E/2011/43 E/C.19/2011/14 76. The Permanent Forum commends UNICEF and UNFPA for their work to combat female genital mutilation practices and urges them to continue their efforts with indigenous peoples and their communities. 77. The Permanent Forum decides to appoint Myrna Cunningham and Alvaro Pop to prepare jointly with UNICEF a report on the situation of indigenous children in Latin America and the Caribbean and to present it to the Forum at its eleventh session. Half-day discussion on the right to water and indigenous peoples 78. The Permanent Forum welcomes the adoption by the General Assembly of its resolution 64/292, in which the Assembly recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. Furthermore, the Permanent Forum applauds the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation for her work. The Permanent Forum appreciates her affirmation of the important indivisible, interdependent and interrelated nature of indigenous peoples’ human rights, especially within the context of their right to water. 79. Indigenous peoples have a profound relationship with their environment. This includes their distinct rights to water. The Permanent Forum urges States to guarantee those rights, including the right to access to safe, clean, accessible and affordable water for personal, domestic and community use. Water should be treated as a social and cultural good, and not primarily as an economic good. The manner in which the right to water is realized must be sustainable for present and future generations. Moreover, indigenous peoples’ access to water resources on their ancestral lands must be protected from encroachment and pollution. Indigenous peoples must have the resources to design, deliver and control their access to water. 80. The Permanent Forum recognizes treaty rights, including associated rights to water, as a key element in the comprehensive discussion of indigenous peoples’ understanding and interpretation of treaties, agreements and constructive arrangements between indigenous peoples and States. 81. All too often, indigenous peoples face increasing competition for their scarce water reserves from agricultural plantations, as well as from hydroelectric, mining and commercial entities. In many instances, the privatization of water, combined with the failure to provide indigenous peoples with timely and adequate information about how to register their water rights, ignores and abuses indigenous peoples’ right to water. In many regions of the world, mining companies have almost depleted water aquifers on which indigenous peoples rely for their drinking water. In other regions, mercury from abandoned gold rush era mines and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other contaminants have been dumped into all water sources, polluting the water supply and making seafood, a staple of the traditional diet, unsafe for human consumption. 82. The Permanent Forum urges States to recognize and protect indigenous peoples’ cultural right to water and, through legislation and policy, to support the right of indigenous peoples to hunt and gather food resources from waters used for cultural, economic and commercial purposes. This is consistent with article 25 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 14 11-37063