The United Nations General Assembly in its resolution 48/163 of 21 December 1993 proclaimed the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples (1995 - 2004). The main objective of the Decade has been to strengthen international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous peoples in such areas as human rights, the environment, development, education and health. One of the main important outcomes of the UN activities undertaken during this Decade has been the establishment, in 2002, of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII). The mandate of the Forum is to advise and make recommendations to the UN Economic and Social Council on economic and social development, culture, human rights, the environment, education and health relating to indigenous peoples. In particular, the Forum is asked to raise awareness, and promote the integration and coordination of UN activities related to issues of indigenous peoples.
As the Decade comes to a close this year, awareness and increased attention to indigenous issues within FAO work have been the positive results of the activities undertaken during the past ten years, and in particular as a result of the recommendations of the UN PFII. Present FAO activities involving indigenous peoples focus on, among others, topics such as food security, biodiversity and genetic resources, sustainable forest management, development law, gender demographics and indigenous education, and access to land and natural resources.
Within the areas of FAO-related work, and in particular within those concerned with rural development, indigenous peoples have consistently reiterated their main concern and interest in addressing issues such as: access to natural resources (including plant genetic resources) and biodiversity technology; fair conditions relating to employment in agriculture; good practices in agriculture; cultural indicators for the assessment of development projects related to indigenous peoples; and the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights to land.
Although ancestral rights to land are a cornerstone of the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, few countries have been ready to undertake their recognition. Lack of political will together with obstacles such as lack of legal recognition of indigenous rights in national legal frameworks and tenure regimes, different forms of discrimination and inappropriate policies towards indigenous peoples are at the root of some of the limitations that are found with regard to the recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights.
As a contribution to the particular interests of indigenous peoples, this issue of Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives addresses the main issues that are at the core of the recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights. The first five articles presented here, by Colchester et al., Colchester, Griffiths, Nelson and Mackay, provide an overview of the whole issue of indigenous peoples and their land rights, analysed by geographical region. In the first article, the authors provide an overview of the issue of indigenous land rights, addressing definitions, obstacles, development options and institutional challenges for the recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights. In the second article, Marcus Colchester analyses the situation relating to land tenure and indigenous peoples in Asia. Although historically Asian governments have openly denied recognizing the concept of indigenous peoples, this situation is gradually changing. At present, few governments in Asia recognize collective land rights, although many have promoted collaborative natural resource management regimes. In the third article, Thomas Griffiths analyses the situation of land tenure and indigenous peoples in Latin America, which is one of the geographical regions where an important change in the recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights has taken place. From policies of assimilation and integration of the indigenous population in the 1950s and 1960s, new legal frameworks and constitutions are increasingly taking into consideration the multi-ethnic and pluricultural nature of Latin American countries. However, recognition of land rights is an area in which progress has been slower. In the fourth article, John Nelson looks at the situation of land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa, where customary tenure remains the main form of land ownership, with a mix of individual, family and communal rights to land. Customary tenure has uneven levels of legal recognition in African countries, and it is often the case that customary rights are considered weaker than official registered titles to land. In the fifth article, Fergus Mackay analyses the legal issues behind indigenous land rights including indigenous rights to land from the point of view of English Common Law and the French Civil Code. Indigenous rights are deep-rooted in international human rights jurisprudence. New human rights instruments that look into indigenous rights need ratification but, to a large extent, they need to consolidate existing rights.
The following four articles, written respectively by Carlos Nieto Cabrera, Laureano del Castillo Pinto, David Goodwin, and Olivier Évrard and Paul Mathieu, aim to provide an overview of the situation and examples of the ways in which land rights are dealt with in specific countries such as Ecuador and Peru in Latin America, Zimbabwe in Africa, New Zealand in the Pacific and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in Asia.
The articles presented in this issue of Land Reform, Land Settlement and Cooperatives have been commissioned by the Land Tenure Service of the Rural Development Division, which is the Focal Point unit in charge of indigenous issues in FAO. It is our hope that these articles will contribute to the debate on the issues relating to indigenous peoples and their land rights that will continue to be of importance beyond the closure of the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.
Adriana Herrera
FAO Focal Point for Indigenous
Issues
Land Tenure Service
Rural Development Division
