Economic and Social Council: Meetings Coverage

While indigenous peoples made undeniable contributions to humanity’s cultural diversity, representatives of aboriginal and native groups appealed today for help from the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, saying they still faced systemic discrimination and exclusion from political and economic power, forced ejection from their ancestral lands, and depredation from profit-hungry corporations bent on destroying their life-giving forests.

The “painful” history of State control over forests could be traced by following the heavily deforested footprints that colonizers had left on indigenous lands and territories, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was told today during a half-day discussion on indigenous peoples and forests.

In a resumed organizational session today, the Economic and Social Council adopted three draft decisions and filled vacancies in 18 of its subsidiary bodies, with five requiring votes.

The expert members of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today turned their attention to the historical root of ongoing violations of indigenous peoples’ human rights, so-called “discovery doctrines”, which for centuries served as “legal” rationale for stealing land and dehumanizing aboriginal peoples, as well as justification for the establishment of boarding schools throughout North America to “civilize” Indian children.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today tackled emerging issues and matters related its future work, grappling with how to change a host of discriminatory policies ‑‑ and attitudes ‑‑ that had landed high numbers of indigenous youth in prison, perpetuated cyclical unemployment, favoured corporate interests over indigenous land rights and generally ignored native peoples’ vulnerability to climate change.

The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today held an in-depth dialogue with representatives of two United Nations entities working to better integrate the concerns of indigenous peoples and enhance their participation in the Organization’s work in two vital areas: access and benefit sharing from genetic resources; and protecting the practices and innovations of indigenous and local communities.

“The violations of indigenous peoples are deep, systemic and widespread,”United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, James Anaya, told the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today, as he briefed delegates on the second year of his mandate.

Corroborating reports that indigenous Guaraní communities in South America’s vast Chaco region -- shared by Bolivia and Paraguay -- continued to be routinely chased off their lands, pressed into debt bondage and forced to live in squalor, members of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called today on both Governments to take full responsibility for ending forced labour and expropriation of ancestral lands and territories.

The devastating impacts of logging, mining and land conversion had displaced indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands, commercialized their cultures and politically repressed their leaders, speakers in the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues stressed today, as they pressed the 16-member advisory body -– and their Governments -- for help in achieving equitable and “restorative” development in their countries.

The annual United Nations forum on indigenous issues opened today with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling on Member States to promote development while respecting indigenous cultures and traditions, and with the Government of New Zealand taking the opportunity to announce that it would reverse its decision and support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples.