A/HRC/51/28 IX. Conclusions and recommendations 102. Indigenous women face exceptional impediments to the development, preservation, use and transmission of their scientific knowledge. Because of their relationship with the land and natural environment and the marginalization they face for being women and indigenous, they are disproportionally affected by the loss of lands, territories and resources owing to climate change, the development of megaprojects and the creation of protected areas. 103. The loss of indigenous languages is a key impediment to the transmission of indigenous women’s knowledge. Indigenous languages are disappearing at a critical rate and with them invaluable knowledge and culture is being lost around the world. Indigenous women urgently call for indigenous language education programmes to be developed and resourced and measures taken, in consultation with them, to support intergenerational knowledge transmission. 104. Indigenous women are often absent from decision-making processes, as international and national institutions overlook their contributions and exclude their knowledge from the design of programmes and policies, for example through exclusion of indigenous medicine from State health-care systems. Indigenous women face great challenges in occupying the spaces that are needed to preserve their knowledge. 105. In the absence of culturally appropriate legal frameworks that conform to international human rights standards, indigenous women’s knowledge is exploited or misused by external interests, including the tourism, pharmaceutical and fashion industries. Likewise, indigenous women’s knowledge has been lost and stolen, as in the case of the misappropriation of medicinal plants, human remains and other cultural artefacts taken from burial or cultural sites by collectors, anthropologists, curators or biologists. 106. Indigenous women have shown great resilience in the face of significant environmental, social and political obstacles to the development, use and transmission of their scientific knowledge, much of which has already been lost. To guard against future loss, States must work with indigenous women to promote self-advocacy and implement initiatives led by them to address such obstacles. It is also incumbent on the international community to take action to protect and preserve indigenous women’s knowledge as an irreplaceable repository of scientific and technical information. Finally, United Nations agencies are called upon to align their work with the rights set out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (art. 42) and mobilize financial cooperation and technical assistance (art. 41). 107. The Special Rapporteur recommends that States: (a) Adopt the terminology “indigenous scientific and technical knowledge” in place of “traditional” or “customary” knowledge; (b) Ensure effective legal protection of indigenous women’s rights to lands, territory and resources, and promote their participation in the management and regulation of their lands and resources, including their participation in administrative and legislative processes to obtain their free, prior and informed consent to projects impacting their lands and resources; (c) Adopt, in collaboration with indigenous women, affirmative measures to guarantee their equal and full political participation, including the establishment or strengthening of institutions for indigenous women in leadership roles, the recognition of their organizations as legal and public interlocutors and the provision of spaces for their participation. Also ensure that government institutions and services are culturally and gender-responsive to embrace indigenous women’s knowledge; (d) Incorporate indigenous knowledge into decision-making with respect to environmental programmes and the management of protected areas, including in conducting environmental and social impact evaluations for land use. Recognize the role of indigenous women in environmental conservation through specific funds and the 20