A/HRC/45/34/Add.1
the project and one civil society representative. There is no requirement that any member be
indigenous.
71.
The commission is to engage with a range of different constituents within the
consulted indigenous peoples, through indigenous peoples’ own community structures and
associations. The Decree includes information on concrete ways to engage with the
communities without, however, specifying whether these proposals are culturally
appropriate or the most efficient way to communicate with indigenous communities.
72.
The Decree provides that the goal of consultations is to get the free, prior and
informed consent of populations affected by a development project. It does not, however,
provide for a complaints procedure for any indigenous communities that may consider a
consultation to have been flawed or where an agreement reached after consultation was not
respected.
E.
Rights and access to land and resources
1.
Standstill regarding the land demarcation process
73.
In 2010, the Special Rapporteur recommended that the Government develop a new
procedure for demarcating and registering lands in accordance with indigenous peoples’
customary rights and tenure. He highlighted the need for funding, technical expertise,
participation of indigenous peoples and dedicated personnel. He also advised that a
mechanism be established to review all existing laws to ensure consistency with the thenpending Law No. 5-2011.
74.
Law No. 5-2011 recognizes that indigenous peoples, collectively and individually,
have a right to own, possess, access and use the lands and natural resources that they have
traditionally used or occupied for their subsistence, pharmacopeia and work (art. 31). It
requires the State to facilitate delimitation of those lands on the basis of indigenous
customary rights and to ensure legal recognition of titles in accordance with customary
rights, even in cases where indigenous peoples did not previously possess any formal title
(art. 32).
75.
According to both the Government and civil society, land titling is an extremely
complex issue in the Congo, in part because of overlapping rights over the forest,
particularly where logging concessions have been granted or conservation areas have been
established over indigenous lands, but also because of overlapping bodies of law governing
the use and ownership of lands, with customary laws applying to both Bantu and
indigenous populations and modern laws introducing the notion of land title. Land
demarcation is also complex and onerous and there are currently no concrete resources
allocated to this process. No procedures for claiming land have yet been defined, there is no
national land registry and the Ministry of Land and Public Domain Affairs has reported that
it has not received any request for land titling since the adoption of Law No. 5-2011.
76.
The Special Rapporteur notes with concern that a law regulating land use and
acquisition adopted in 2018 does not mention the specific rights of indigenous peoples set
out in Law No. 5-2011.22
77.
Decree No. 2006-255 of 28 June 2006 facilitates the recognition of customary land
ownership where the land has been in use through agriculture, cattle grazing or other
productive activities (art. 7). It does not, however, recognize conservation and sustainable
forest management as a form of land development that could lead to the issuance of a land
title. Indigenous peoples’ traditional lands are used for hunting, gathering or religious
practices and may be wrongly perceived by non-indigenous populations as being
“unoccupied” and consequently subject to designation as forest reserves, national parks or
conservation areas or for commercial exploitation.
78.
Private property is a concept foreign to most indigenous peoples, including the
indigenous peoples of the Congo. Most indigenous peoples forced out of the forest and
living in the outskirts of Bantu villages, however, express the wish to obtain land titles in
22
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Law No. 21-2018 of 13 June 2018.