In September of the year 2007, after twenty-five years of sustained effort on the parts of both Indigenous Peoples and cooperating NGOs (non-governmental organizations), the United Nations General Assembly passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The vote for passage was 144 to 4, with 11 abstentions. This exceptional act is on a par with the 1948 passage of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The non-binding act sets a standard humanity can be proud of.

But do you remember hearing about it? Perhaps not, for neither this bold declaration, nor the fierce debates leading up to its passage received attention in the mainstream press in either the United States or Canada.

In truth the Canzus block; the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand fought strongly against certain sections of the Declaration as potentially undermining their authority to develop resources wherever and whenever they chose to do so. Despite this, wisdom and justice prevailed, and the Declaration was passed.

This document affirms the positive importance of human diversity. In its entirety, the Declaration is a reasoned piece of work, which reconciles with painful past histories and addresses the future from a unified position of support for human rights. In addition it is, according to Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the only Declaration of the UN that was drafted in partnership with the rights-holders themselves, the Indigenous Peoples.

Protecting Ecologies

From an ecological perspective there are articles in this document of particular interest. They are important because they set a baseline for minimum international environmental standards on Indigenous lands that reflect native input.

Many Indigenous societies have developed the wisdom to live within their particular territories for thousands of years without inducing environmental collapse. The industrial world, supported by a mistaken belief that perpetual expansion on a finite planet is possible, operates on a less sustainable standard. As the industrialized peoples of the planet deplete resources within their own territories, they look elsewhere for materials to “mine.” Historically countries, states, corporations and their various agents have, with impunity, accessed Indigenous lands to remove resources. Generally this “mining,” which continues even today, is engaged in without appropriate permission.

A contemporary example of “mining” involves the privatization of water. Water is a vital resource. We cannot live without it. Yet water privatization is a required condition of many World Bank loans, even though there are no existing independent studies indicating that privatization improves water conditions for either people or the environment. Once removed from the commons, water becomes a commodity. It is “mined,” often exported and the “owner” entity charges for the use of this water which once was free. Indigenous cultures often cannot afford to pay for the water they need to survive.

Citizens in South Africa are trying to overturn a water privatization contract forced upon them by the World Bank. After privatization, those too poor to pay the fees charged had their water shut off and were forced to obtain their drinking water from polluted rivers. This resulted in an outbreak of cholera that killed more than 30 people.

The government of British Colombia contracted with Sun Belt Water, a California company, allowing the company to export water to California. This was done without sufficient public input and without an environmental or social impact assessment to determine the impact on the extraction area. The people prevailed in this case and forced their government to cancel the contract. Sun Belt Water is now suing Canada for not only the money lost when the contract was canceled, but also for future profits it might have made.

These examples are typical. Extraction is generally done with very little concern for the continued health of a particular environment or for the peoples whose very survival depends upon the integrity of that environment.

Often there is little public objection to these unsustainable “mining” practices for the simple reason we the people don’t know about them in full. They happen in out-of-the-way places and do not receive attention in the mainstream press; or, if they are noticed, the Indigenous point of view about what is happening is given little or no coverage. Thus we have inadequate information from which to form our opinions.

The UN Declaration affirms that these acts of resource removal are not acceptable. The existence of the Declaration in itself provides a mechanism for focusing attention on violations. It states specific Indigenous rights, including the following:

Article 20: Indigenous peoples deprived of their means of subsistence and development are entitled to just and fair redress.

Article 24: Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals.

Article 29: Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources…. States shall take effective measures to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials shall take place in lands or territories of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent…

Offering a Better Vision

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples offers us a different vision of how things might be in this world when we hold the welfare of all at heart and act cooperatively. The next steps for steering this vision fully into ordinary reality are the steps of implementation. For the Declaration to have the greatest impact, its provisions need to be commonly known and applied as widely as possible.

In October of 2008, the International Forum on Globalization of California and the Tebtebba Foundation of the Philippines jointly sponsored a meeting to discuss the principles of the Declaration and to find ways to actualize its full potential. The major outcome of this gathering was a mandate to form a wider network of NGOs, working in close consultation with international Indigenous leaders, to encourage and help coordinate efforts to support implementation. The International Forum on Globalization agreed to serve as secretariat of this effort, beginning in the year 2009.

What We Each Can Do

Beyond organizational effort, there is room for personal action. A good place to begin is with self-education. As we understand the issues at hand more thoroughly, we can better respond to them appropriately. Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Globalization, a book edited by Jerry Mander and Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, explores globalization and its ongoing assaults on Indigenous resources. It offers excellent background material on the issues from Indigenous perspectives. The book presents us with a side of our Western consumerism and corporate behavior we may not have been previously aware of. In addition, the websites listed under "sources" at the end of this article all provide information not usually available in mainstream media.

In order to understand the issues, which are global in scope, involving not only the world’s 350 million Indigenous Peoples, but also the consumerism of the industrialized world that supports much of globalization, it is important to understand as many sides of each situation as possible and to see their commonalities. Although the problems are often huge and difficult to address, only when we gain a bigger picture of our world can we move forward in a balanced way. It is when we humans reconcile our many different truths that we can successfully address issues in their entirety. The Declaration offers us an ethical baseline for guiding future action.

Sources include:
Paradigm Wars, www.sierraclub.org/books.

"Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," International Forum on Globalization,

www.ifg.org, www.pachamama.org, www.earthrights.org, www.econjustice.net, www.cs.org, www.tebtebba.org

© Pat Foley, 2009