A/HRC/24/41 consultations or consent will often serve to breed distrust on the part of indigenous peoples, making any eventual agreement difficult to achieve. 69. Also in terms of time, consultations should not be bound to temporal constraints imposed by the State, as is done under some regulatory regimes. In order for indigenous peoples to be able to freely enter into agreements, on an informed basis, about activities that could have profound effects on their lives, they should not feel pressured by time demands of others, and their own temporal rhythms should be respected. 5. Indigenous participation through representative institutions 70. A defining characteristic of indigenous peoples is the existence of their own institutions of representation and decision-making, and it must be understood that this feature makes consultations with indigenous peoples very different from consultations with the general public or from ordinary processes of State or corporate community engagement. The Special Rapporteur notes cases in which companies and States have bypassed indigenous peoples’ own leadership and decision-making structures out of misguided attempts to ensure broad community support. Where indigenous peoples are concerned, however, international standards require engagement with them through the representatives determined by them and with due regard for their own decision-making processes. Doing so is the best way of ensuring broad community support. Indigenous peoples should be encouraged to include appropriate gender balance within their representative and decisionmaking institutions. However, such gender balance should not be dictated or imposed upon indigenous peoples by States or companies, anymore than indigenous peoples should impose gender balance on them. 71. It may be that in some circumstances ambiguity exists about which indigenous representatives are to be engaged, in the light of the multiple spheres of indigenous community and organization that may be affected by particular extractive projects, and also that in some instances indigenous representative institutions may be weakened by historical factors. In such cases indigenous peoples should be given the opportunity and time, with appropriate support from the State if they so desire it, to organize themselves to define the representative institutions by which they will engage in consultations over extractive projects. F. Rights-centered, equitable agreements and partnership 72. As stated above (para. 30), the principle of free, prior and informed consent does not fulfil its role as protective of and instrumental to indigenous peoples’ rights unless consent, when it is given, is given on just and equitable terms. Accordingly, there is growing awareness that agreements with indigenous peoples allowing for extractive projects within their territories must be crafted on the basis of full respect for their rights in relation to the affected lands and resources, and provide for equitable distribution of the benefits of the projects within a framework of genuine partnership. 1. Impact mitigation 73. Measures to safeguard against or to mitigate environmental and other impacts that could adversely affect the rights of indigenous peoples in relation to their territories are an essential component of any agreement for extractive activities within the territories of indigenous peoples. Experience shows that special attention is required for potential impacts on health conditions, subsistence activities and places of cultural or religious significance. Provisions for impact prevention and mitigation should be based on rigorous impact studies developed with the participation of the indigenous peoples concerned (see para. 65 above) and should be specific to the impacts identified with regard to particular rights that are recognized under domestic or international law. Additionally, they should 18