Conference Summary: Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples: "Words or action? Transition from Indigenous Activism to Political Power - Challenges from South America"

University of Tromsø 5th - 6th of October 2006.

The Forum for Development Cooperation with Indigenous Peoples is a meeting place for researchers, development workers and Sámi organisations engaged in cooperation with indigenous peoples in the South. By initiating important debates concerning policies and practice, the Forum seeks to improve the quality of Norway’s development co-operation with indigenous peoples elsewhere. The program for the conference can be found here. Below follows a summary of the highlights of the conference.

The Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The most interesting contribution was for many Mattias Åhrén’s speech titled “An Adoption of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – a Major Breakthrough?” held at the last day of the conference, which brought interesting insights into the process towards an adoption of the Draft Declaration. Mattias Åhrén was a member of the Saami Council and has been working with the process towards adoption of the Declaration by the General Assembly, a happening Mr. Åhrén was sure will happen shortly: “This fall”, he said, “in a few weeks, the Declaration will be up in the UN General Assembly for final adoption, and will, if nothing extremely unforeseen happens, be finally approved by the UN member states in the General Assembly, and a 22 year old process has come to an end”. The Declaration has been long in making, and has met with many controversies and debates between the member states and indigenous peoples` representatives along the way.

Read his speech here.

Brazil

The presentations from Brazil focused on the situation of the indigenous peoples in the rain forests and Norwegian projects in Brazil. Mr. Ianuculá Kaibi from the Association of the Xingu Indigenous Land spoke about how indigenous peoples themselves have the best knowledge and experience needed for preserving and maintaining their own territories and forests in Brazil.

Lars Løvold from the Norwegian Rainforest Foundation emphasised this point further in his presentation on the work of the Rainforest Foundation in Brazil (pdf presentation, 2861 kb). His contributions on the relationship between indigenous rights, NGO’s and the state proved rewarding. A summary of his spoken presentation at the conference can be found here.

Kristian Bengtson from NORAD and the Norwegian Embassy in Brazil spoke on the development of the indigenous movement in Brazil, which has been supported by Norad for more than 20 years. Despite an explosion in the number of indigenous associations the last 15 years, Bengtson quoted renowned author Daniel Munduruku’s (Tales of the Amazon, How the Munduruku Live) illustrating words: “There is no Indigenous movement”, but instead there are “indigenous in movement” in Brazil. Bengtson pointed out two major obstacles for forming a unified indigenous movement; the obvious difficulties with a diverse and widespread indigenous population, and the authoritarian way in which the Brazilian state historically and into present days has been treating native matters. Today we see the seeds of a national indigenous movement, which Norad has been instrumental in helping to come about. Bengtson’s speaking notes here.

Bolivia

Bolivia is currently in a situation of major changes, with the leftist indigenous Evo Morales as president. Mr. Carlos Romero, Director at the Centre for Social and Juridical Studies (CEJIS) and member of IWGIA’s Advisory Board held a speech with the title: “Territory and Power in the Constitutional Assembly”. Read a brief summary of Romero’s speech here.

SAIH (The Norwegian Students and Academics International Assistance Fund), a Norwegian NGO, works in Bolivia and two representatives spoke at the conference about their work in Bolivia. For more information on SAIH’s projects in Bolivia, see http://www.saih.no/Prosjekter/Bolivia/index.html (in Norwegian only).

Consultations and the Finnmark Act

On the last conference day, member of the Sami Rights Committee Else Grete Broderstad made a presentation titled “ Consultations as a tool: The Finnmark Act – An Example to Follow?”, where she spoke on the process of establishing consultations between the Sami Parliament and the Norwegian Government related to the process leading up to the ratification of the Finnmark Act in 2005. Consultations were important for strengthening Sami influence and self-determination within the nation state, and they have proved to give results in that the Sami were heard and could contribute to the process to achieve consensus between the Sami Parliament and the Norwegian government on the issue of land rights in Finnmark. Consultations also ensure that Sami rights are not compromising other peoples’ rights in any way, a fact that is too seldom communicated in the media. This is important to communicate when Sami land rights are being examined also in other areas south of Finnmark, as the Sami Rights Commission is currently doing, commented Broderstad. Read a summary of her presentation here.