A/HRC/36/46 across the world risk being forced into extreme poverty by 2030 due to climate change. 2 This has significant implications for indigenous peoples, who are already facing severe socioeconomic disadvantages. These figures are particularly alarming given the wealth of natural resources that are located within indigenous territories and the valuable contributions indigenous peoples can provide in alleviating climate change. Traditional indigenous territories encompass about 22 per cent of the world’s land surface and overlap with areas that hold 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity. 3 Their role is vital for sustainable environmental management of natural resources and biodiversity conservation, both of which are essential elements for combating climate change. 8. The correlation between secure indigenous land tenure and positive conservation outcomes is well known (A/71/229), as are the related implications of reduced deforestation resulting in lower global carbon dioxide emissions. For example, in the Brazilian Amazon, in areas where the State has recognized the forest rights of indigenous peoples, the deforestation rate was 11 times lower than in forests where their rights were not recognized. A recent study of 80 forest areas in 10 countries in South Asia, East Africa and Latin America showed that community-owned and -managed forests delivered both superior community benefits and greater carbon storage, and concluded that strengthening indigenous peoples’ rights to their forests is an effective way for Governments to meet climate goals.4 9. The impact of climate change has been a long-standing concern for the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. As the previous mandate holder stated back in 2007: “Extractive activities, cash crops and unsustainable consumer patterns have generated climate change, widespread pollution and environmental degradation. These phenomena have had a particularly serious impact on indigenous people, whose way of life is closely linked to their traditional relationship with their lands and natural resources, and has become a new form of forced eviction of indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories, while increasing the levels of poverty and disease” (see A/HRC/4/32, para. 49). Climate change not only poses a grave threat to indigenous peoples’ natural resources and livelihoods, but also to their cultural identity and survival. 10. Examples of the impact of severe climate change on indigenous peoples include the large-scale thawing of the ice in the traditional Arctic territories of the Inuit. Indigenous peoples on the islands of the Pacific are directly threatened with total or partial disappearance of their lands as a result of climate change. 11. Gendered impacts of climate change such as migration (being forced to seek informal wage labour) and water scarcity (being forced to walk longer distances to seek drinkable water) are likely to affect women and girls in particular, making them more vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation. 5 12. Compounding these vulnerabilities, programmes to mitigate and adapt to climate change, if designed without consulting indigenous peoples and implemented without their participation, may adversely affect indigenous peoples’ rights and undermine their customary rights to lands and natural resources. 13. The Special Rapporteur, in her previous role as Chair of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, undertook a study in 2007 on the impact of climate change mitigation measures on indigenous peoples and on their territories and lands (E/C.19/2008/10). In the study she called for increased consultation with and participation of indigenous peoples in climate change mitigation processes, raised concerns over the failure to apply a human 2 3 4 5 4 World Bank, Shock Waves: Managing the Impacts of Climate Change on Poverty (Washington, D.C., 2016) p. 2. World Bank,The Role of Indigenous Peoples in Biodiversity Conservation: The Natural but Often Forgotten Partners (Washington, D.C., 2008), p. 5. World Resources Institute and Rights and Resources Initiative, Securing Rights, Combating Climate Change: How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change (Washington, D.C., 2014). International Labour Organization (ILO), Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: From Victims to Change Agents through Decent Work (Geneva, 2017), pp. 16-18.