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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
"I am trying to save the knowledge that the forests and this
planet are alive, to give it back to you who have lost the
understanding".
-- a Kayapo (Brazil) Indian leader
In their farming and in their faith, indigenous peoples exercise
vital stewardship over the Earth's resources and environment.
Their traditional agricultural methods promote land conservation
and biological diversity. Their religious practices often involve
setting aside forests and other lands as sacred preserves for
wildlife, spirits and dieties. Where most of humankind tends to
seek dominion over the natural world, indigenous people generally
favor a holistic approach that is the very essence of sustainable
development -- development which meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs.
With crises such as global warming, deforestation, desertification
and depletion of the ozone layer surging to the top of the
international agenda, indigenous people find themselves in an
ironic position. Once dismissed as too "primitive" to cope with
modernization, and for centuries the victims of discrimination,
land seizures and worse, indigenous people have begun to be
recognized for their prowess at environmental management -- and
acknowledged as key players in the global effort to chart a more
hopeful course of development for the future of humanity.
The contribution that indigenous peoples can make to sustainable
development, and the link between sustainable development and the
need to respect the human rights of indigenous peoples, are
subjects certain to gain considerable attention during 1993, the
International Year for the World's Indigenous People.
The Year was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in
order to strengthen "international cooperation for the solution of
problems faced by indigenous communities in areas such as human
rights, the environment, development, education and health". The
Under-Secretary-General for Human Rights was named Coordinator for
the Year, and the Centre for Human Rights in Geneva is the
coordinating body for the Year's activities.
Indigenous Peoples at the Earth Summit Indigenous peoples adopted
a high profile at the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED), the unprecedented gathering of world leaders,
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), business executives,
educators, students, grassroots workers and others held in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. Many indigenous groups attended
the Conference, also known as the Earth Summit, while others
voiced their concerns at the Global Forum, a series of events,
seminars and exhibits held across town from the Summit.
Increasingly at ease in the world of international diplomacy,
indigenous people left an imprint on two of the Summit's main
achievements: the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
a broad statement of principles outlining the rights and
responsibilities of States towards the environment; and Agenda 21,
a far-reaching blueprint for action.
Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration states, "Indigenous people and
their communities ... have a vital role in environmental
management and development because of their knowledge and
traditional practices. States should recognize and duly support
their identity, culture and interests and enable their effective
participation in the achievement of sustainable development".
Agenda 21 also views indigenous people as fundamental to
environmental recovery and recommends using their experience and
knowledge in sustainable development. Among other things, the
document calls for greater empowerment of indigenous communities,
more and better safeguards against environmentally unsound
activities that could affect indigenous people or their lands, and
improvements in the overall quality of life of indigenous peoples.
Victims of Environmental Degradation An enormous gap remains,
however, between the goals set forth in Rio and the plight of
indigenous peoples. In the last 40 years, indigenous lands have
come under relentless pressure as Governments, development banks,
national and transnational corporations and entrepreneurs search
for resources to meet the growing demands of high-consumption
industrialized societies and the needs of fast-swelling
populations in developing countries. Once largely inaccessible,
these regions and their mineral deposits, hydro-electric
potential, hardwoods, oil and new farm and pasture lands have been
put within reach by modern technology. The long tenure of
indigenous peoples upon their lands has proved to be little
protection.
Mercury used by gold miners has poisoned nearly 1,500 kilometers
of the Amazon river systems. Miners have also brought unfamiliar
diseases to the region; many of Brazil's Yanomami Indians have
died as a result of conditions for which they lack immunities. In
Ecuador, decades of petroleum exploration and drilling have caused
widespread environmental damage affecting that country's Indians.
The toxification of society is also a problem. Every year in
Canada, five million gallons of hazardous waste are dumped into
the St. Lawrence River, which Mohawk Indians (as well as
non-indigenous communities) depend on for fishing and drinking
water. Waste-dumping in oceans, wetlands and coastal areas has
tainted the traditional fishing grounds of many indigenous
peoples, including the Inuit of North America. Acid rain has
killed thousands of lakes and vast forest tracts in North America
and northern Europe, particularly Scandinavia, home to Saami and
other indigenous peoples. Nuclear testing has exposed Pacific
islanders to unacceptable levels of radioactivity.
By far the most grievous environmental catastrophe to have
befallen indigenous people, one that threatens not only their
livelihoods and social fabric but their very existence, is the
ongoing destruction of the world's tropical rainforests. Home to
50 million indigenous people, rainforests are being logged to feed
a lucrative export market and burned to clear new land for grazing
or crops.
The results have been devastating: flooding, loss of biological
diversity, desertification, destruction of sacred sites,
disruption of traditional economic activities such as fishing and
hunting, forced relocation and displacement. The fallout has also
included poverty, mental anguish, alcoholism, prostitution and
high suicide rates, the latter especially pronounced among the
young.
At the current rate of deforestation, the virgin forests of
Malaysia, where the Kenyah and Orang Ulu people live, will
disappear within a decade. Indigenous peoples elsewhere in Asia
-- Indonesia, India and Nepal, for example -- as well as in South
America and Africa, are also at risk. Development projects such
as dam-building and irrigation schemes have had similar effects.
One reason indigenous peoples are on the front lines of
environmental degradation is that they inhabit some of the world's
most valuable lands. Most of the significant mineral deposits in
Australia are on Aboriginal territories. The Guajiro of Colombia
are sitting on one of the largest undeveloped coal mines in the
world. Asia's largest iron ore mine is in the heart of Dandami
territory in India. Another reason is that indigenous peoples
also inhabit many of the world's most vulnerable ecosystems --the
arctic and tundra, tropical rainforests, boreal forests, riverine
and coastal zones, mountains, semi-arid rangelands.
The global nature of many environmental problems adds yet another
layer of urgency. The rapid disappearance of the world's forests,
for example, means there will be fewer "sinks" to moderate global
warming by absorbing carbon dioxide, making it in everyone's
interest to preserve forests and other habitats of indigenous
peoples.
The Human Rights Connection As victims of environmental
degradation or inappropriate development, indigenous people find
their human rights and fundamental freedoms ignored or violated at
almost every turn. Indigenous peoples are not usually consulted
during the planning stages of development. They are often not
compensated for the use of their lands and resources. In most
countries, legal protections against environmentally unsound
actions are minimal or nonexistent. Their very right to
development, and an array of economic, social, cultural, political
and civil rights, as spelled out in the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenants on Human
Rights, are consistently denied.
Thus, notwithstanding the progress indigenous peoples have made in
recent years in terms of their visibility and organizational
competence, they remain widely dissatisfied with their lot and
with the pace of change. Their representatives expressed as much
at Rio, issuing a Rio Declaration of Indigenous Peoples in which
they stated that "the voices of traditional peoples are not being
heard", that their involvement in the formal proceedings was
little more than "window dressing" and that their exclusion was
"colonial racism in all of its institutional forms".
Miguel Alfonso Martinez, a member of the United Nations Working
Group on Indigenous Populations, said in 1992 that recognition and
implementation of the human rights of indigenous peoples would
lead to the sustainable development desired by indigenous peoples
and the protection of natural resources in States. Placing the
problem in a broader framework, he added that "development for
indigenous peoples cannot be separated from the North-South
conflict and the current unjust economic order".
Model Conservationists In 1987, the United Nations World
Commission on Environment and Development stated that the
international community could learn a great deal from the
traditional skills of indigenous peoples in managing complex
ecological systems. More recently, a head of State told his
citizens to listen and learn from indigenous peoples, who he said
had always respected and lived in harmony with nature and who
pursued the type of development his country now wished to follow.
Indigenous peoples have developed successful systems of land use
and resource management, including nomadic pastoralism, shifting
cultivation, various forms of agro-forestry, terrace agriculture,
hunting, herding and fishing. They also possess extensive
knowledge of herbal medicine, soils, plants, animals and climate.
The Kayapo of Brazil, for example, practice sophisticated methods
of cultivation such as seed selection and crop rotation to ensure
regrowth and replenishment of the forest. The Hanunoo of the
Phillipines distinguish 1,600 plant species in their forests, 400
more than scientists working in the same area. Many indigenous
peoples view themselves as the world's most experienced
environmentalists.
Unfortunately, indigenous people have also engaged in
unsustainable practices. Like other communities living in
poverty, who are often faced with a choice between short-term
survival and long-term environmental health, some indigenous
people have had to hunt wildlife to near extinction and have had
to cultivate marginal lands using slash-and-burn agriculture.
Even relatively well-off indigenous people have veered from the
path of sustainability. For example, new fishing technologies
employed by the indigenous peoples of Greenland, who have enjoyed
home rule since 1979, have contributed, along with climatic and
biological changes, to the depletion of local fish stocks.
Nevertheless, Greenland's home-rule government is committed to
sustainable development, and on the whole, experts say the
planet's healthy ecosystems tend to be found in areas inhabited by
indigenous people.
United Nations Technical Conference The role of indigenous peoples
in the practice of sustainable development was the focus of
attention as representatives of Governments and indigenous groups,
and independent experts on indigenous peoples, gathered in
Santiago, Chile, in May 1992 for a Technical Conference held as
part of the run-up to the Earth Summit.
One expert pointed out that indigenous peoples live under two
types of economic regimes: the dominant economy, which sees the
environment as property and as profit-generating raw material, and
their own informal economy, which sees the environment as a
renewable resource and life-support system to be conserved for
posterity. Reconciling the two, said this expert, means
establishing equity between indigenous peoples and outsiders so
that the latter will have to negotiate with indigenous peoples and
seek their collaboration in matters affecting their lands.
This need for indigenous peoples to exercise greater jurisdiction
over their own affairs was included in a set of working principles
drawn up by the Conference's participants. Indigenous peoples,
the principles stated, should have the right to determine their
own development, control their own institutions and use their
resources as they see fit. The Santiago Conference also called
for increased recognition of indigenous knowledge and promotion of
indigenous research into the environment.
Towards a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples To date, the special relationship indigenous people have
with their land and the environment has yet to be recognized by a
human rights instrument of the United Nations. Nor has indigenous
knowledge found a place in the emerging international law
concerning the environment.
If indigenous peoples have their way, this could change. Since
1985, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations
has been drafting a Universal Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples. The draft covers the full range of indigenous
concerns, among them self-government or autonomy in matters
relating to their own internal and local affairs, preservation and
development of ethnic and cultural identities, and rights related
to religions, languages and educational institutions.
The issues of land, resources, environmental protection and
development are mentioned throughout the proposed Declaration.
Specifically, the draft states that indigenous peoples have the
right to:
* "recognition of their distinctive and profound relationship with
the total environment of the lands, territories and resources
which they have traditionally occupied or otherwise used" and to
"own, control and use" those lands;
* "protection and ... rehabilitation of the total environment and
productive capacity of their lands and territories"; and
* "engage freely in their traditional and other economic
activities, including hunting, fishing, herding, gathering,
lumbering and cultivation".
The Working Group hopes to complete the draft Declaration by the
end of the International Year.
The Road from Rio In a sense, indigenous peoples constitute an
early-warning system for environmental problems. Because "Mother
Earth" is the core of their culture, the provider of everyday
material needs and spiritual sustenance as well, indigenous
peoples are among the first to suffer when the polluting,
unsustainable practices of the prevailing societies around them
encroach upon their existence.
But of course, indigenous peoples are not just the proverbial
canary in a coal mine. Mario Ibarra, a Chilean expert on
indigenous peoples, says, "Indigenous peoples have a message for
the world about their relationship to life and nature. Their
concept of development goes against and beyond that of individual
development: the land is sacred, it is not merchandise to be
exploited, but a base of life for all. The land should be
preserved for future generations...".
So what is to be done? Indigenous peoples have been heartened to
see significant provisions concerning their rights, particularly
on land and resource issues, begin to make their way into the
constitutions of many States and into other national legislation.
In some countries, self-rule agreements, autonomous arrangements
and other forms of collaboration between Governments and
indigenous peoples are taking shape. International lending
agencies such as the World Bank have pledged to be more sensitive
to the concerns of indigenous peoples when making decisions about
development projects.
Indigenous groups also hope that States will honor the commitments
they made to the ambitious action programme contained in Agenda
21. Towards this end, indigenous peoples are seeking a role in a
United Nations body whose creation was proposed in Agenda 21 -- a
Commission on Sustainable Development, which would monitor
Government compliance with pledges made in Rio in much the same
way that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights monitors
worldwide respect for human rights. The General Assembly was
scheduled to consider this proposal at its 47th session.
The International Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples offers
indigenous peoples an exceptional opportunity to make their case
for other goals as well, such as more widespread ratification of
the International Labour Organisation's Convention No. 169, which
is currently the main international legal instrument protecting
the rights of indigenous peoples; increased Government, United
Nations and NGO support for the Voluntary Fund for the
Interntional Year for the World's Indigenous People; and greater
global support for the Fund for the Development of Indigenous
Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean and for the creation of
similar funds for Africa, Asia, the Pacific and other regions.
Preservation of indigenous peoples is indissolubly linked to the
fate of their lands and natural resources. The bond between
sustainable development and respect for human rights is, perhaps,
just as close. As indigenous peoples continue their fight to live
with dignity and greater self-sufficiency, they await redress and
resolution of a host of concerns. Environmental issues offer the
best opportunity for States and indigenous groups to find common
ground.