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The 12th meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Inter-sessional Working Group on Article 8(j) and Related Provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity took place from 12 to 16 November 2023.
On 13 November, the Chairperson of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Mr. Dario Mejia Montalvo, addressed the Working Group that considered the recommendations related to the Convention from the twentieth (2021), twenty-first (2022), and twenty-second (2023) sessions of the Permanent Forum, focusing on those recommendations that had not yet been examined by the Working Group.
Among the various issues, the Chairperson of the Forum highlighted that “the Forum recognizes the efforts of Parties to promote the rights of Indigenous Peoples with the development of international guidelines, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Voluntary Funding Mechanism, among others.”
The Chairperson also mentioned that “recommendation 85 of the 21st session of the Forum, has been endorsed by the other two UN mechanisms on Indigenous Peoples and consequently they issued a public communication in July 2023 addressed to States and UN entities. The communication refers to the need "that Indigenous Peoples should not be conflated with an undefined set of communities that may have different rights and interests". Therefore, "we urge that the term ‘Indigenous Peoples and local communities’ no longer be used as a single entity or subject".”
Additionally, he pointed out that “our position can in no way be interpreted as discrimination or opposition to any other group, and more specifically to local communities; nor is it a legal discussion about the existence or not of any subject or group according to its own denomination, nor about their respective status; it is not a recommendation that excludes the work and approach of other entities and processes of the parties, as we have already said, we have sent notes to the various UN entities, which have responded favorably, this recommendation does not point to the fact that the text of the Convention must necessarily be modified / revised. This recommendation is about "working methods". In short, it is an approach that seeks to reinforce the relevance of addressing and implementing Indigenous Peoples' Rights in the work on the Convention.”
The Chairperson also asked the Parties to request the Secretariat to convene an ad hoc expert group meeting on the implications and consequences of the conflation of Indigenous Peoples with other groups of society within the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention and to develop specific actions to avoid such conflation.
