A/HRC/27/66 disaster risk reduction practices. However, it is necessary to ensure that the perspectives of indigenous peoples are adequately integrated into the implementation of all practices and at all stages of the design and implementation of risk reduction projects and activities. B. Disaster risk reduction as an enabler of human rights 7. Disaster risk reduction is the concept and practice of reducing disaster risks by systematically analysing and managing the causal factors of disasters, including through reduced exposure to hazards, lessened vulnerability of people and property, wise management of land and the environment, and improved preparedness for adverse events.3 8. The impact of disasters on human rights can be of a direct nature, such as the threat that extreme weather events may pose to the right to life. But often they will have an indirect and gradual effect on human rights, such as increasing stress on health systems and increasing vulnerabilities related to climate change-induced migration (A/HRC/10/61, para. 92). The same holds true for virtually all types of natural hazards. Disaster risk reduction contributes to the protection of human rights by reducing the likelihood of natural hazards having a negative impact on housing, health, land rights and access to food, to give a few examples. Disaster risk reduction provides an enabling environment for the promotion and protection of human rights, particularly as it applies to indigenous peoples, whose close relationship with their natural environment makes them particularly vulnerable to disaster risk. 9. Strategies to reduce disaster risk require collaboration and the technical input of a wide range of actors if they are to be effective and they must include the perspective of the indigenous peoples whose human rights and lives they are designed to protect. No one agency or sector alone can hope to achieve meaningful change, and therefore, the very process of designing risk reduction strategies, through partnerships in which human rights agencies, disaster risk reduction experts and representatives of indigenous communities work together, provides an excellent opportunity to improve the participation of indigenous peoples in decision-making processes. 10. All States have the obligation to protect human rights. Natural hazards are not disasters, in and of themselves. Whether or not they become disasters depends on the exposure of a community, and its vulnerability and resilience — all factors that can be addressed by human (including State) action.4 A failure (by national and local governments, disaster risk reduction agencies, indigenous peoples and other actors) to take reasonable preventive action to reduce exposure and vulnerability and to enhance resilience, as well as to provide effective mitigation, is therefore a human rights issue. II. International legal and policy framework A. International legal framework 11. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration) is the most comprehensive instrument elaborating the rights of indigenous 3 4 4 Ibid., pp. 10 and 11. The Chengdu Declaration for Action lays out the premise that there is no such thing as “natural disasters”. Natural hazards — floods, earthquakes, landslides and storms — become disasters as a result of human and societal vulnerability and exposure, which can be addressed by decisive policies and actions and active participation by local stakeholders.