Latest news with #DeclarationontheRightsofIndigenousPeoples
Hamilton Spectator
6 days ago
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
Assembly of First Nations Chief reminds Carney of his duty to ensure Indigenous consent for fast-tracking projects
The AFN warned that parliamentary committees – where proposed laws are studied in depth –cannot accommodate 'the numbers of First Nations likely wishing to engage on a matter of this magnitude and significance' nor do committee hearings provide the in-depth legal analysis and consultation she said the federal government is obliged to carry out. Woodhouse Nepinak said the AFN supports 'efforts to protect' Canada and First Nations from 'geopolitical and economic uncertainty', but she warned the government must respect its duty under the constitution and international law to consult and accommodate First Nations' rights. Repeatedly citing the United Nations' Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and what the AFN says is a comprehensive duty to ensure Indigenous engagement and consent at all stages in the legislative and approval process for projects, Woodhouse Nepinak warned of protests and lawsuits to come. 'If free, prior and informed consent is not obtained from First Nations, this legislation will be marred and mired in conflict and protracted litigation.' She said Carney's plan to concentrate authority in 'one federal minister risks marginalizing First Nations' oversight and voices,' and 'one window approval means the constitutional and international rights of First Nations may be dealt with unevenly across the country.' When it comes to 'nation-building projects,' the national chief said in an accompanying news release that 'Canada needs to start with fast-tracking the basics like clean water, quality housing, modern schools, all-season roads and community infrastructure.' She said she raised the need to close the infrastructure gap when she met Carney in Ottawa last week .
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Consultation doesn't always equal consent
Pauly DenetclawICTUNITED NATIONS — The 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was focused on implementing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — locally, nationally and globally.'At every stage, the global push for the so-called green transition has intensified demand for critical minerals, lithium, cobalt, nickel and others, many of which lie beneath sacred Indigenous lands and territories,' Aluki Kotierk, chair of the Permanent Forum, said in a speech. 'We cannot ignore (what) this threat poses to our rights, lands and way of life. Extractive activities when carried out in disregard of the right to self determination and the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples become another form of colonialism. We are not anti-development, but development must be on our terms and must be just.'An important aspect of the declaration, adopted by all 193 UN member states, is free, prior and informed consent.'It ensures that when Indigenous people sit down with a government, a company, or another third party, that they'll have all of the information they need, enough time, and really a fair opportunity to negotiate an outcome that's mutually beneficial to them and the other party,' said Kristen Carpenter, law professor and co-director of the Implementation Colorado-based project is a joint initiative between the Native American Rights Fund and the University of Colorado Law School to educate and advocate for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Currently, the United States doesn't use this framework for decision making, opting for tribal consultation where the outcome doesn't have to include consent. However, countries who approved the declaration are required to codify it into their national laws. Native American Rights Fund and the National Congress of American Indians have been advocating for a transition to free, prior and informed leaders from the United States often don't participate in their capacity as an elected official because the nations would have to apply as a non-governmental organization, which could be seen as a diminishment of tribal sovereignty. Despite this, the largest number of tribal leaders attended this year's forum, according to Carpenter. 'I'm so happy we have more tribal leaders than ever,' Carpenter said. Tribal leaders play an important role locally, statewide and nationally. This could extend globally. 'It's important for tribal leaders to be here because you have a seat at the table,' said Joe Deere, co-chair of NCAI's international committee. 'Your voice is going to get heard. You're going to be able to communicate with other people across the United States, and now even other countries.'Over the last few years, the two national Indigenous organizations have ramped up their work internationally to advocate for the implementation of free, prior and informed consent in the United States, knowing it could take many years to actualize. 'We need to be ready to run a marathon to make that happen,' said Aaron Jones, co-chair of the international committee for the National Congress of American Indians. 'We're talking about implementing this and I know we're really in the early stages.' HistoryIn 2007, an overwhelming majority of the countries that make up the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It's not shocking that the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand initially voted against the legal, nonbinding declaration. (Eventually the four countries changed their position on a document that in essence states that Indigenous peoples are human beings with the right to exist in perpetuity.) The most well-known and heralded right listed in the 46 articles is free, prior and informed consent. This principle doesn't just apply to land rights, which it's often conflated with. It also applies to culture, language, food systems, intellectual property, governmental laws and landback. The phrasing is intentional with every word having a principle behind it. Free meaning that consent is given without coercion, threats, violence, manipulation or bribery. Consent is given are many examples of consent given under threat, violence or coercion in the United States. Navajo leaders signed the Treaty of 1868 with the federal government after the tribe was death marched over 400 miles from their homelands that span New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah to Bosque Redondo in eastcentral New Mexico where they were placed in a concentration camp. More than 8,000 Navajo people were forcibly kept at Bosque Redondo for three years. During that time, illness, starvation, or exposure took the lives of over 2,000 Navajo people. During the termination era, the federal government passed the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. It would coerce thousands of Indigenous people to leave their homelands with the promise of job opportunities, more pay, and housing. Instead, many were left without work, training or housing. Prior means that Indigenous communities and nations have adequate time to go through the decision-making process well-before governments, companies or other third parties have made a decision. The third word of the phrase, informed, means that Indigenous nations must be completely and fully informed about the environmental, health and social impacts of a planned project. 'For example, in the Philippines, when there was a mining project in one area, and the community said, 'We want to know the details of the project. So if you don't share to us the full information of the project, we cannot come out with an informed decision. We need to know everything,'' said Joan Carling, a renowned Indigenous rights activist and environmentalist. The documentation has to include all the information about the proposed project including size, purpose, scope and time length. Most importantly, the information must be shared in a language the community is most comfortable with, and in a format that aligns with the community's needs. 'What can be the positive and negative impacts of the project? So, it should be complete and accurate information,' said Carling, Kankanaey tribe in the Philippines codified free, prior and informed consent in the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act passed in 1997. A year later, Ecuador passed a new constitution that recognized Indigenous peoples right to free, prior and informed consent. In 2011, Colombia's Constitutional Court, which acts much like the Supreme Court, made a historic ruling that recognized the decision-making framework as a human right for Indigenous peoples. However, its full and fair implementation hasn't come without is a big difference between consultation and consent. Consultation in the United States doesn't have to include consent but tribal nations have made great strides in this area. Although not required, it's often a goal for the federal government to reach a consensus or agreement with a tribal nation. Historically, this hasn't always been the case. In 1948, the federal government approved the Garrison Dam that flooded 152,000 acres of Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara land in North Dakota, despite objections from the tribe. It forced the relocation of 325 families from the tribe. Last year, a judge ruled against Arizona-based tribes, Tohono O'odham Nation and San Carlos Apache Tribe, in a suit that was challenging the construction of the SunZia transmission line in southern Arizona's San Pedro Valley. The line passes through an area that holds historic, cultural and spiritual significance for the nations. The two tribes have been fighting its construction for years, advocating that it be built alongside land that has already been developed. It crosses 'one of the most intact cultural landscapes in the Southwest,' a 2024 lawsuit by the Tohono O'odham Nation stated. The project was a cornerstone of former President Joe Biden's green energy agenda. 'The SunZia Transmission Project will accelerate our nation's transition to a clean energy economy by unlocking renewable resources, creating jobs, lowering costs, and boosting local economies,' Deb Haaland, former Interior Secretary, said in a 2023 press release. 'Through historic investments from President Biden's Investing in America agenda, the Interior Department is helping build modern, resilient climate infrastructure that protects our communities from the worsening impacts of climate change.'The case was appealed to the Court of the Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The panel of judges heard oral arguments on March 26. An opinion has yet to be released. Adopting the principles of free, prior and informed consent could help to alleviate legal issues like this. The federal government and companies could avoid lengthy and costly legal battles by engaging in this process. 'One thing we see over and over again, and I'm sure everyone in this room is aware that projects will come in, including now renewable energy projects, there will be human rights violations, violations of the right to (free, prior and informed consent), land rights. People will exercise their right to protest and raise concerns about those harms,' said Christine Dodsen, co-lead of the Civic Freedoms & Human Rights Defenders Programme. 'Then there will be a crackdown against human rights defenders, either directly by the company, by governments, and that will then lead... to financial risks, legal risks for the company. For business actors, this model could lead to reduced risks, and a competitive advantage.'The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues will release a report with recommendations, to the United Nations and member states, based on interventions given during the two-week event. It will be released sometime this year. The forum concluded May 2. 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Yahoo
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indigenous delegates at the UN raise alarm on voluntary isolated peoples
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. At the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues — the world's largest convening of Indigenous peoples — Indigenous leaders from South America are taking the chance to spotlight threats facing isolated peoples, also known as uncontacted people. Deforestation is closing in on some communities in the Amazon and many lack official recognition of records of their existence, say representatives at the 10-day gathering in the U.N. headquarters in New York City. They are holding multiple events in the city, including launching a book with strategies to recognize their presence and sharing solutions to protect the lands they depend on. 'There needs to be greater respect, protection and land demarcation for these peoples,' said Bushe Matis, general coordinator of the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Vale do Javari. 'It's important for us Indigenous peoples who came to New York to raise our voices for them.' The rights of isolated Indigenous peoples are guaranteed in international legislation and some national laws, such as the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization. However, these are at times violated by states, companies, and invaders searching for land. In some cases, they are unprotected because states, including Venezuela and Paraguay, don't recognize them. Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, also known as PIACI, are threatened by the exploitation of natural resources, drug trafficking, illegal logging, and mining in their lands, say researchers. Contact with outsiders can be deadly because isolated peoples lack immunity to illnesses that are common outside. These threats can also lead to their displacement and the disappearance of the game they depend on to survive. 'The issue is of utmost importance because these peoples are the ones who also help protect Indigenous territories with their ancestral knowledge,' said Eligio Dacosta, the president of the Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Amazonas, or ORPIA, in Venezuela. The main proposals Indigenous leaders and organizations have raised at the forum are the recognition of lands vital for isolated peoples and the implementation of protective measures, such as public policies to safeguard their rights. Jamer López, the president of ORAU, a regional organization part of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, said the primary concern of Indigenous leaders and organizations at the forum is to secure the territories their isolated brothers and sisters have ancestrally occupied. While there has been past progress in Peru, he said the state, rather than guarantee the protection of these communities, has promoted policies of land possession, such as laws that obstruct and prevent the creation of Indigenous reserves for isolated peoples. The government is favoring the interests of big business which want to expand forestry concessions and oil fields in these areas to boost economic growth, López said. For more than 20 years, Indigenous organizations in Peru have petitioned the government to create Yavarí Mirim, a 2.5 million-acre Indigenous reserve on the Amazon border with Brazil and Colombia that would protect hundreds of isolated and initially contacted peoples in the region. But in February this year, the country's Multi-Sector Commission postponed a meeting to determine the reserve boundaries indefinitely. Peru's Ministry for Culture did not respond to our requests for comment by the time of publication. Darío Silva Cubeo, a delegate of the Amazon Regional Roundtable for the Amazonas department of Colombia, told Mongabay a 'very serious concern' in Colombia is that despite having a decree to protect isolated peoples, to date, there has been little implementation and there is no public policy on the matter, such as a contingency plan in case of contact. In Colombia and many other countries in South America, many people in isolation are threatened by organized groups, such as illegal miners and drug traffickers, who encroach on their homes and cause violence and displacement. 'They are being besieged precisely by the chains of crime,' Lena Estrada Añokazi, Colombia's minister of environment and sustainable development, and the first Indigenous person to ever hold the position, said at the forum. 'That's why it's urgent to continue to invest more in investigations to find out who these criminals are.' Across South America, states only recognize and guarantee the rights of peoples in isolation whose presence has been officially recorded. In Venezuela, for example, although NGOs have confirmed four records of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, the state has not recognized any of them. '[Venezuela] does not appear on the map of isolated peoples in Latin America,' said Dacosta. 'There are already mining hotspots in each [Indigenous territory] and mining is almost reaching these peoples who do not have this initial contact, who are in isolation.' Dacosta said people in isolation have already been affected in some regions as mining gradually pushes their displacement. At the forum, ORPIA raised the issue with the national government and called for constitutional reform in Venezuela to establish rights for peoples in isolation and initial contact. Currently, they are not included in its constitution, and the country has no established protocols to recognize them in laws and supreme decrees. Venezuela's Ministry for Indigenous Peoples did not respond to our requests for comment by the time of publication. The International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact launched a report at the forum that lays out a series of principles and guidelines to help governments, Indigenous organizations, and NGOs prove the existence of Indigenous peoples in isolation. According to the report, there are 188 records of Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation in South America but only 60 are officially recognized by the state. 'This means that, for the state, 128 records don't exist,' states the report, adding that this lack of recognition denies the rights of these communities. Of these records, Indigenous organizations recognize 31, but they are not included in the official lists. Delegates have also requested that states adopt a territorial corridors initiative, which aims to protect the PIACI and the well-being of neighbouring Indigenous peoples. They have called on governments to coordinate with the Indigenous organizations to implement policy actions, with a cross-border approach, to guarantee isolated peoples' rights and territories. Last month, Colombia created an over 2.7-million-acre territory to protect the Yuri-Passé Indigenous peoples living in isolation between the Caquetá and Putumayo Rivers in the Amazon. 'In order to protect them, we must protect the territories they inhabit,' Estrada said. 'We must also protect the Indigenous peoples surrounding the territories they inhabit. If we strengthen the governance of these Indigenous peoples whose territories surround the territories of isolated peoples, we will obviously protect them as well.' Julio Cusurichi, a Shipibo-Conibo Indigenous leader and President of the Native Federation of the River Madre de Dios and Tributaries in Peru, wrote over WhatsApp voice messages they want to see the implementation of a control and surveillance system in Peru to protect the PIACI which involves the participation of the communities surrounding these reserves. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Indigenous delegates at the UN raise alarm on voluntary isolated peoples on Apr 28, 2025.
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Indigenous leaders from Africa, the Pacific and North America will gather in New York to reflect on the enduring power of ancestral knowledge
Leaders will share experiences and discuss challenges faced by Indigenous Peoples worldwide during a side event parallel to the 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) NEW YORK, April 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- On Tuesday, April 22, the special event "One Earth, One Sky, One Home: Connecting Ancestral Knowledge to Future Generations" will bring together Indigenous representatives from across the globe to stand in solidarity with one another and reflect on current challenges, including the intergenerational transmission of knowledge, collective rights, environmental sustainability, and peace. Speakers coming from the island of Rapa Nui, in the Pacific, the vast Great Plains of the Blackfoot Tribe, in the United States, and the semi-arid savanna of the Juǀʼhoansi, in Namibia, will have a unique space to highlight successful initiatives and discuss the challenges of implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) at local, national, and international levels. During the event, participants will collectively build a statement emphasizing the importance of acknowledging, respecting, and honoring Indigenous Peoples' roots, cultures, traditions, spirituality, and rights. Indigenous Peoples sustain at least 40% of the most intact ecosystems on Earth, which are essential for combating threats posed by climate change and ecosystem destruction. SPECIAL EVENT: One Earth, One Sky, One Home: Connecting Ancestral Knowledge to Future & Time: Tuesday 22 April from 6.15 pm to 7.45 pmLocation: UN Church Center, 11th Floor Representatives of the Ju'hoansi People of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, from Namibia, will share insights from their ancient cultural traditions. The Rapa Nui delegation from the Comunidad Indígena Ma'u Henua, in the Pacific, will offer valuable knowledge from their island heritage. Representatives from the Blackfoot Confederacy through Blackfeet Eco Knowledge in the United States will share intergenerational ecological wisdom. Language interpretation will be provided in English and Spanish. The event is organized by The Wayfinders Circle and the World Union of Indigenous Spiritual Practitioners (WUISP) with the support of Pawanka Fund and Nia Tero. About The Wayfinders Circle The Wayfinders Circle is a global network of Indigenous Peoples worldwide who work to strengthen self-determination in managing their lands and territories and maintain cultural and spiritual continuity through intergenerational transmission. About The World Union of Indigenous Spiritual Practitioners (WUISP) WUISP is an open, voluntary alliance of Indigenous spiritual practitioners, shamans, healers, sacred sites guardians, cultural activists, holders of traditional Indigenous knowledge and values, Indigenous organizations, and clans committed to working together with the common goal of achieving the mission and vision for the protection of Mother Earth. About Nia TeroNia Tero funds and supports Indigenous Peoples who sustain thriving territories and cultures to strengthen guardianship of Earth and all beings. About Pawanka FundPawanka Fund is an Indigenous-Led Fund striving to support and empower Indigenous peoples around the globe. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Nia Tero
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Most critical minerals are on Indigenous lands. Will miners respect tribal sovereignty?
Taylar Dawn StagnerThis story was produced by Grist and co-published with — whether for fossil fuels or, increasingly, the critical minerals in high demand today — has a long history of perpetuating violence against Indigenous people. Forcibly removing tribal communities to get to natural resources tied to their homelands has been the rule, not the exception, for more than half of the mineral deposits needed for a global energy transition — including lithium, cobalt, copper, and nickel to make things like batteries and solar panels — are found near or beneath Indigenous 2007, the United Nations adopted a resolution called the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples that included the right to free, prior, and informed consent to the use of their lands, a concept known as FPIC. This principle protects Indigenous peoples from being forcibly relocated, provides suitable avenues for redress of past injustices, and gives tribes and communities the right to consent to — and the right to refuse — extractive industry projects like a lot at stake: When followed, FPIC promises a process that gives Indigenous peoples a voice in how their homelands are used, as well as the right to say no to development altogether. And when it's not, which is the vast majority of the time, tribal communities are further disenfranchised, facing violence and forced relocation as their sovereignty and rights are are an estimated 5,000 tribal communities around the world, encompassing roughly 476 million people across 90 countries, according to the U.N. Different tribes have different opinions on mining, but rarely is their legal right to refuse extraction projects recognized, even under the 2007 talked with five experts to better understand what free, prior, and informed consent should look like in this new era of mineral extraction. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity. Kate Finn, Osage, founder and executive director of the Tallgrass InstituteOriginally an attorney, Finn now works with tribal communities and those in the mining industry to better implement FPIC. The Tallgrass Institute provides training and resources about the importance of tribal one of our close partnerships, the SIRGE Coalition, we published an FPIC guide for Indigenous leaders. The goal of this resource is to provide information for Indigenous leaders who want to start putting together their own protocols for FPIC. I get to see a lot of innovation in this way from my desk and in my role as leading a global nongovernmental organization. But I know Indigenous leaders are always looking for what others are doing and what is working and what isn't, so our best hope is that this guide helps provide information to build investors, we provide resources and tools that not only help them to understand the breadth and depth of Indigenous peoples' expertise and knowledge, but also to implement rights-based engagements. This is exactly what we want with our Free, Prior and Informed Consent Due Diligence questionnaire. This tool helps investors parse all the ways and steps that lead to a better engagement with Indigenous is a lot of opportunity in this area. Shareholder engagement provides a pathway for Indigenous peoples to join collaboratively with allied investors to shift corporate behavior in a way that is aligned with Indigenous peoples' priorities and self-determined goals. This can be a critical and necessary strategy when countries' substandard policies allow corporations to operate with impacts to Indigenous peoples, whether operating in their own jurisdictions or powerful memory is a shareholder training we did with Indigenous youth at the U.N. Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples in 2024. We asked a room full of young people — all new to the idea of speaking to a shareholder or to the heads of a corporation — to craft a three-minute presentation that conveyed the priorities and concerns of their communities. The enthusiasm, readiness, eloquence, and precision that these young leaders brought to the exercise was breathtaking. It gave me delight and inspiration to witness future leadership in this field, and it opened my eyes to the potential for a generational approach to shareholder advocacy. Richard Luarkie, Laguna of Pueblo, director of the Native American Mining and Energy Sovereignty InitiativeLuarkie works to give tribes interested in pursuing mining opportunities the power to leverage their resources while asserting themselves as sovereign 1952, our tribe entered into mining uranium. I read back on some of those council minutes, and it was very interesting because the discussion was about: 'How do we do this? How do we provide for our people in the best way that we can?' We went from a few hundred thousand dollars in our bank account in the early '50s to having millions at the end of the '50s. Leapfrog to the late '80s, and when I started college my bachelor's was paid for with a scholarship — mining paid for my education. I see all this need for critical minerals. The U.S. Department of Interior manages 55 million acres of surface land for tribes, and 57 million acres of subsurface minerals for tribes. Yet we are the poorest people in the country. We need to go from sovereignty to significance. That's how nations behave. We need to be significant. I believe that energy — because of the vast amount that is on or near our tribal lands across the country — is going to catapult us to significance.I think our role is going to be bringing those tribes that have an interest, or curiosity, to engage in discussions. It's not going to be all 574 tribes in the U.S., but I bet you if we could get 10 that's going to be pretty big. They are going to be multibillion-dollar tribes. Those are going to be your sovereigns. Aaron Mintzes, senior policy counsel at EarthworksMintzes looks at federal hard rock mining policy to advocate for better protections for the environment and are sales pitches from mining companies saying, 'We'll give you a job, and we'll buy you a school, and we'll build some roads and provide some infrastructure.' I'm not denying those things happen. But there is a difference between earning consent from a community — because you've shaped the mine operation in the way that meets their needs and shares revenue and benefits — versus just saying, 'I'm giving you a benefit, take it or leave it.' Mining companies may put up money upfront for some kind of security or financial assurance for when they need to clean up after a mine closes. The Interior Department keeps those bonds, and they are supposed to be sufficient, but they rarely are in our experience. We can point to examples of so-called modern mines that have been permitted under current rules, with current bonding levels. The mine goes belly-up and is unable to pay to clean things up. The bonds that are insufficient, I think of them as glorified dirt-moving bonding money to pay for the recontouring of a slope or planting some grass. The bonds you really need to care about are the 'shit just hit the fan' bond: A climate change event we weren't expecting. There is a flood or hurricane. Fires. A dam bursts. We need sufficient bonds for that. There are ways to do it, we just need governments to hold companies accountable. Recently, the U.S. launched our nation's first-ever fund for cleaning up abandoned hard rock mines — but there's only $5 million that's been appropriated for that every year since 2022. That's not nearly enough. The total liabilities are about $50 billion. Fermina Stevens, Western Shoshone, executive director of the Western Shoshone Defense ProjectStevens and the Western Shoshone Defense Project have fought against deceptive mining development for decades in Nevada by promoting tribal jurisdiction over lands granted by an 1863 Western Shoshone Defense Project has been up and going since the early '90s, so we're a little over 30 years in of trying to protect our treaty territory. We've been dealing with gold extraction, and just trying to bring light to the harm that it causes the land and water. Recently, we've been working to understand lithium and the green energy transition. We do a lot of international work regarding our unceded treaty. The United Nations' Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination did a 10-year review of our case and determined that our [the Western Shoshone's] human rights were violated in the so-called taking of our land through gradual encroachment. Those violations are where we make our stance, but the United States has basically ignored all that. Doing this work, we've come to the conclusion there are no laws that really protect the things that are important: land, air, water, sun. The laws are written to give corporations the go-ahead to do whatever they choose. Free, prior, and informed consent is something that we've been screaming. In my view, [the United States] thumbs its nose at international law. Dov Korff-Korn, legal director at Sacred Defense FundThe Sacred Defense Fund's mission is to promote Indigenous sovereignty and fight for environmental justice for important to start with the U.N.'s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and FPIC, because it shows that tribal nations in the U.S. are separate nations. Non-Native people have been colonized to think that that is untrue. We're supposed to think of tribes like people practicing their culture, but not like they have legal or jurisdictional authority. We know they do. The [U.S.] Constitution says so. It's been upheld numerous times, over 200 years of Supreme Court precedent that tribes have legal authority and jurisdiction over their lands. But the question then becomes: What are tribal lands? Dispossession and colonization reduced tribal lands from vast areas of territory. About 90 percent of extraction is happening within 30 miles of reservations, and what these corporations do is they know exactly where tribal jurisdiction ends. So tribes have to look to other laws that don't really regard tribal sovereignty on lands held or owned by a tribe, but pertain to cultural resources or artifacts, where then there's a whole other realm of questions that come up. Like in northern Nevada, where lithium and other heavy metals are needed for the renewable energy transition, the mines are being built adjacent to tribal lands. So even if they are going to impact the air and water, it's very hard for tribes to step up when tribes are underresourced. Free, prior, and informed consent What is FPIC?Free, prior, and informed consent, or FPIC, reflects Indigenous peoples' right to give or withhold consent on anything that affects their lands, resources, and communities. FPIC is embedded in the U.N.'s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, requiring the 147 countries that signed the declaration to make laws that give it legal standing. However, implementation is often instead left to corporations and government agencies, and there are major power imbalances and policies that can derail negotiations between tribes, governments, and investors, leading to mining projects going forward without tribal can I do to advocate for FPIC? Indigenous peoples are protected groups with rights that protect land and its original inhabitants through documents like treaties. Familiarize yourself with those that affect your area, and advocate for tribal consent and self-determination. Learn as much as you can about FPIC and talk directly to community leaders about developing a plan to have in place if a mining project is proposed on or near your land. In the U.S., get to know your local federal offices like the Bureau of Land Management. Many federal agencies have officers that you can call and visit, and they are the first people to know about a potential mining project. State and federal agencies have differing policies based on tribal consultation, so the burden of communication lies largely with tribes. Because tribes can create their own policies around FPIC, talk to community leaders about what that process looks like. Learn the names of international, large-scale mining companies that might be operating in your area, such as Solaris Resources, Rio Tinto, Vale S.A., and Glencore. When possible, build relationships with other communities protected by FPIC that have fought against mines around the world, so that you can learn from them and share strategies. Where can I find more information? Securing Indigenous Peoples' Right to Self-Determination: A Guide on Free, Prior, and Informed Consent is a 60-page illustrated guide, coproduced by the SIRGE Coalition, for Indigenous leaders looking for ways to engage on a project that impacts them. The Free, Prior, and Informed Consent Due Diligence questionnaire, created by the Tallgrass Institute, provides a list of considerations for investors seeking to implement best practices around Indigenous rights when developing resources. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007, outlines a framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity, and well-being of Indigenous peoples of the world. This story is part of the Grist series Unearthed: The Mining Issue, which examines the global race to extract critical minerals for the clean energy transition.
