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Editors --- "The Biodiversity Convention: The Concerns of Indigenous Peoples - Digest" [1996] AUIndigLawRpr 84; (1996) 1(4) Australian Indigenous Law Reporter 731

The Biodiversity Convention: The Concerns of Indigenous Peoples

The International Alliance represents Indigenous organisations from 31 tropical forest countries. Extracts from the paper, together with the Alliance's Guiding Principles for Conservation in Indigenous and Tribal Territories, adopted 23 May 1995, are reproduced below.

The Alliance's Concerns about the Convention on Biodiversity

The International Alliance has several concerns about the Convention on Biodiversity stemming from the process under which it was originally drafted. The Convention was speedily negotiated at the Earth Summit, and although there had been several preparatory committee meetings and some consultations, the process was exceptionally rapid for indigenous peoples. The preferred model of a consultation process for indigenous peoples has been the 13 year process of developing a draft Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights which is currently under discussion at the UN Commission on Human Rights. This draft Declaration has been approved unanimously by the Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, consisting of 26 UN legal experts. As matters stand, this draft Declaration is the appropriate orientation paper as to where the rights of indigenous peoples has reached within the UN system and this must be recognised by the COP.

The participatory process of the UN draft Declaration was not reflected in the Convention on Biodiversity, even though it is now generally accepted in UN fora that indigenous peoples have to be involved in matters which affect us. Although those few indigenous peoples who were able to take part in the preparatory stages strove hard to ensure that some references to indigenous peoples were included, nevertheless, the result has been disappointing. Considering that we indigenous peoples provide over 85 per cent of the cultural diversity in the world and live predominantly in areas of biological diversity, we had expected a greater emphasis to be put by the Convention on our experience, our management capacity, and above all, our rights.

Whereas indigenous peoples had sought an article devoted to our role in biodiversity conservation and the importance of recognising our rights to this end, we find that the main reference to our concerns was placed under 'in-situ' conservation, as the tenth sub-paragraph (article 8j). In spite of this difficulty, the scattered references to indigenous peoples and our resources may provide some avenues for positive interpretation of the Convention. The positive elements of this article, however, required that the harmful impacts of the Convention on Biodivesity on indigenous peoples are understood and minimised.

The Dangers of the Convention

There are five areas which are particularly problematic in the Convention, and which, if not addressed immediately, will render any other advantage minimal. Each of them is mentioned in article 8j and their reverberations throughout the Convention give rise to much concern.

1. State Sovereignty

Article 3 of the Convention says: 'States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction'. This is reflected explicitly in preambular paragraph 4, articles 3, 4, 8j (which is qualified by the positivist phrase, 'subject to national legislation') 9a & b, 14.2, 15.1, and, in fact, the theme runs right through the whole Convention.

We indigenous peoples live within the boundaries of states and yet we have held inalienable ancestral rights to territories since times prior to the creation of the state. We have ownership over our territories and consequently insist that nothing can be done to our resources without our informed prior consent. The draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, in contrast to the Biodiversity Convention, attempts to ensure that our indigenous rights to territories can be respected within the framework of the state while avoiding a clash of conflicting sovereignties.

The Biodiversity Convention does not address this problem but, on the contrary, reaffirms a unilateral state sovereignty, which could easily be used by states to deny indigenous sovereign rights to our territories, lands and resources which are recognised in the draft Declaration, and to some extent in ILO Convention 169.

A major qualification occurs in article 8j which prefaces the intention to 'respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities' with the phrase 'subject to national legislation'. This could be interpreted as effectively allowing any state to ignore the clause if its national legislation does not address the question, and would consequently annul the implementation of 8j in many countries of the world.

Article 14.2 is particularly problematic in that it makes States responsible for biodiversity but, in the case of causing any damage, a state need provide no restoration or compensation 'where such liability is a purely internal matter'. Taking this together with article 15.1, the situation is compounded when the Convention states that, 'Recognizing the sovereign rights of states over their natural resources, the authority to determine access to genetic resources rests with the national governments and is subject to national legislation'. According to this view, states have open access to all genetic resources and yet are not necessarily liable for any damage caused. This could easily be used by states as 'open-season' for the plundering of indigenous territories.

The problem of exclusive state sovereignty is the most critical in the Convention, because unless it is interpreted in a positive manner, which respects indigenous peoples' rights, it stands to undermine the very cultural diversity with which biological diversity so closely relates.

2. Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities

Another concern of the Alliance relates to the presentation of indigenous peoples in the Convention. In preambular paragraph 12 and in article 8j is the phrase 'indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles'. The use of the terms has made recognition of indigenous rights unnecessarily complicated because it ignores our existence as peoples. In the CBD, there is no definition or orientation as to what a community is. Does it refer to a settlement with its territories as the term is used in Latin America, or does it refer to a larger concept of ethnic group as in Asia? The former use of the term is restrictive for indigenous peoples in that it only refers to very precise localities, while in the second sense, it denies our existence as peoples.

By using the terms 'indigenous and local', the Convention tries to distinguish something, but quite what this is remains unclear. If 'communities' is used in the sense of a particular settlement, then all communities are local; however, if it is used in the other sense of 'a people', this is clearly larger than a local community. By ignoring the correct term 'indigenous peoples' already used in ILO Convention 169, the Biodiversity Convention establishes a series of complications which threaten to by-pass those indigenous rights which are already recognised.

The International Alliance fears that this could become a step backwards in indigenous rights unless the phrase 'indigenous and local communities' is interpreted carefully. Only by addressing the distinct rights of indigenous peoples and local communities can the Convention begin to meet its aims.

Another aspect of the reference to indigenous peoples comes in the phrase 'embodying traditional lifestyles'. The concept of 'traditional' is highly problematic in this contest. Usually the term refers to beliefs or customs which are handed down from the past. The imprecision of this meaning gives the impression that article 8j only applies to indigenous peoples who are isolated, fossilised in some cultural time-warp living in a never changing present. This idea of 'traditional' has been criticised by indigenous peoples, as well as anthropologists and lawyers, because it does not reflect the world as it is. All cultures change. Our concern is that the term 'traditional' is being used to exclude peoples who has adapted their lifestyle to reflect the contemporary and continuing colonial situation in which we find ourselves.

3. Indigenous Peoples and Protected Areas

A third area where the Alliance is concerned arises from article 8 on 'in situ conservation'. Article 8a says that states shall: 'Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity'. In subsequent articles this covers establishing guidelines for protected areas (8c), promoting the protection of ecosystems (8d), establishing buffer-zones for development (8e).

Article 8j has been placed under the issue of in situ conservation and so, to some extent, has to be read in this context. Indigenous peoples are particularly opposed to the use of protected areas to deprive us of our lands and rights to resources. These problems occur all over the world: In South America, for example, 80 per cent of the protected areas have indigenous peoples living inside them; in India, protected areas have already displaced over 600,000 tribal people and forest dwellers; the indigenous peoples of Palawan in the Philippines have been forced to abandon rotational agriculture in favour of more intensive harvesting from the forest - thus undermining social and conservation goals; meanwhile in Africa, three thousand Bushmen of the Central Kalahari are currently being threatened with eviction in the name of conservation.

Protected areas that are under the control of indigenous peoples working in harmony with states and environmentalists is an important goal and several organisations, including the WWF-International, are trying to implement policies in this direction.

Unfortunately when the Convention establishes the main bodies to cooperate over biodiversity issues in preambular paragraph 14, it completely ignores indigenous peoples, saying: 'Stressing the importance of, and the need to promote, international, regional and global cooperation among States and intergovernmental organizations and the non-government sector for the conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of its components'. We indigenous peoples have the unfortunate experience that all three of these interests have, in the past, worked in directions which are detrimental to the respect for our rights, and by limiting cooperation to these interests, control and decision-making on biodiversity protection is taken out of our hands.

Placing these points together, the concern of the International Alliance is that conservation NGOS, the multilateral development institutions and states, will identify reserved areas without taking into consideration the presence of the inhabitants living there, most of whom are usually indigenous. This is tantamount to taking over our territories.

4. Access to Resources

Several points in the Convention have given rise to concern from the Alliance over access to our resources. By promoting ex situ conservation in the country of origin, the Convention overlooks the fact that this could be used as pretext for national institutions to take indigenous genetic resources in the 'national interest' and develop them on the basis that they are threatened and that compensation would not be necessary.

The same concerns arise with the promotion of biotechnology in article 16. As a part of the deal between North and South, the North receives access to resources in return for recognising the South's rights over the resources. Indigenous peoples, on whose territories many of these resources lie, are thus written out of the scheme and consequently fear being laid open to gene hunters and bio-prospectors, granted access on the basis of national agreements, rather than indigenous consent.

The reference to intellectual property rights, raised in 8i and later in the Convention, is couched in the context of state sovereignty (16.2). This opens the possibility that if a state has no objection, the TRIPS mechanism will be operative as an intellectual property rights regime, although if under article 12 of TRIPS, a sui generis alternative is promoted on a national level, the Convention will recognise this.

Unfortunately there is no provision in the Convention to deal with the possibility that both TRIPS and the sui generis national alternative IPR regime are not in the interests of indigenous peoples. In this climate the open-ended exchange of information advocated in article 17.2 which promotes 'exchange of results of technical, scientific and socioeconomic research, as well as information on training and surveyed programmes, specialized knowledge, indigenous and traditional knowledge' could be interpreted as providing open access to indigenous knowledge which does not receive the same protection as either states or large companies.

5. Funding Mechanisms

Articles 20 and 21 on financial resources and mechanisms are also matters of concern to the Alliance. This has occurred because of the funding mechanism under Agenda 21 leaves much to be desired. There, the Global Environment Facility operates on the principle of only financing the incremental costs of global benefits, which considerably reduces the capacity and incentive for developing countries to promote projects. This is because national governments have to pay for the internal costs, while international mechanisms finance everything interests are not of national benefits placing us in an invidious position in relation to our state governments.

The second concern is the way in which these international funding mechanisms work. The experience of the ITTO and GEF demonstrate that they suffer from all the problems encountered in the multilateral development banks in supporting top-down projects which in practice are weak on consultation and participation (not to mention control and consent when indigenous peoples are involved). For this reason the Alliance is worried that the financial arrangements of the Convention will be implemented without due care and will continue to wreak similar havoc as the GEF and multilateral institutions.

General Concerns

The Alliance is concerned that the Convention fails to incorporate the advances which we have made in other sections of the United Nations, particularly in the Commission on Human Rights, Working Group on Indigenous Populations and its draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Our fear is that the Biodiversity Convention might limit the term 'indigenous' to cover local settlements living in isolated conditions. It increases the power of states to control our lands and resources; promotes further developments of protected areas without any consent from the peoples affected; it promotes and facilitates agreements between states and bio-prospecting companies to gain access to the genetic resources on our territories; and finally it opens up the possibility for financial mechanisms to carry out a limited number of top-down projects to support biodiversity.

For this reason it is extremely important that all these concerns are taken up by the Secretariat of the Biodiversity Convention, so that we indigenous peoples can see that our rights and interests are catered for within the interpretation of the text. The legitimacy of the references in the Convention to indigenous peoples rests on the extent to which the articles are accepted as valid. Unless a positive interpretation can overcome these difficulties, we indigenous peoples will be very reluctant to make use of its terms.

Interpretations which could ameliorate the problems in the Convention

This section consists of suggestions as to ways in which the Convention could be interpreted in order to strengthen the provisions for indigenous peoples and remove the threats which face us. The five main areas will be approached in turn:

1. State Sovereignty and control over resources

The constant reaffirmation in the Convention that States have sovereign rights over their own biological resources begs many questions and could be seen as an assertion of State rights over indigenous resources. There are several ways in which this could be interpreted so as not to deny us our rights:

Whereas the phrase covers their own biological resources' appears referring to states, it could be argued that 'their' refers strictly to state lands and not to areas where resources are owned by indigenous peoples. Many states classify indigenous territories as 'public lands'. This statement should, therefore have no implication of condoning the dispossession of indigenous territories and resources.

Where the Convention refers to the sovereign rights of states, it should be made clear that this does not refer to the right of any government to alienate indigenous lands or change the law of land ownership unilaterally, such as is taking place currently in Brazil and Peru. As peoples living within the boundaries of states, indigenous peoples should have the right to control our resources.

Article 22 says that the Convention 'will not affect rights and obligations of Contracting Party deriving from any existing international agreement'. The rights of indigenous peoples, as they stand in the draft Universal Declaration are minimum standards of indigenous peoples' rights and should orientate the Convention on Biodiversity. These rights should not on any circumstances be undermined.

2. Indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles

The Convention refers in the preamble and article 8j to the term 'communities'. The first positive point which should be noted by the Secretariat is that the term 'community' is a collective term. There are several references to the collective rights of indigenous peoples and this aspect of the Convention should be emphasised. However the term 'community' itself needs further elaboration.

The distinction between indigenous and local communities was clearly made for a purpose. A local community is normally considered to be a body of people living in the same locality. Thus, with no other distinction, it could contain indigenous or non-indigenous people; however, the Convention specifically marks out indigenous communities, and so the meaning must be more specific. An indigenous community must be defined not so much by its locality, as by its indigenousness. (For example a religious community or a professional community is defined by religion or profession respectively.) It becomes necessary, therefore, to see what distinctive characteristics an indigenous community has, which distinguishes it from other local communities.

An indigenous community is distinct from a local community (for example of peasant farmers), because whereas the local community is connected directly to the state, the indigenous community is, first and foremost, a part of an indigenous people.

Another approach is to see 'community' as an alternative term for a people. There are two arguments for this: in the first place, indigenous community is a collective term, as with people; and secondly, following precedents such as the pre-Second World War Greco-Bulgarian minority case which referred to the collectivity as a 'community', it can be argued that community in the Convention stands in for the term 'peoples'.

However the CBD Secretariat decides to interpret the term, the fundamental point is that the term 'community' refers to, and does not undermine, the term 'indigenous peoples'. Not to recognise this will clearly prejudice the text of the draft Declaration on Indigenous Peoples which has been approved by the UN Subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities.

It could be argued that, in the context of an environmental convention, the term 'community' refers to the particular relationship between local groups and their immediate resources. However this should not prejudice the use of the term peoples anywhere else.

The most logical solution would be to clarify the Convention with a reference to 'indigenous peoples and local communities'. This is clearly the way in which indigenous peoples will interpret the article.

The article 8j also refers to 'traditional lifestyles' which in this context refers to the process by which knowledge, culture and social practices are passed on through the generations. Traditional does not refer so much to the content of the culture but the way in which a people preserves its identity. The term traditional should not be used to reinforce isolationist or primitivist notions of changeless peoples. This is particularly important because later in the same paragraphs, the article refer to 'innovations'. The importance of indigenous peoples' contribution to Innovative activity is well-documented. Ultimately the principle of self-identification, recognised in ILO Convention 169, should be a used to define terms such as 'traditional'. It should be treated in a dynamic manner, which looks at processes of continuity, rather than fixed content. The term 'customary' would be a useful orientation to clarify the meaning of traditional in this context.

'Dependence on biological resources' arises in preambular paragraph 12, where the Convention refers to the importance which we indigenous peoples place on our lands and territories for our survival. This dependence means that without recognising indigenous rights to resources, a people or community cannot continue its traditional way of life. The first part of this preambular paragraph is thus a recognition of indigenous collective rights and how these are bound to our resources as well as the importance of respecting these for our survival.

3. Indigenous peoples and protected areas

The Convention's in situ measures seek to establish a system of protected areas, or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity. This is to be achieved by developing guidelines for the selection, establishment and management of protected areas and biological resources important for the conservation of biodiversity whether inside or outside protected areas. Many areas which are promoted for protection have indigenous peoples living in the areas, and yet the notion of 'indigenous territory' is not officially considered as a 'protected area'. Until this occurs, indigenous peoples will be extremely Cautious about this provision in the Convention.

The way to avoid this problem is to ensure that indigenous peoples are recognised fully as the owners and managers in any protected area on their territories and that in situ conservation takes place under Indigenous control and with indigenous consent. Where the Convention promotes cooperation between states, inter-governmental organisations and NGO sector for conservation of biological diversity on international, regional and global levels, it has to be borne in mind that the indigenous movement is made up of peoples and not just NGOs. Indigenous peoples and organisations must be included in any decision which will affect us.

The Convention says in article 14 that each state will 'introduce procedures for environmental impact assessment of projects with adverse effects on biological diversity and public participation'. This is a welcome addition to the Convention and indigenous peoples should be encouraged to use these means so that we can protect ourselves from the adverse effects of development projects. Indigenous peoples are in a strong position to ensure that no programmes and policies have adverse impact on biodiversity. Where states encounter dangers to biodiversity, they are obliged to notify other states; but the people living in the state should be informed too.

Article 14 also mentions that the Conference of the Parties will look at liability, redress and compensation for biodiversity except where liability is an internal matter. However, in cases where biodiversity is under threat, the COP should understand that destruction of indigenous territories is not an internal matter. Since at least 1957, indigenous peoples have been subjects of international law; this means that states have international responsibilities to ensure that what takes place on indigenous territories is transparent to the international community. Provisions should be established by the COP so that we indigenous peoples can report on the state of biodiversity in our own territories.

The International Alliance has a document of the basic minimum requirements for Conservation priorities and protected areas. This is included as Appendix B and provides the framework for interpreting this section of the Convention.

4. Access to Genetic Resources

The recognition of the sovereign rights of states over their natural resources gives rise to a problem concerning access to genetic resources. All control appears to be in the hands of national governments and subject to national legislation. States are meant to create conditions to facilitate access to genetic resources by other states, yet nothing is mentioned about all the genetic resources which lie on indigenous territories. Open access to indigenous resources poses a serious problem for indigenous communities because this is the very process which most attracts colonists onto our lands. Access to all resources on indigenous territories should only take place with the prior informed consent of indigenous peoples. At the moment, only the Contracting Parties are specified in the Conventions, but this could allow a government to open up indigenous territories to any multinational bio-prospecting company, thus putting the protection of biodiversity at risk, not to mention the indigenous peoples ourselves. A way of avoiding this problem comes in article 8j, which refers to 'approval and involvement'. Approval here means consent and would be a useful starting point for approaching access to indigenous resources. Once indigenous approval is recognised as a principle, many of the concerns about the Convention can be reduced.

Assuming that prior informed consent is obtained from indigenous peoples, the next question is about the use and benefits arising from the access. Article 10 discusses use of the components of biological diversity and in article (c) contains a potential difficulty when it refers to protecting and encouraging the use of biological resources 'compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements'. Any criteria for defining conservation or sustainable use must be based on indigenous peoples' own definitions. For example, a government or private company's sense of the term 'sustainable' (as in article e) could be very different from one based on indigenous practices. We do not want definitions of indigenous thrust upon us by outsiders, but to see ways of constructive agreement on principles which reflect our sociocultural lifestyle and our own sustainable utilisation of resources.

The Convention addresses the desirability of sharing equitably the benefits arising from the use of traditional knowledge, innovations and practices relevant to the conservation of biological diversity and sustainable use. This recognises that resources cannot be plundered, but does not state how arrangements between indigenous peoples and outside interests can be organised. Benefits can take the form of technology transfer, information and scientific cooperation.

However, such exchange of information shall 'include exchange of results of technical, scientific and socioeconomic research, as well as information on training and surveying programmes, specialised knowledge, indigenous and traditional knowledge as such'.

This is a problem for indigenous peoples, in that we might find that we are obliged to inform the world of our knowledge which other interests use as a basis for commodification, such patenting of life forms and other features of our cultural heritage.

Although there are no easy answers to this problem, the International Alliance supports the recommended moratorium of bio-prospecting made by indigenous peoples in the Pacific in 1995 and is completely opposed to the patenting of life forms. Benefits must be arranged through mutual agreement not only with the interested state parties, but with all the indigenous peoples involved. Furthermore, benefits should not be turned into a process where knowledge becomes commodified.

When looking at the issues of access, use and benefits - it is important to be clear that access is predominant. The right to deny access without prior informed consent and control over activities on indigenous territories is paramount. When that is respected, use and benefits can be negotiated.

5. Financial Mechanisms

The financial mechanisms of the Convention which relate to indigenous peoples and our territories must be targeted to those of us most affected by the problems. The 'top-down' approaches of the multilateral institutions and the GEF are highly problematic because they do not include the full participation of indigenous peoples. More often than not, finance can cause more problems than it solves.

The provisions of the Convention refer more to the needs of states than of indigenous peoples. This should be remedied by careful consideration and preparation as to what money is needed for and that it genuinely contributes to the capacity of indigenous peoples to protect biodiversity, and not of states or multinational corporations to exploit it unsustainably while ignoring indigenous rights. This, unfortunately, has been the experience of the GEF. Before considering GEF funding, incremental costs must be abolished, because the financial mechanism will not work while they remain.

Specific Points On Article 8j

In article 8j, the first words, 'subject to its national legislation', imply that if national legislation does not recognise the subsequent provisions, they are not valid. This would seem unduly negative. A more constructive approach is to say that national legislation must secure the provisions in the article.

The article is in three parts. The first covers the same area as in preambular paragraph 12, but it also refers to intellectual property. Here the State will 'respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovation and practices of indigenous and local communities relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.' This means, effectively, that the state recognises collective rights of us indigenous peoples to knowledge and practices as well to our resources as mentioned in the preamble.

The second part of 8j is significant because it says that the state will 'promote their wider application with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and practices'. Indigenous approval is important because it is embraces the notion of consent. This should be understood as meaning that indigenous peoples are protected from the unilateral exploitation of our knowledge without our consent.

The third part of the article which 'encourages equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of such knowledge, innovations and practices' relates to the second part of the preambular paragraph. This has to be made dependent on whether the approval referred to in the previous part is forthcoming.

From an intellectual property rights perspective, 8j broadens the limited notion of 'intellectual'. Innovation and practice for indigenous peoples is not simply intellectual, but relates to the dependence on biological resources referred to in the preambular paragraph. In effect, the language of the Convention leads to a wider concept of access to resources, embodying cultural, intellectual and scientific knowledge and practices.

The implementation of this article will involve starting from the national legislation of the governments who have signed the Convention. The Convention should oblige states to respect indigenous peoples' rights both internationally, through the draft Declaration, and nationally, through different legislative mechanisms. Mechanisms for securing legal provisions to respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovation and practices, need to be worked out through a process co-ordinated by the Convention Secretariat and the COP, with full participation of indigenous peoples.

Outlines of how national legislation should be developed and promoted could be prepared by the Secretariat on the basis of a process of consultation with indigenous peoples. A discussion of sui generis rights will arise in this context. If indigenous peoples are to support this approach, it is essential that sui generis laws protect indigenous peoples rights, and do not simply provide state governments with opportunities to plunder indigenous peoples' resources.

Conclusion

The Alliance proposes that the CBD Secretariat initiates a full and meaningful process whereby indigenous peoples and governments can discuss and hopefully initiate a positive and constructive interpretation and implementation of the Convention. There are several ways in which this could be done:

(a) The COP could establish a Working Group under the CBD which operates on the same principles as the Working Group on Indigenous Populations, with free and open access. This Working Group could include experts, government representatives and indigenous peoples' representatives. This would enable indigenous peoples to report on the state of biodiversity on their territories and seek mechanisms for securing legal provisions to respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovation and practices. After it has agreed on procedures and how the indigenous provisions should be implemented, any COP Working Group should remain connected to the Convention in the long-term future and be prepared to listen to concerns of indigenous peoples.

(b) The COP could also ask the already existing Working Group on indigenous populations to discuss intellectual property, biodiversity and indigenous rights at its meeting at one of its annual meetings where there is a large indigenous representation. This would have an advantage of using the experience of experts already familiar with indigenous questions to comment on the Biodiversity Convention. The UN Human Rights Centre could be encouraged to organise a Technical Seminar on the same theme.

(c) The COP and Secretariat should work with the initiative to establish a permanent forum for indigenous peoples in the United Nations where indigenous peoples and biodiversity can be addressed along with other matters which affect us.

(d) The Alliance suggests that the Secretariat does not necessarily try to solve the questions of indigenous peoples and the Convention immediately, but works out a process where agreements can be reached through a just and constructive set of arrangements. Support is urgently needed to help indigenous peoples carry out our own process of mutual consultation on our rights. our knowledge and biodiversity.

We indigenous peoples are, proportionally, one of the largest stakeholders in the Convention on Biodiversity and on this basis the International Alliance requests the Secretariat to consider the following points:

The central point for implementing the Biodiversity Convention is the full recognition of indigenous peoples' rights. A constructive and useful interpretation of the Biodiversity Convention can only arise from the context of indigenous rights as a whole. The draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the most useful document to date for the orientation of the CBD (see Appendix C). Particular note should be made of the rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination, collective rights, control of our territories, access to our resources, recognition of our political and legal institutions and control of traditional knowledge.

No access to indigenous knowledge, innovation or practices should take place without the prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples. This consent clause is expressed in article 8j as 'approval' and needs to be emphasised. State sovereignty expressed in this Convention must not override any indigenous rights.

Any initiative or co-operation undertaken between states or business and indigenous peoples must involve an equitable sharing of benefits, but only after consent is obtained. Funding mechanisms involving incremental costs should be avoided.