STATE OF THE WORLD's INDIGENOUs PEOpLEs - CINU

EMBARGOED UNTIL 14 January 2010STATE OF THE WORLD’S INDIGENOUS PEOPLESCHAPTER Not III for distributionENVIRONMENTWestern science may have invented the words “nature”, “biodiversity” and “sustainability”,but it certainly did not initiate the concepts. Indigenous, traditional and local communitieshave sustainably utilized and conserved a vast diversity of plants, animals and ecosystemssince the dawn of homo-sapiens. Furthermore, human beings have molded environmentsthrough their conscious and unconscious activities for millennia – to the extent that it is oftenimpossible to separate nature from culture.By Neva CollingsSource: Posey (1999), 7.IntroductionThroughout the world, there are approximately 370 million indigenous peoples occupying 20 per cent of the earth’sterritory. It is also estimated that they represent as many as 5,000 different indigenous cultures, and the indigenouspeoples of the world therefore account for most of the world’s cultural diversity, even though they constitute anumerical minority. 1 The areas they inhabit often coincide with areas of high biological diversity, and a strongcorrelation between areas of high biological diversity and areas of high cultural diversity has been established. 2Indigenous peoples have always identified themselves by the importance of the bond with their lands and theirdistinct cultures. 3 Indigenous peoples share a spiritual, cultural, social and economic relationship with theirtraditional lands, and their customary laws, customs and practices reflect both an attachment to land and aresponsibility for preserving traditional lands for use by future generations. 4 A critical issue for indigenous peoplesaround the world is therefore access to, as well as the protection and preservation of, their lands and territoriesand the natural resources pertaining to these lands.Although indigenous peoples have demonstrated that their close relationship with the environment also makesthem its best guardians, the strong environmental movement that emerged after World War II made no referenceto indigenous peoples, and for a long time, efforts focused more on how nature could be protected from damaginginterventions by human activities 5 than on what impact environmental degradation had on human beings.Thus, it was first in 1972, with the UN Conference on the Human Environment, 6 that “the protection and improvementof the human environment” was seen as a major issue “which affects the well-being of peoples.…” 7 Conferencedocuments, however, made no mention of indigenous peoples and their critical situation, and it was to take1Gray (1991), 8.2See, e.g., WWF-International and Terralingua (2000).3Gray (1991), 8.4OHCHR (2008).5IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) was founded in 1948 as an organization dedicatedto natural resource conservation; WWF (standing, at that time, for World Wildlife Fund), was established in 1961 for the conservation,research and restoration of the natural environment.6Also known as the Stockholm Conference. One of the outcomes of this conference was the decision to create an environmentalagency - the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).7See Declaration of the Conference on the Human Environment at http://www.unep.org84 | CHAPTER III