A/HRC/15/37/Add.5
Lands and natural resources
83.
It is essential that the State urgently bring coherence, consistency and certainty
to the various laws that concern the rights of indigenous peoples and particularly their
access to land and resources. In accordance with international standards, guarantees
for indigenous land and resource rights should be legally certain; implemented fully
and fairly for all indigenous communities; consistent between federal and regional
frameworks; and consistent throughout various legislation dealing with property
rights, land leases and auctions, fisheries and forestry administration, national parks
and environmental conservation, oil development and regulation of commercial
enterprises.
84.
Legislated land and resource use guarantees for indigenous people should be
able to withstand any future land reform, hunting or fishing law amendments, and
any other new laws that affect indigenous communities. Urgent attention should be
paid to ensuring proper modifications or revisions to the land code, the federal law on
hunting, and other legal provisions that currently contradict or hinder indigenous
land and resource rights.
Extractive and other industrial activities
85.
Additional federal legislation is needed to regulate the interaction between
industrial and extractive enterprises and indigenous communities, with a special
emphasis on the right of indigenous peoples to be effectively consulted about
industrial activities affecting them, and the right to compensation and mitigation
measures. The federal legislature should develop standards and models for
consultation mechanisms between indigenous peoples and industrial and extractive
industries, in accordance with relevant international standards, and should enact a
requirement for ethnographic impact assessments and ensure that ecological
resources are shared with a view towards their sustainable long-term usefulness. It is
essential to note that indigenous peoples’ right to be consulted about decisions that
affect them should be protected whenever industrial development affects their
communities, even when there is no established territory of traditional nature use or
other recognized land use entitlement.
86.
In many instances agreements have been concluded for the development of
natural resources on or near indigenous lands, bringing some benefits to the
indigenous peoples concerned. However, a broader understanding of cooperation is
called for: rather than limiting the interaction between extractive industries and
indigenous people to compensation agreements, administrators should encourage
ownership interest and profit-sharing in extractive industries, when indigenous
communities are so inclined.
87.
The federal Government should establish reliable methods of monitoring the
development of industrial projects, such as the Evenkia Dam, to ensure that
indigenous people’s rights to effective consultation, compensation and mitigation
measures are fully respected. This is especially crucial for Government-approved
projects requiring relocation – an especially intrusive and disruptive measure, which
should be implemented only with the free, prior, and informed consent of the
indigenous peoples affected. It is essential that the Government authorities and the
indigenous community in question agree together on a relocation site, that their land
use rights are legally guaranteed, and that they receive all necessary support to be
able to establish their new community in a manner they choose.
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GE.10-14779