A/HRC/54/52 cities, volunteers from among Indigenous Peoples, as well as Indigenous people from regions whose authorities had not taken proper and timely measures, were called for mobilization. 33. In regard to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in the United States, United Nations experts issued a public statement calling on United States security forces, law enforcement officials and private security firms to address and take responsibility for the unjustified force that they have used to deal with opponents of the project.61 Similarly, in Canada, an injunction requested by a pipeline corporation resulted in the dismantling of a protest camp of the Wet’suwet’en in January 2019 in north-west British Columbia and led to mass arrests.62 It was alleged that the police in Canada had prepared to use excessive, and even lethal force. 63 It has been further reported that the State refused to release internal records relating to the Wet’suwet’en protests under an exemption typically related to gathering information on terrorism.64 B. Right to land, territories and natural resources 34. The increased militarization of Indigenous lands, territories and resources in several regions, as recognized and elaborated upon by the Expert Mechanism, severely hampers Indigenous Peoples’ enjoyment of their land and contributes to dispossession. 65 The legal security of Indigenous Peoples’ right to land is fundamental to reduce conflict, including intercommunity conflict, as well as to strengthen Indigenous territorial governance. 66 35. Article 29 of the Declaration establishes the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of the lands, territories and resources. Effective measures have to be taken by States to ensure that no storage or disposal of hazardous materials, including related to military activities, takes place in the lands or territories of Indigenous Peoples without their free, prior and informed consent. 36. In some States, the presence of military forces in Indigenous areas has reportedly resulted in the forcible acquisition of Indigenous lands, increased settlement by nonIndigenous groups in those lands, the destruction of Indigenous Peoples’ homes, and breakdowns in Indigenous Peoples’ control over their territories.67 In South and South-East Asia, States such as Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand have allegedly used repressive strategies to control Indigenous Peoples by deploying their security forces (the military, paramilitary forces, border guards, intelligence agencies and the police). These States’ violence has contributed to dispossession of land and forced displacement of Indigenous Peoples. In Cambodia, there are reports of arrests made by armed private military and security companies, police and rangers, of the hiring of military personnel to protect logging operations, and banning of the forest patrols which is enforced by armed rangers and police. 68 In Colombia, Indigenous Peoples have allegedly been evicted from their lands, including with the assistance of military and paramilitary forces, due to the establishment of clean energy projects (in addition to oil, mining, coal and energy projects), including renewable energies such as hydroelectric, photovoltaic and wind power.69 37. Some Indigenous Peoples experience forced population transfer programmes. In Bangladesh, it has been reported that a population of more than 400,000 Bengali Muslims 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 GE.23-14759 OHCHR, “Native Americans facing excessive force in North Dakota pipeline protests – UN expert”, 15 November 2016. Division for Inclusive Social Development of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Indigenous Peoples and Development Branch of the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples: Rights to Lands, Territories and Resources, vol. 5 (2021), p. 69. Submission from Gidimt’en Land Defenders, Wet’suwet’en Nation. Ibid. See A/HRC/EMRIP/2019/2/Rev.1. Ibid. See A/HRC/24/41/Add.3. Submission from the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Leonardo González Paragón, presentation at the virtual Expert Seminar hosted by the University of British Colombia, February 2022. 9