A/HRC/45/34 found guilty of the murder and were convicted, this time including executive staff from Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. 21. The Special Rapporteur has also expressed her concern about attacks on indigenous organizations for their work in defending indigenous peoples’ human rights. In January 2015, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador denounced the unilateral termination by the Government of Ecuador of the 30-year lease on the offices used by the Confederation since 1984. The Confederation considered this decision to be reflective of the increased restrictions on the work of indigenous and civil society organizations in the country. The decision was reversed after the Special Rapporteur addressed a communication to the Government of Ecuador on the situation. 25 22. Civil society organizations, and individuals such as lawyers, supporting indigenous peoples’ rights, have also been subject to attacks. In December 2016, the Ministry of the Interior in Ecuador sought to shut down the non-governmental organization Acción Ecológica, which advocates for environmental causes and the rights of indigenous peoples. The Special Rapporteur, together with other special procedure mandate holders, sent a communication and issued a public press release expressing concern about the restrictions on freedom of expression and association. Within a matter of days, in January 2017, the country’s Ministry of the Environment announced that it had rejected the request of the Ministry of the Interior to shut down the organization. 23. Another issue that has repeatedly been brought to the attention of the Special Rapporteur is violation of the rights of indigenous peoples due to conservation activities. In her report to the General Assembly in 2016, the Special Rapporteur presented recommendations on how indigenous peoples’ rights should be better protected in conservation policy and practice. 26 She was invited to present her report to the World Conservation Congress, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature – the largest global forum for the adoption of conservation policies, which was held in Hawai’i in September 2016. In a positive development, the Congress adopted several resolutions in line with some of the recommendations in the Special Rapporteur’s report, including on the need for safeguarding indigenous lands, territories and resources from unsustainable developments by encouraging governments to work with indigenous peoples in order to create, institute and enforce legal and management regimes for protected areas to enhance accountability and improve governance.27 24. With regard to Thailand, the Special Rapporteur has repeatedly raised concerns over the continuing impact of the violations of the rights of the indigenous Karen peoples in the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex, ongoing since 2011, by officials of the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, and over the failure to ensure accountability for these violations, which included the enforced disappearance of indigenous human rights defender, Pholachi Rakchongcharoen, known as Billy, who was later found murdered. The Government of Thailand nominated the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex to be designated as a UNESCO world heritage site, initially in 2011, and reactivated its nomination in respect of the complex in February 2019. That same month, the Special Rapporteur sent a communication to the Government of Thailand, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and the International Union for Conservation of Nature raising concerns about the alleged violations against the Karen, the lack of consultation, and the failure to seek their free, prior and informed consent, and also about the impact that UNESCO heritage status, if awarded, might have on the Karen communities’ land rights and livelihoods.28 In July 2019, at its forty-third session, the World Heritage Committee decided not to award the Kaeng Krachan Forest Complex heritage status and referred the nomination back to the Government of Thailand to “demonstrate that all concerns have been resolved, in full consultation with the local communities”.29 The suspects, who were national park officials, were charged with the 25 26 27 28 29 ECU 1/2015. A/71/229. See, among other resolutions, WCC 2016 Res 088 EN, WCC 2016 Res 075 EN and WCC 2016 Res 030 EN, available from https://portals.iucn.org/library/resrec/search. THA 2/2019, OTH 7/2019 and OTH 8/2019. Decision 43 COM 8B.5, available at https://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/7360. 7