Latest news with #PermanentForumonIndigenousIssues
Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
UN ambassador travels to Peguis to learn about repeated floods
Canada's ambassador to the United Nations has promised Peguis First Nation he will convey their concerns about repeated flooding to the Manitoba and federal governments. Bob Rae, who went to the flood-prone community this week as part of his role as president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, said he was shown examples of buildings that had been damaged by flooding as well as destruction from a wildfire this spring. 'They've got this challenge of basically living on a flood plain and there has been a lot of flooding in the past 20 years,' Rae said about the community 170 kilometres north of Winnipeg. SUPPLIED UN Ambassador Bob Rae (left) with Peguis First Nation Chief Stan Bird. 'It keeps happening consistently. So they are looking for some longer term solutions, which we talked about in broad terms. I was interested in listening to the expertise of a number of experts and people who have been working with the community for some time. 'I committed to sharing what I saw and what I heard with both the government of Manitoba and the government of Canada… I think we're going to just try to see if we can find some solutions that point the way to where things should go.' Rae, a former premier of Ontario, interim leader of the federal Liberal party, and both a longtime federal MP and Ontario MPP, was appointed ambassador to the United Nations by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2020. Rae was elected president of the UN council last year, only the second Canadian to hold the position, and only the third Canadian — former prime minister Lester Pearson was one — to be chosen in their personal capacity to preside over a UN Charter body. Rae said he has an interest in Indigenous issues, noting that earlier in his career, from 2013 to 2018, he was chief negotiator for the Matawa Tribal Council in northern Ontario, which represents nine First Nations. He said that's why when he met Mike Sutherland, the director of consultation and special projects at Peguis, at the UN's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues last month, he agreed to travel to the community. 'It was important for me to see it,' Rae said. 'There is nothing like being there first-hand.' Rae was told about several past floods in the Peguis, including in 2009, when 3,000 people were evacuated and there was $40 million in damage; and in 2010, when 300 homes were damaged and most residents were forced to leave. Rae noted flooding has been occurring for decades and the community has commissioned several studies on how to prevent them. He was intrigued by how the community was located in that area. Rae said the community had been near Selkirk, on 'prime farmland,' until 1906, more than 30 years after a treaty was signed, 'they were moved off it there and basically forcibly displaced.' SUPPLIED A destroyed home is seen on the Peguis First Nation. 'Where they are now is in a very low-lying territory and when the rivers overflow there are serious challenges… they have a lot of expert advisers, reputable engineering firms of significant experience, and I think they are pointing the way to some practical solutions.' He said that must guide discussions with both levels of government on how to mitigate flooding. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. 'It is not for me to dictate the solutions. It is just for me to do this role in a way that allows people to come up with some responses.' Peguis Chief Stan Bird was unavailable for comment. In a statement, the band said both Bird and the band council 'spoke openly (to Rae) about the human rights violations that continue to impact Peguis, from repeated evacuations to unsafe housing and inadequate infrastructure.' 'Ambassador Rae listened with great empathy and engaged in meaningful dialogue about the need for justice and long-term solutions… we are grateful for his visit, his willingness to listen, and his commitment to sharing our story on the world stage.' Kevin RollasonReporter Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press's city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin. Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Hamilton Spectator
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Hamilton Spectator
International Impact – Cree youth celebrate JBNQA anniversary at United Nations
Cree youth delivered a powerful presentation to a capacity crowd at the recent United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York. The side panel, coming on the 50th anniversary of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, highlighted their experience being born into the treaty and their aspirations for the next 50 years. Moderated by Carol-Ann Tanoush with panelists Esquay Masty, Kevin-Joe Mianscum and Tanisha Bear, the April 22 event discussed how the JBNQA guided the Cree Nation's path to self-governance. From early negotiations to subsequent agreements, it has served as a foundation for protecting Cree rights. 'It was a really eye-opening experience,' said Bear, the youngest delegate at age 18. 'I kept thinking about how hard our previous leadership worked to give us these opportunities. It was such an honour to be there and carry on their legacy. It was very moving.' The Cree Nation Government and Department of Justice planned to bring a youth delegation to the UN years ago but cancelled after a measles outbreak in the city. The idea was revived to commemorate the JBNQA's anniversary, with delegates selected based on their contributions to last November's treaty simulation exercise. 'It opens up your world to understand other communities around the world are experiencing similar things,' suggested Donald Nicholls, Cree director of justice and correctional services. 'They did an incredible job connecting with people, creating relationships and participating as much as they could at the UN.' With experience at the UN dating back to the Permanent Forum's formation in 2000 while he was in law school, Nicholls helped lead a pre-trip planning session with background information about the UN and JBNQA. The Cree Nation Youth Council was instrumental in organizing both the treaty simulation and this UN delegation. 'We did preparation sessions to expect the unexpected,' explained CNYC projects coordinator Tania Richmond. 'How to be good network agents, to connect with other Indigenous peoples as a whole, advancing everyone. I gave them a few insights and guidelines, and they came up with an excellent presentation.' Just as the JBNQA was achieved by small communities mobilizing to reach provincial and federal levels, Richmond asserted that the next stage is international cooperation. In that spirit of nation-to-nation building, delegates were taught how to work the room. 'If you're going to shape the future, you might as well be a stakeholder right now,' Richmond said. 'I went there 10 years ago, and it really shaped what I want to do in life. I'm looking forward to seeing how that will still be a part of them in 10 years.' An agreement with the federal government helped fund a larger delegation of Cree youth, totalling 13. During the three days preceding the forum, the youth caucus were able to attend early meetings with Cree leadership. 'That's where you meet Indigenous people from other countries who have gone to the UN for years,' explained Nicholls. For the main event, Quebec First Nations delegates joined a group from the Assembly of First Nations as they entered the UN auditorium. As attendees filled every seat, Cree speakers shared some background for introduction. With Earth Day marking 35 years since the Odeyak's epic arrival to New York in protest of the proposed Great Whale hydroelectric project, Deputy Grand Youth Chief Jordan Masty of Whapmagoostui exclaimed, 'To this day, my river still flows beside my community.' 'Our panel had a great outcome,' said Kevin-Joe Mianscum. 'People asked how we implemented this and got this far. They had a lot of questions about education, our rights.' Focused on the JBNQA, the panelists described how leaders as young as themselves fought in court for their rights, sowing the seeds for services in education, healthcare and much more. They shared hopes for their grandchildren and vowed never to surrender their land, language or culture. 'The other groups were shocked to hear we have a CNYC with youth chiefs in every community,' noted Esquay Masty. 'Where they're from, youth are not sitting in positions of power. There needs to be more youth involvement at decision-making tables.' Back at the main event that afternoon, Nicholls asked Waswanipi Youth Chief Sammy Blacksmith to make the Cree statement on behalf of a coalition for Indigenous rights. In response, the Tsilhqot'in First Nation in BC also asked their youth chief to deliver a speech. Bonding with this group over several days resulted in a planned cultural exchange later this year. 'We shared what the JBNQA has provided for us, and we see how vastly different they live,' said Masty. 'One youth broke down crying, so hurt there's a drug crisis in their community. They don't have the land-based healing or restorative justice programs that we have.' After a week experiencing New York City, including a Mets baseball game, visits to see Cree artifacts in local museums and the unveiling of an UNDRIP-themed billboard in Times Square, the delegation travelled to Yale University in Connecticut on its final day. They delivered another presentation at the school of environment, which had collaborated with the CNG on protected areas files. 'That was one experience I didn't expect, and I was grateful to be able to do that,' Masty said. 'I came back a different person because of everything that we learned. People from all over the Cree Nation are going back to their communities, empowering other youth to come into these spaces as well.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indigenous leaders at UNPFII underscore the need for genuine consent
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. B. 'Toastie' OysterHigh Country News Biopiracy, women's safety and critical mineral mining were all hot topics at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues this year, but none of them took up quite as much space as the matter of consent and related rights. Roughly a third of the forum's panel discussions dealt with implementing the U.N. standards of Indigenous rights in nations that sometimes recognize those rights willingly but frequently ignore them. A few of the panels were specifically about the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to decisions that impact tribal people or lands. The U.N. listed its standards of Indigenous rights in the 2007 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) — 46 articles that include the rights to ancestral land and self-determination. Some member nations, like Bolivia, have used this declaration as the basis for national laws. Others, like the United States, have lagged behind in implementing or even recognizing the declaration and the rights it describes. Since the Permanent Forum was established in 2002, said Forum Chair Aluki Kotierk (Inuit), the U.N. has made significant strides — adopting UNDRIP, for example —- but the on-the-ground reality has been slow to change. 'Let us be honest: Progress remains uneven,' Kotierk said, addressing the forum during its opening day. And even that progress, she added, is often merely symbolic. When global Indigenous leaders and other experts broke out into smaller groups to discuss their communities' biggest issues, FPIC was on the table. Here's a look at what some leaders had to say. Albert Barume, United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples: At a panel called 'Implementing FPIC Across the Regions,' which was hosted by the Native American Rights Fund, Barume said consent is at the center of Indigenous peoples' rights. But its purpose, he added, is to safeguard other rights. 'Free, prior and informed consent is a mechanism to redress one of the key environmental and historical injustices Indigenous people have been going through for generations,' Barume said: other people deciding things for them. This specific kind of racism violates the right to self-determination, a right Barume called 'pretty self-evident,'along with the right to racial non-discrimination. Substantive rights like these, as well as the rights to land and water, are what FPIC is meant to protect. 'It's like a gatekeeper,' Barume said. 'It's like putting a fence around substantive rights.' Fawn Sharp (Quinalt), former National Council of American Indians president and former vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation: Sharp said in a panel examining 'The Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the Context of Just Transition Economy' that climate change presents an opportunity for the rest of the world to align with Indigenous worldviews. She noted that when it comes to environmental care, Indigenous people are far outperforming others, even with little to no resources. 'Imagine what Indigenous people could do with resources,' she said. 'I see a world transitioning to a trajectory that Indigenous people have been on since the beginning of time,' she added. 'The world is desperate for truth. The world is desperate for solutions that are timeless and proven… Only Indigenous people have that knowledge.'In another panel, Sharp said that after years of unsuccessfully pushing state and federal lawmakers to recognize FPIC, she is now working to implement it in the private sector. Elected officials, while unwilling to support Indigenous rights, she said, are beholden to corporate interests – and companies have fiscal and reputational incentives to respect FPIC. Malih Ole Kaunga (Laikipia Maasai), executive director of IMPACT: Consent has become a buzzword because in practice it remains minimal, Kaunga said, adding that governments and companies typically just want to tick the box and move on: 'They want to demonstrate that it happened.' But he said consent shouldn't stop there. 'You can do an FPIC continuously,' he said with a hint of a smile. Continuous consent would require governments and corporations to check in with Indigenous communities throughout the life of a project, according to the needs of the community. FPIC protocols are too often externally imposed on Indigenous communities, even though every community has its own needs and cultural norms. 'There are certain laws that are practiced — they are not written,' Kaunga said. Ideally, FPIC protocols would spring from individual communities, taking the shape that works best for them, rather than being applied from the outside in a uniform way. He added that Kenyan courts have been progressive in applying FPIC, and that the process is intense and has resulted in halting several development projects. 'Free, prior and informed consent is a minimum,' he said. 'It's embedded in peoples' lives and cultures and identities.' Christine Croc (Q'eqchi Maya), spokesperson for the Maya Leaders Alliance: FPIC protocols are merely instruments, Croc said, and can only be transformative if they are owned and operated by Indigenous people themselves. If the state alone develops FPIC protocols, she added, it undermines Indigenous ways of governance, engagement and decision-making, which can cause irreparable harm. 'States often do not understand Indigenous peoples' rights under international law,' she said. The Maya of Belize developed their own FPIC protocols in 2014 in response to encroachment by extractive industry and the state. The state tried to file its own FPIC protocols with the courts — without consulting the Maya. But its version of protocols had regressed from consent to consultation. Another major challenge, second to state-implemented protocols, arises when Indigenous peoples have weak or eroding governance systems. There is no way Indigenous people can design an effective protocol without having a strong government first, she said. To actually enforce consent requires robust systems for community-investor negotiations, as well as benefit-sharing models. Benefit-sharing could come through Indigenous-owned and -led enterprises that bolster collective well-being, for instance. But developing such systems and models requires strong Indigenous governance. By 2022, Croc's community had finalized protocol negotiations, drawing from a Mayan framework to strengthen Mayan decisionmaking. Because of these long-term grassroots efforts, she said, the community has gained experience not just with implementing consent protocols, but also with financial administration and village-scale solar development. Hernán Eloy Malaver Santi (Sarayaku), president of Pueblo Originerio Kichwa de Sarayaku: Santi said his community's territory is a living body entitled to its own rights. When an oil company encroached on Sarayaku territory, Santi's community disrupted its camps, drove the company out and turned down its bribes and job offers. Santi, who is also a lawyer, spent years in court pushing the government of Ecuador to take responsibility. The court eventually acknowledged state wrongdoing, including letting the oil company abandon over a ton of dangerous explosives on the community's land. But Santi said there is no political will to enforce compliance with the court's judgment. Still, the Sarayaku community now has its own FPIC protocols, which Santi said forbid mining, timber or biopiracy — the misappropriation of genetic resources and traditional knowledge — without consent. The protocols also say that any and all community projects — including health initiatives or housing — will require consultation and consent in advance. 'This protocol is binding, and the state is mandatorily respecting it,' Santi said, via an English interpreter. Seánna Howard, law professor at University of Arizona: It's a common falsehood that FPIC is a barrier to development, Howard said, speaking in a small side room with Croc, Santi and others. But it's more accurately a safeguard against exploitation. Indigenous people often end up developing FPIC protocols defensively, only after litigation with corporations or governments. But Howard explained that adopting protocols before the pressure from an encroaching development starts will send a message to project proponents, letting them know that the people are organized, self-governing, and that they will decide the terms of engagement. Governments and companies might actually welcome this, because clarity around FPIC can help them mitigate reputational harm. 'Protocols should reflect that FPIC is more than a mere formality, more than checking the box,' Howard said, 'that the process needs to be conducted in good faith and includes the right to either give or withhold consent, at every stage of the process.' She said Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean offer a number of models showing how to develop protocols successfully. Daniel Kobei (Ogiek), executive director of the Ogiek Peoples' Development Program: Kobei talked about the importance of domesticating protocol documents to ensure that the community in question understands them in its language and in the context of its own laws. 'We had to sit down as a community, and we learned from the Kichwa people,' Kobei said, which was challenging because their documents were in Spanish. But Kobei's community was able to use these documents as a basis to develop its own. 'This kind of system enabled us,' he said, and while it took some time, it was successful. Now his community has custom culturally appropriate FPIC protocols, which include references to Kenya's Constitution that were added to help make the document more mainstream. Forum Chair Aluki Kotierk (Inuit): 'The global push for the so-called green transition has intensified demand for critical minerals,' she said, 'many of which lie beneath sacred Indigenous lands and territories. We cannot ignore the threat this poses to our way of life.' She called the extraction of these minerals another form of colonialism. 'We are not anti-development, but development must be on our terms, and it must be just,' she said. 'Indigenous people are not merely beneficiaries of development projects,' she said, but should also be seen as partners. Only through this can we achieve justice, respect, and sustainability for all. 'The road is long,' she said. UNDRIP is not a document to be celebrated once a year. It must guide how we treat each other on this earth. 'It is a moral, legal and collective obligation.' 'I urge U.N. entities to embed Indigenous peoples' rights at the core of their work,' Kotierk added. 'Our unity, wisdom and determination are our greatest strength. Let us continue to walk together.'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘We are nature': Indigenous women come together at the United Nations
Lauren DalbanInside Climate NewsThe women had come from across the world, convening at the United Nations Plaza to share the struggles they'd faced reclaiming ancestral lands, fighting pollution from extractive industries and employing Indigenous knowledge to counter the climate crisis. 'Our traditional knowledge systems are powerful,' said Aimee Roberson, a citizen of the Choctaw nation of Oklahoma and the executive director of Cultural Survival, an Indigenous advocacy group. 'We draw on the strength of our ancestors, whose persistent resistance to oppression, greed and extractivism ensured that we are here today.'Roberson spoke during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues this week at an event hosted by the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network. Indigenous women had come—from Kenya and Tanzania, Siberia and the Onondaga Nation in upstate New York and beyond—to describe the connection between ancestral lands and Indigenous cultures and to advocate for free, prior and informed consent. It is a principle, enshrined in various international treaties but often violated, that gives Indigenous peoples the right to give or withhold their consent for any action that would affect their lands or rights. For Betty Lyons, the executive director of the American Indian Law Alliance and a citizen of Onondaga Nation, the struggle is historic—and ongoing. The shores of Onondaga Lake, her people's sacred lake, is where five warring Indigenous nations—the Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca—came together over 1,000 years ago. Today, the lake is a Superfund site, heavily polluted by sewage discharges and industrial waste. More than 1,000 acres of land were returned to the Onondaga Nation in the nearby Tully Valley in 2022 in an attempt to address the damage. The lake cleanup was accelerated by funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and is still in progress. Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan, described another real-time challenge involving Enbridge's Line 5, an oil pipeline that cuts under the Straits of Mackinac, a waterway that connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Her community is concerned about the possibility of an oil spill in the area. In 2010, in the Kalamazoo River, which branches out from Lake Michigan, another Enbridge pipeline burst—dumping over 1 million gallons of oil into the river in one of the largest inland oil spills in this country's President Donald Trump's 'Energy Emergency' executive order, permits for the Enbridge Great Lakes Tunnel Project—a tunnel that would also run beneath the Straits of Mackinac and would encase the Line 5 pipeline—have been fast-tracked.'Our entire being and understanding is interwoven into the landscape,' said Gravelle, 'from where we go fishing with our elders, or where we hold ceremony, or how we pray, or how we perform ceremony for our youth when they're coming of age.'Indigenous rights are inseparable from the lands on which the people live, Gravelle and Lyons explained. And damage to the environment complicates Indigenous communities' ability to stay connected to their history and culture, they said, describing what ultimately called them—and their people—to action. Globally, violence is also often a feature of Indigenous people's struggle to reclaim their ancestral land. Cindy Kobei, a member of the Ogiek people in Kenya, described how she has been fighting through legal challenges to help her community reclaim the Mau forest. In a 2017 African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights ruling, the Ogiek were recognized as ancestral owners of the forest, but evictions and even deaths persist there. Indigenous knowledge, many of the speakers said, is essential for the conservation of these lands. Indigenous rights, meanwhile, are central to climate resilience and environmental protection, the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network said in a policy brief on Earth Indigenous way of life and the knowledge it brings is also integral to human dignity, said Paine Eulalia Mako, who is from an indigenous pastoralist community in Tanzania and the executive director of the Ujamaa Community Resource of the communities she helps, which also include hunter-gatherers, have been continuously displaced since the creation of the Serengeti National Park. To date, she has been able to secure 3 million hectares of land for those communities—but it is not just in service to them. 'We care about nature, and so we ensure that there is connectivity in land titles so that communities continue to move from place to place to allow land to regenerate, but also to allow space for wildlife to move in and out of our lands,' said event's final speaker, Casey Camp-Horinek from the Ponca Nation in Oklahoma, has been a crucial supporter of the rights of nature movement—the principle that ecosystems and wildlife have rights, just like 2018, she said, the Ponca Nation passed its own statute recognizing this principle, declaring that 'the inherent rights of nature are inalienable in that they arise from the same source as existence.'Galina Angarova, who'd come from Siberia representing the Buryat peoples, advocated hope as a way forward. 'It's not a time to despair, it is a time to press our palms to the soil, to dream in the language of our ancestors and to plan visions no regime can uproot,' Angarova said as she recited a poem written anonymously by someone in her community. 'The cracks are widening, and we say, let them. We are nature, and what we birth will outlive empire.'
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Indigenous delegates at the UN raise alarm on voluntary isolated Indigenous peoples
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance, which ICT is part of. Aimee GabayMongabay Indigenous delegates at the 24th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called attention to the threats faced by Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact, or PIACI. Isolated peoples are affected by the exploitation of natural resources in their territories, drug trafficking, logging, and other illegal economies. Indigenous peoples and organizations at the forum urged states to adopt a territorial corridors initiative and to implement policies, standards and cross-border mechanisms to secure their territories and rights. There are 188 records of isolated Indigenous peoples in South America, however national governments officially recognize 60. 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 United Nations 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 (UNIVAJA). '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 (ILO Convention 169). 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 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 (ORPIA) in Venezuela. 'These peoples have a higher level of spirituality than other Indigenous peoples normally have.'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 of protectionJamer López, the president of ORAU, a regional organization part of the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), said the primary concern of Indigenous leaders and organizations at the forum is to secure the territories their isolated brothers and sisters have ancestrally 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 more than 20 years, Indigenous organizations in Peru have petitioned the government to create Yavarí Mirim, a one million-hectare (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 Ministry for Culture did not respond to our requests for comment by the time of 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 (Decree 1232), to date, there has been little implementation and there is no public policy on the matter, such as a contingency plan in case of 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.'ProposalsAcross 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 Ministry for Indigenous Peoples did not respond to our requests for comment by the time of International Working Group for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact (GTI-PIACI) 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 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 1-million-hectare (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 (FENAMAD) 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.
