A/HRC/36/53 established a number of enterprises that create wealth and employment. Millbrook’s biggest business initiative is the Truro Power Centre, a commercial development that has been highly successful in attracting a number of businesses and jobs to the area. Millbrook is using the profits of its enterprise successes to improve services in the community; for example, Can$ 4 million was provided to build a new administration building and health centre.38 Another example is the Sakhalin Aborigine company in the Poronaysk District in the Russian Federation. During the fishing season, the company employs up to 100 people. The company takes part in addressing social problems experienced by indigenous peoples in Sakhalin, as well as in financing and organizing an annual cultural festival. 39 66. Joint ventures are particularly common in the extractive industry where indigenous peoples tend to lack the capital to mine their own land. With any joint venture arrangement, there needs to be a regulatory framework in place that recognizes and protects indigenous peoples’ rights. Companies need to engage in due diligence and provide a fair and adequate consultation process. An example of an appropriate consultation process that recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples is the Maya Consultation Framework. A primary objective of the framework is that consultations with the Maya people are culturally appropriate and meet international normative standards, particularly the requirement of free, prior and informed consent. 40 When they can afford it, some indigenous peoples are initiating or taking over extractive industry businesses, including the Southern and Northern Ute tribes in the United States. A number of indigenous peoples reason that if extraction is going to take place anyway, it is preferable if it is an indigenous owned business. 67. Indigenous businesses operate in a variety of sectors, including agriculture, forestry, fishing, arts, technology and tourism. The Ho-Chunk Tribe in the United States, for example, has made a deliberate effort to diversify from casino gaming into other industries ranging from business and health-care products to bottled water and ceremonial supplies. It has also developed housing so that tribal members can both live and work in their indigenous community. 68. In the past two decades, community-based approaches to tourism, such as ecotourism and cultural tourism, have become increasingly popular as a sustainable development approach that provides employment opportunities. However, for indigenous people involved in the tourism industry, the challenge is deciding what aspects of their culture to share without compromising its integrity. It is therefore important that they are provided with the opportunity to authorize any planned tourist activities on their land. With ethnocultural tourism representing one of the most promising spheres of entrepreneurship for indigenous peoples, the VII World Congress of the Finno-Ugric Peoples advised governments of regions inhabited by indigenous Finno-Ugric peoples to establish multidisciplinary educational programmes combining studies related to indigenous languages, business economics and tourism in order to encourage Finno-Ugric indigenous peoples to establish businesses that take advantage of their languages and cultures. The Congress also recommended pursuing partnerships with the World Indigenous Tourism Alliance and relying on the Larrakia Declaration on the Development of Indigenous Tourism as guidelines for developing sustainable tourism based on indigenous languages and cultures.41 69. The Kalevalsky District in the Republic of Karelia in the Russian Federation is a promising target area for the development of ethnocultural tourism. The Karelian authorities have taken advantage of the intangible cultural richness of the Kalevalsky District based on the Kalevala epic poem to introduce various ethnocultural activities. The indigenous peoples of the region are actively running businesses around those activities. However, according to a 2016 study conducted with support from the World Bank, many of 38 39 40 41 14 Loizides and Wuttunee, Creating Wealth and Employment in Aboriginal Communities. Natalya Novikova, presentation to the expert seminar on good practices and challenges for indigenous peoples’ entrepreneurship. Cristina Coc and Pablo Miss, presentations to the expert seminar on good practices and challenges for indigenous peoples’ entrepreneurship. See http://lahti2016.fucongress.org/sites/lahti2016.fucongress.org/files/ 4.Economy%20and%20Environment_Recommendations_eng.pdf.

Select target paragraph3