7^th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

The Seventh Session of the Permanent Forum was held from 21 April – 2 May 2008 in New York. Around 3,000 indigenous representatives and other attendees, including parliamentarians, NGOs, academia, representatives of Member States, UN agencies and other inter-governmental organizations participated.

Each year, the Permanent Forum has a special theme and this year it was "Climate change, bio-cultural diversity and livelihoods: the stewardship role of indigenous peoples and new challenges".

In the dialogue with governments, government representatives acknowledged that climate change poses a threat to indigenous livelihoods and that capacity building and more research into the impacts on indigenous peoples is needed urgently. Despite being most adversely affected, indigenous peoples are only rarely consulted in discussions on climate change. Numerous governments emphasized indigenous peoples' roles as primary actors on the frontline of climate change and fragile ecosystems, and argued that they should be included in climate change planning as their traditional knowledge could help to confront the challenge of widespread environmental degradation.

The UN agencies were almost unanimous in reporting on their efforts to implement the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and on their plans to use the Declaration as a framework for formulating their future programmes for indigenous peoples, including on the issue of climate change. This year, 17 UN agencies made written submissions to the Permanent Forum, which is an important milestone on the path towards enshrining the provisions of the Declaration in customary international law, thus strengthening its binding nature.

In the numerous statements from the various regional and thematic caucuses, as well as the collective statements, indigenous peoples told very similar stories of how they have the smallest ecological footprint and yet are the most severely affected by the adverse effects of climate change due to their dependence upon and close relationship with the environment and its resources. They emphasised that climate change exacerbates the difficulties already faced by indigenous communities, including political and economic marginalization, loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination and unemployment.

They also raised concerns over the solutions to climate change currently being offered by the international community as they tend to overlook the rights of indigenous peoples. Indigenous peoples therefore called for the implementation of the UNDRIP as an effective response to climate change. The main issues that arose during the dialogue included the effects of climate change on indigenous peoples' human rights, concerns over proposed climate change mitigation initiatives and a call to the industrialized countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Based on the dialogues with UN agencies, governments and indigenous peoples, and the recommendations presented in their statements, as well as the reports from the preparatory activities, the Permanent Forum members made their general observations on the issue of climate change and indigenous peoples.

     Download documents from the 7^th session

     Read more about climate change on the Permanent Forum's wesbite

Photo: MPIDO