charting sustainable pathways, to look after the planet, and to protect our biodiversity,” she said.   Yet such communities often face barriers — including limited land tenure and rights — when it comes to protecting their homelands. Implementing local and regional policies, as well as global targets and goals, that help to remove these barriers and promote partnerships with local and Indigenous communities will benefit everyone, Watene said.   “In some cases, that's recognizing the mere existence of Indigenous peoples around the world, but it’s also recognizing the work that they do, recognizing the value that they bring to living landscapes and protecting the natural environment,” she said. “But more than that, the value that Indigenous peoples bring to reimagining how we might live better lives together on this planet.”   Speaking to Devex, Watene explained how collaborative ways of working across communities to share knowledge could support sustainable human development and what can be learned from nature-based solutions.   When it comes to human development and protecting the planet, why is it so important to build synergies between local communities and the conservation of ecosystems?   Well, there are a whole range of reasons. In the report, we talk about the way in which Indigenous peoples manage 20%-25% of the planet's landmass, including upwards of 40% of protected areas. We find Indigenous communities all over the world, from rainforests, for instance, in Southeast Asia and Latin America, to communities in the Arctic and Pacific. One reason is that it just so happens that in some of the most biodiverse places on this planet, Indigenous communities are responsible for taking care of those places and have developed practices for doing just that.   Why is environmental stewardship so central to Indigenous peoples?   A useful place to start is with Indigenous philosophies or ways of thinking about the natural environment. Much of our thinking about the value of the natural environment begins by thinking about value and wellbeing as anthropocentric. We extend our scope of concern outward. We begin with human beings, then we widen the scope to include nonhuman animals, and then even further to different natural entities.   Indigenous philosophy tends to be the other way around. We say that everything matters in some way and so the challenge is to figure out how things matter, how things fit together within a network of relationships, how we navigate the challenges that arise, and what decisions we have to make given that we want to ensure that we enhance the relationships that exist between people and between people and nature.   When you begin with a story about socio-environmental relationships — not ownership — this idea of stewardship and collective flourishing runs at the heart of the philosophy. What falls out of that is this notion of collective continuance — a term that we find in the work of Anishinaabe philosopher Kyle Whyte.   What really matters is our capability for collective continuance – to protect and nurture a community’s capacity to thrive well into the future. I take this to be absolutely central to what the report is trying to do.   It’s trying to bring to life this notion that we're part of a much larger journey of intergenerational and planetary well-being. And if we can imagine ourselves as being an important part of that larger story or legacy, then we rethink our ideas about development, and the purpose of development generally.   How can Indigenous and local knowledge be better embedded in and actively connected to policy and governance in a way that also recognizes their rights?   There is much to gain from developments in law, particularly around the rights of nature movement. The granting of legal personhood and rights is becoming more widespread in Colombia, Ecuador, Australia, and elsewhere.   In Aotearoa — "Land of the Long White Cloud" the Māori name for what is also referred to as New Zealand — legal personhood protections form the basis of the Whanganui River Claims Settlement Act.   Similarly, Te Urewera Act grants the forested land of Te Urewera legal recognition in its own right, describing Te Urewera as, for instance, ancient and enduring, alive with history, mystery, beauty, and being a place that inspires people to commit to its care.   Decisions like these go some way to ensuring resource protection and a goal of sustainable use by recognizing Indigenous communities as guardians and hosts.   The whole idea is built on trying to work together in ways that recognize different knowledge systems. These developments are part of our evolving legal landscape. These kinds of partnerships go some way to recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples, their philosophies, and deep connections to land- and waterways.   What can we learn from nature-based solutions?   In Aotearoa, kaitiakitanga [stewardship of customary land- and seascapes] centers human-nature relationships in intergenerational and reciprocal terms. Our responsibilities to our descendants are grounded in our obligations to our ancestors. Fulfilling these obligations requires knowledge of ecosystem health as well as a commitment to socio-environmental values.   As such — and in light of the recent United Nations assertion that stewardship values are urgently needed to transform our local and global practices — kaitiakitanga, and the notions of socio-environmental care in all Indigenous communities, can play a fundamental sustainability-guiding role.   Māori communities, for instance, have long challenged top-down and one-dimensional well-being and development thinking. Today, communities all around Aotearoa continue to work tirelessly to restore socio-environmental relationships through urban restoration projects, regenerating forests, restoring our waterways, and rethinking food systems.   With the release of the draft Climate Commission Report, the role of local communities and ground-up thinking has only been further reinforced. What's more, the report notes that Aotearoa has a global responsibility for reducing emissions. Local communities are vital in this regard.   Supporting local communities by removing barriers to pursuing low carbon futures and building community capabilities such as collective management approaches is critical.   Aotearoa can be a leading voice in this global conversation, and local communities across the country have a leading role to play. But the same must be said of other countries too. Working in partnership with local communities, and particularly Indigenous communities, everywhere is more important than ever.   The pursuit and realization of our global goals are intimately connected to and dependent on local Indigenous communities. Reducing the gap between them requires urgent attention.   http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/2020-hdr-qa-why-local-and-indigenous-communities-are-vital-sustainable-human-development http://hdr.undp.org/en/2020-report Visit the related web page
	View more stories