This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs DeskA Native-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, Native News Online and APTN.
In 2019, Makanalani Gomes on the slopes of Mauna Keathe highest mountain in Hawaiʻi, face to face with Honolulu riot police. For decades, Native Hawaiians like Gomes watched — and protested — as their sacred mountain was bulldozed and excavated for the construction of telescopes and other astronomical facilities. After the observatories were built, they left construction equipment and debris, Mauna Kea’s top littered.
Gomes and other activists months spent sleeping on the mountainside, in the cold, successfully preventing construction crews from going up the slope to the proposed Thirty meter telescopeand to date, the project remains in limbo.
“Every day we are in the fight of our lives and on the front lines,” Gomes said.
This week, Gomes will continue her work to fight for indigenous self-determination and sovereignty when she joins the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs in New York – the largest gathering of indigenous leaders, activists and policy makers on the planet. Starting today, the 23rd annual event runs through April 26 and will focus on “accentuating the voices of indigenous youth” like Gomes, who is now one of three co-chairs of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus.
“We are intrinsically of our lands and of our waters, of our mountains and of our oceans, and then we lay down our bodies in turn to preserve what we have left,” she said. “So I guess that’s what I’m looking forward to is just being with people who understand the walk that we’re walking and the honor and privilege that we’re doing it with.”
The forum was founded more than two decades ago as a permanent advisory body for indigenous peoples at the UN, and is a uniquely influential place for participants to ensure that their perspectives are heard. Indigenous peoples and nations cannot vote at the UN like member states, but the forum has the ability to make official recommendations as an advisor to the Economic and Social Council, one of the six main UN bodies that help facilitate multinational agreements on sustainable development. The forum has 16 members who serve three-year terms, with eight nominated by state governments and eight by indigenous organizations.
“The importance of the Permanent Forum is that it puts pressure on other parts of the United Nations to take appropriate action regarding indigenous peoples,” said Andrea Carmen, executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council.
The very existence of the forum is itself a product of indigenous advocacy. Mililani Trask, a longtime Native Hawaiian activist and one of the first members of the Permanent Forum, said advocates should sit and listen as UN members discuss issues relevant to them. She said that Indigenous advocates wanted a permanent space where they could speak on the floor.
“Once we were established as a body, it shifted the balance of power,” Trask said. That meant, “we have a basis for working with governments in partnerships instead of going to the gun.”
Trask also said the forum increased indigenous expertise.
“When the forum came into existence, it was the first time that non-white indigenous international legal experts came to the fore,” said Trask. Member states “didn’t think we had any.”
She said the advisory body had a major influence on the eventual adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples five years later in 2007. The UN document describes the rights of indigenous peoples and has been a key tool for indigenous advocates seeking to hold states and corporations accountable for human rights abuses. It is not legally binding, but it provides an international standard to which indigenous people can refer when their rights are violated.
Just two years ago, the venue had the Yaqui Nation in Mexico to reclaim their sacred Maaso Kova from a museum in Stockholm, Sweden. The deer head is used in ceremonial dances and was taken as part of the colonial enslavement and oppression of the Yaqui people. The return of the Maaso Kova in 2022 was what The New York Times reported as the “first successful repatriation of cultural artifacts to an indigenous group under the supervision of the United Nations under its Declaration of Indigenous Rights.”
Andrea Carmen, who is also Yaqui, said this would not have happened without the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs.
The forum does not accept human rights complaints, or initiate investigations, such as the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples. But veteran attendees like Carmen say it’s an opportunity to meet high-level officials from the UN and state governments, raise awareness of important issues and create community with other indigenous peoples from around the world. The latter is what Gomes is most looking forward to as she prepares her remarks to open Tuesday’s discussion on self-determination and Native youth.
“So many of us, even though we are young people, have already experienced how we are land and water defenders and literally use our physical bodies to defend Mother Earth,” she said.
This year’s focus will be on how to strengthen those self-determination rights for indigenous youth like Gomes. Gomes is hopeful that the theme will lead to more youth attending for the first time. Bryan Bixcul, who is Maya Tz’utujil from Guatemala and works as an advocacy coordinator at the nonprofit Cultural survivalis one of them.
“Many things are discussed at the international level, but the implementation takes place at the national level,” Bixcul said.
Among other things, he looks forward to a discussion on the first day of the forum about ongoing efforts to replace fossil fuel energy production with cleaner alternatives such as solar power and wind that emit less carbon emissions. Indigenous peoples’ territories are critical to the success of the energy transition as land that they manage an estimated 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity, but new mining projects and conservation areas often overlooked their rights. Last year the Permanent Forum instructed a group of expertss to meet and discuss the green energy transitionn and its effect on indigenous peoples. The resulting report is on the agenda for this year’s forum and spells out a long list of ways governments and corporations can and should respect indigenous rights, such as passing laws to require clean energy projects to respect the rights of indigenous peoples to consent to projects on their land.
Bixcul is also helping organize a workshop for youth on April 18 to help build solidarity and learn effective advocacy strategies to bring back home. Side events like this are a critical part of the gathering this week and next because they facilitate discussions and connections between activists who must adhere to official time limits for speeches during the main agenda.
“We think it’s very important for communities to map out their priorities — their self-determined priorities — so that as they face threats, now or in the future, they’re willing to engage in these conversations with corporations,” he said.
One tangible output of the forum will be a report summarizing recommendations gathered during the forum, which advocates can refer to as they continue their work in their home countries and in other United Nations bodies. For example, in last year’s reportthe Permanent Forum condemned the use of the term “Indigenous Peoples and local communities” arguing that Indigenous peoples must be separated from local communities instead of being merged, which may reduce the former’s rights. The IPLC acronym is still used, but indigenous advocates have repeatedly pointed to the forum’s statement to bolster their argument for its non-use. They worry that the language could have major implications for who gets access to global funding to mitigate climate change and whether indigenous people get a say in land decisions, including the expansion of conservation areas.
Last year’s forum also asked for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to prepare a special report led by indigenous experts to analyze climate change’s effects and opportunities for indigenous peoples. The recommendation was not immediately accepted by IPCC, but Carmen of the International Indigenous Treaty Council said it was typical.
“These things take some time,” she said.
Many of the topics at this year’s Permanent Forum are not new: Last year there was a especially focus on climate, and planned sessions on land protectors and militarization have been previously discussed. But one agenda item that was not there last year is a meeting with the president of the General Assembly to discuss the outcome document of the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoplesa report from the General Assembly a decade ago that lists a series of commitments by UN member states to indigenous rights, such as the implementation of policies promoting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Carmen said such a high-level meeting had not taken place for several years and planned to use the opportunity to ask about the creation of a new UN body dedicated to the repatriation of indigenous items.
The Permanent Forum can be challenging to navigate for indigenous youth, especially those who come from more rural areas, need visas or face language barriers. But Gomes said she is inspired by how many indigenous people attend despite such obstacles.
“We’re finding a way to navigate these systems that weren’t designed by us or for us,” she said.
