A/77/238 I. Introduction 1. The present report is submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, José Francisco Calí Tzay, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 42/20. He provides herein a brief summary of his activities since his previous report to the General Assembly (A/76/202/Rev.1) and considers the implications of protected areas for the rights of indigenous peoples. 2. The Special Rapporteur considers it urgent and timely to revisit the issue of protected areas and the rights of indigenous peoples, which was addressed by the previous mandate holder in 2016, and assess recent developments with a focus on the obligations of States and international organizations to respect, protect and promote indigenous peoples’ rights. II. Activities of the Special Rapporteur 3. Following his previous report to the General Assembly, the Special Rapporteur organized an expert meeting in late 2021 to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the mandate, providing an opportunity to reflect on achievements, good practices and persistent gaps and challenges in the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to pr opose strategies for the coming decade. The Special Rapporteur carried out an official country visit to Costa Rica in December 2021 and hopes to visit Namibia, Denmark/Greenland and Chad during the coming year. In June 2022, at the international meeting en titled “Stockholm+50: a healthy planet for the prosperity of all – our responsibility, our opportunity”, he delivered a statement on the disproportionate impact of climate change on indigenous peoples’ rights and the need to ensure the rights of indigenous peoples in conservation and climate change action. 1 The Special Rapporteur participated in the annual meetings of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. III. Protected areas and the rights of indigenous peoples: the obligations of States and international organizations 4. For centuries, indigenous peoples’ scientific knowledge, land tenure systems and sustainable management of resources have preserved and conserved the planet. Respect for indigenous peoples’ collective rights is therefore a fundamental step towards the sustainable and effective achievement of conservation goals. However, indigenous peoples continue to be dispossessed of their lands, territories and resources for conservancies, climate change programmes, national parks, game reserves and cultural heritage protection. 5. In the present report, the Special Rapporteur assesses relevant developments since the 2016 report on this topic by the previous mandate holder ( A/71/229), in particular with regard to: (a) the last stages of the negotiations on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, which should accelerate the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity; (b) the designation of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNE SCO) World Heritage sites; and (c) the impacts of initiatives related to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing coun tries (REDD-plus). __________________ 1 4/20 The statement is available at www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/SRIP-Statement-2-June2022.docx. 22-11289