INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' CAUCUS STATEMENT
ON THE OVERALL REVIEW SESSION
12th United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
21 April 2004, United Nations, New York, New York
Presented by:
Hilda Lini, Pacific Concerns Resource Centre &
Estebancio Castro, International Indian Treaty Council
Human settlements, water and sanitation cover a complex
of social and ecological inter-relationships, between peoples and Mother
Earth. Human settlements are cultural homes that nurture the traditional
knowledge and wisdom within our larger ecological home, Mother Earth.
Water is a sacred element of this planet and it sustains all life. Sanitation
standard determines the well-being, health and life of biodiversity and
peoples.
Human settlements among Indigenous Peoples are characteristically
self-sustaining communities, where peoples are not separate from their
lands, territories and natural resources, including water. These provide
for peoples' social, economic, religious, political needs and environments.
This is a far cry from the urban concept of settlements as simply infrastructures
and facilities.
For Indigenous hunters, gatherers, nomads, farmers, herders,
fishers and pastoralists, a continuing relationship and access to their
natural homelands provide for their livelihood and food security. They
follow patterns of human settlement, which are appropriate for their natural
environments.
Related to human settlement, water is a critical source
of life. In many Indigenous societies, their relationship to the life-giving
qualities of water permeates their culture and spiritual values. Indigenous
Peoples' systems of water management and use are based upon principles
and practices that balance immediate needs with the needs of the environment
and other living things, plants and animals, as well as other people,
and the sustainability for future generations. Indigenous Peoples have
an important role in sustainable water resource management and their knowledge
is an integral part of humanity's heritage and cultural diversity.
Sufficient attention must be paid at this meeting to reviewing
the overall concepts of governance, practice of sustainable livelihood,
integrated land-use planning and resource management to ensure that the
long-term diversity and health of ecosystems continue to nurture human
settlements, including the well-being of Indigenous Peoples.
The demands of free trade agreements that promote the
privatization of Indigenous lands and territories have forced many Indigenous
Peoples to migrate to urban areas for economic reasons. Within these pockets
of urban cities, Indigenous Peoples are forced to join human settlements
of poverty and to survive in isolation, away from family support, a community
sense of belonging and their cultural values. The poverty of Indigenous
Peoples is directly linked to the dispossession of their lands, territories
and natural resources, which are essential for their security, livelihoods
and well-being. The loss of land through government expropriation, forced
resettlement and modernization have severely impacted them.
In this context, due respect must be given to the Indigenous
Peoples' right to self-determination and sovereignty over essential life-sustaining
elements. Government policies are restricting access to their lands and
territories, violating their right to sustainable livelihoods, water sources
and appropriate housing. These policies directly undermine the goal of
human security, poverty alleviation and housing for all, leading to the
deep impoverishment of Indigenous communities.
Indigenous Peoples from every region of the world are
concerned that ecosystems, including water systems, have been compounding
in change and are in crisis. Over centuries, commercialization and privatisation
of land and water contradicts Indigenous perspectives that water is inseparable
from land and peoples. Oceans and water sources continue to be polluted
with chemicals, pesticides, sewage, disease, radioactive contamination,
and waste dumping.
The mineral extraction industry has left many Indigenous
communities with contaminated and depleted water resources. This has resulted
in the destruction of ecological landscapes, disrupted family cohesiveness
and caused the loss of food security. It has destroyed the sacredness
of many lands, territories and natural resources.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities have also suffered
disproportionately from the impacts of large-scale damming, which continues
to cause river diversion, flooding, seasonal inversion of flows, shoreline
erosion and the devastation of Indigenous trap-line cultures.
These projects, which are mainly built in partnership
between local/state governments and the World Bank or transnational corporations,
have adversely affected vast areas of fragile environments. Transporting,
bottling and diverting water from its natural flow, appropriates inherent
rights to the access and benefits of water, to private corporations at
the expense of Indigenous and local custodians, the primary users in its
conservation and management.
For many Indigenous Peoples worldwide, safe and adequate
water supply and waste disposal facilities are lacking. There is a lack
of community infrastructure programs to address the most immediate health
threats, basic sanitation facilities and safe housing, all requiring the
provision of clean water.
When the spiritual links to water are disregarded, violated,
disrespected, misused and poorly managed, Indigenous Peoples witness the
life threatening impacts on all of creation. Global warming, climate change
and the rising sea level all pose significant threats to Indigenous and
local communities from every region of the world. It is increasing desertification,
drying up the subterranean water resources, and causing the extinction
of precious flora and fauna.
Already there are eruptions of serious disputes within
and among states, Indigenous Peoples and local communities over water.
Indigenous Peoples continue to become environmental refugees
and innocent victims of mining, logging, conflicts, warfare, the nuclear
weapons industry, military bases, racial and political systems on their
own lands and territories.
Within the action plan on human settlements, the implementation
of integrated land-use planning and natural resource base management strategies
continues to be weak, with slow progress being made in the mapping and
demarcation of Indigenous Peoples' lands and territories towards security
of tenure and legal protection.
Indigenous Peoples urge the Commission on Sustainable Development to
give high priority to this activity.
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