Indigenous rights

Today (August 9) marks the annual International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. This date was chosen in recognition of the first meeting of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations held in Geneva in 1982. Though indigenous peoples make up less than six per cent of the world’s population, they account for at least 15 per cent of the world’s poor and are nearly three times as likely to be living in extreme poverty as non-indigenous peoples. The theme this year to mark the day is ‘Protecting the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact’. Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact are often threatened by voluntary exposure due to their lack of immunity to several common diseases. Moreover, indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation are often the best protectors of forests, with the UN noting that when their rights to their traditional land and territories are protected, forests tend to thrive. An estimated 40 per cent of the land traditionally occupied by Indigenous peoples is located in areas of high biodiversity, proving their crucial role they play in preserving the environment. Sadly, the rights of indigenous peoples to their way of life, lands, territories and natural resources have been violated throughout history.

This goes hand-in-hand with the widespread destruction of natural habitats around the world and the resulting perils of climate change. As such, the protection of indigenous people’s rights is intimately tied to the aim of countering global warming and saving our planet. Indigenous peoples are thus on the front lines of the battle against climate change and are often the first to be impacted by its consequences. According to the World Economic Forum, climate change is displacing Indigenous communities at seven times the rate of the global population. This includes the Kalash community in Pakistan. With around 33 of the over 3000 glacial lakes in Pakistan deemed to be at a high risk of bursting, the Kalash people lie right in the path of the flood waters and have suffered considerably due to floods in recent years. The impacts of floods on farming, which the majority of the Kalash rely on, is particularly hard and those who lose their farms once often struggle to get them going again.

As agriculture continues to erode before the onslaught of climate change in Pakistan, the foundation of the Kalash community and their way of life may well be vanishing with it. Then there is the threat from deforestation, with Pakistan losing 20 per cent of its forest area since the year 2000, leaving the country with less than five per cent forest cover. Saving indigenous communities will require taking better care of the environment and more proactive steps against climate change. One way to do this would be to give indigenous communities stronger land rights, enabling them to help stop the destruction of our environment.