A/HRC/61/49 15. The Special Rapporteur also engaged with various States, local governments and public institutions eager to develop programmes for the realization of cultural rights. She congratulates Spain on the creation of a cultural rights directorate within the Ministry of Culture and the adoption of a cultural rights plan. She also appreciates the recent establishment of a group of friends for the cultural rights of persons with disabilities, led by Cyprus, Iraq, Italy, Mexico and Montenegro, with the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which she has joined. She also contributed to the tenth World Summit on Arts and Culture, organized by the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies, where ministers of culture and representatives of public cultural agencies gathered to discuss policies in the field of culture. 16. Throughout the year, the Special Rapporteur and her team contributed to various training and capacity-building initiatives for cultural rights defenders in various parts of the world and engaged with numerous civil society actors addressing cultural rights issues. III. Nature conservation and cultural rights: the international legal framework 17. States have agreed to situate nature conservation within human development. Sustainable Development Goals 11 to 15 reflect this agreement. The Goals are based on legally binding obligations found in various international treaties. A. International human rights law 18. States’ obligations to take into account cultural rights in all nature conservation activities derive from legally binding obligations that they have undertaken through human rights treaties. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has observed that all people have the right to follow a way of life associated with certain cultural goods and resources, including biodiversity. The Committee has recalled that cultural rights cannot be realized without “nature’s gifts”, namely, the seas, lakes, rivers, mountains, forests and nature reserves, including the flora and fauna found there, which give nations their character and biodiversity. 38 The Human Rights Council has also recognized the universal interrelation between sustainable development, the protection of the environment and the enjoyment of human rights, including the right to participation in cultural life. 39 Both the International Covenants on Human Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination oblige States to guarantee the participation rights recognized in those instruments without discrimination and to ensure that all individuals and communities can contribute meaningfully to measures that have an impact on their human rights. 19. To guarantee substantive equality, the impacts of conservation practices on the cultural rights of vulnerable sections of the population have been specifically considered in international human rights law. 40 The Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities requires that the identity and cultural rights of minorities be protected, as well as their right to participate “effectively”, including with positive measures, if necessary. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples reaffirms that respect for Indigenous knowledge, cultures and traditions contributes to sustainable and equitable development and proper management of the environment. 41 The Declaration recognizes the Indigenous collective right to the conservation and protection of the environment and requires States to consult and cooperate with Indigenous Peoples to obtain their free, prior and informed consent in relation to the adoption or implementation of any measure affecting them.42 Several universal human rights 38 39 40 41 42 6 General comment No. 21 (2009), paras. 15 (b) and 16 (a). See resolution 48/13. See Colin Luoma, “Strengthening the rights to culture and mental health in the face of environmental violence”, Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 47, No. 1 (2025). United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, preamble. Ibid., arts. 19, 24 and 29. GE.26-01310