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6.
The Permanent Forum recommends that Member States support, financially and
in every other way, Indigenous Peoples’ development of their own strategies in
revitalizing, strengthening and developing their languages parallel to other efforts
under the Global Action Plan.
7.
The Permanent Forum recalls the relevance of article 13 (1) of the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and encourages States to
step up efforts, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, to advance the realization
of the linguistic and cultural rights of Indigenous Peoples, including through the r ight
to education in Indigenous Peoples’ languages in the context of the International
Decade.
8.
The importance of Indigenous Peoples’ languages is clear, given that they
embody and convey ancestral and millennial Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, culture,
history, traditions and values, including the critical knowledge of nature and the
environment that is so crucial in addressing the climate crisis. Indigenous Peoples
individually and collectively carry their rich cultural knowledge across generations.
The Permanent Forum shares the vision that Indigenous Peoples will continue to be
able to articulate in Indigenous Peoples’ languages the concepts that the future of the
planet depends on us.
9.
Indigenous Peoples’ languages are an integral part of Indigenous Peoples and
there is a recognition that they have the right to learn and use Indigenous Peoples ’
languages. To further strengthen Indigenous Peoples’ languages, there is a need to use
public policy to popularize them so that they are part of the mainstream and visible
and available in every aspect of life. In that regard, it is important that Indigenous
Peoples’ languages be made a part of the arts through the development, creation and
sharing of songs, literature and the media as well as in the formal education system
and in the provision of basic services.
10. The Permanent Forum underlines the need for the examination of national
policies, practices and funding programmes on Indigenous media, including capacity building and content production in Indigenous languages by Indigenous media
professionals, including Indigenous women, and for the promotion of international
cooperation, knowledge-sharing and cooperation among Indigenous media and other
partners, including mainstream media and Governments. The Permanent Forum
recommends that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, in partnership with relevant United Nations entities and Indigenous
Peoples, conduct a study on Indigenous media and present their findings at the annual
session of the Permanent Forum in 2025.
11. The Permanent Forum acknowledges the commitments and support of the
Member States that have established action plans, in parallel with the Global Action
Plan, that include support for transformative initiatives that strengthen and protect
Indigenous languages, such as the establishment of universities of Indigenous
Peoples’ languages in Mexico and Morocco and the efforts of Nordic and other
countries in committing to engaging in digital communication and information
technologies for Indigenous Peoples’ languages. For those Member States that have
yet to develop an action plan, the Permanent Forum reiterates the call for Member
States to initiate such plans, in full cooperation with Indigenous Peoples.
12. Importantly, and in parallel with action plans, the Permanent Forum calls upon
Member States to urgently provide adequate and appropriate support and resources
for Indigenous Peoples’ languages, with a focus on Indigenous-led initiatives. That is
especially crucial in circumstances in which the languages are critically endangered.
When an Indigenous Peoples’ language becomes extinct, the richness of the ways of
life and world views of Indigenous Peoples is lost, which is detrimental both to
Indigenous Peoples and to the world.
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