Indigenous Women Working for Their Rights
In February, women from 20 different countries met in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to discuss the challenges indigenous women and their communities face in relation to their land rights. The International Workshop on Indigenous Women’s Rights, Lands and Resources was collaboratively held by the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and Forest Peoples Programme (FPP).
Listen here to the voices of indigenous women reflecting on the work of their communities and peoples to protect their rights.
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IDB Land Titling Project in Peruvian Amazon Must be Redesigned to Avoid violating Indigenous Rights and Increasing Deforestation
The future of an 80 million USD land titling project in Peru, financed by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), is on a knife-edge. AIDESEP, Peru’s national indigenous Amazonian peoples’ organisation, argues that conflicts over land and forest destruction will be intensified as a result of the initiative. Indigenous organisations have filed a petition to the Peruvian government demanding a formal process of consultation before the project proceeds.
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Securing Tenure Rights for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities in DRC: Prospects and Challenges of the Recently Signed Community Forestry Decree (CFD)
There have been some significant gains in recent months in the journey towards securing community forest rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On 2nd August 2014, the long-awaited community forestry decree (CFD) was finally signed by the Congolese Prime Minister. This was seen as a notable improvement to the land tenure and forest governance regime in the DRC. Civil society organisations, and indigenous and local communities had been waiting for the decree with high hopes since the Forest Code was adopted in 2002, paving the way for a new forest governance framework.*
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Whakatane Mechanism launched at the WPC in Sydney, November 2014
The previous IUCN World Parks Congress (WPC) was held in Durban, South Africa in 2003. The historic marginalisation of indigenous peoples and local communities from conservation movements and policies resulted in a difficult push for the recognition of local communities’ rights, indigenous peoples’ contribution to conservation and the need for rights-based conservation approaches. Indigenous peoples and local communities were outside the system pushing to get in. However their efforts were successful and helped lead to the recognition of the “new conservation paradigm”.
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A Deforestation Action Plan for the EU: Advocating for Legality and Respect of Rights in Commodity Supply Chains
According to research published by the European Commission last year, the European Union (EU) is the world’s biggest importer of “embodied deforestation”, products linked to deforestation caused by the trade and consumption of forest commodities such as soy, palm oil, biofuel, meat, leather and biomaterials from tropical countries.
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Where will the World Bank Stand on Human Rights?
The World Bank is entering the final stages of reviewing its processes for assessing and managing social and environmental risk at a project level. Originally announced in 2011, consultations on the first draft close on March 1st 2015. The safeguard review process is then expected to come to an end at some point in 2015, after consultations on a second draft, and the new safeguard system to be enforced from January 2016.
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Indigenous Peoples Mobilise in Lima, but Climate Change Conference Fails to Produce Commitments on Rights
Deforestation reports launched and hearing held with the presence of UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Indigenous peoples were centre stage at the Lima UNFCCC COP20 in December 2014. An international dialogue with governments took place before the beginning of the negotiations. Meanwhile initiatives and presentations were organised to underline the need to respect indigenous peoples’ rights as one of the pillars for environmentally sound and socially just mitigation and adaptation.
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Including Indigenous and Local Knowledge in the IPBES
The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) informs policy and decision-making on biodiversity and ecosystem services. (It is an equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the Climate Change Convention.) However, IPBES goes beyond just conventional scientific knowledge. IPBES recognises indigenous and local knowledge (and diverse knowledge systems) in its conceptual framework and work programme.
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