9 August: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

By resolution 49/214, the United Nations General Assembly decided to celebrate the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on 9 August of every year during the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1994-2004). This date marks the day of the first meeting, in 1982, of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the Sub-commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights.

In 2004, the UN General Assembly proclaimed a 2nd International Decade of the World's Indigenous Peoples (2005-2014) and decided to continue to celebrate the Day. The goal of the 2nd Decade is to further the 'strengthening of international cooperation for the solution of problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment, and social and economic development, by means of action-oriented programs and specific projects, increased technical assistance, and relevant standard-setting activities'.

On 9 August 2005, the 11th annual commemoration of the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples will be held at the United Nations Headquarters, in New York (United States). The program will include statements from UN Agencies, the Chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum and others, as well as various indigenous cultural presentations.

Find out more at the Day's official web site
Read some facts and figures about water and indigenous peoples

Job vacancy for Chief of Section on Hydrological Processes and Climate at UNESCO/IHP

A position for Senior Programme Specialist, Chief of Section on Hydrological Processes and Climate at the Division of Water Sciences, UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, is currently open for recruitment. Applications are now being accepted only through UNESCO RecruitWeb online. The closing date for applications to the position is 4 September 2005.

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• Also called 'native' or 'tribal' people, indigenous peoples live in every continent, and have ancient ties to the land, water and wildlife of their ancestral domain.
• Centuries ago, the San, or Bushmen, were the only inhabitants of the semi-arid Kalahari (South Africa). They were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in family groups on territorial areas called N!ore¹, and moved only when their water source was drying up. They devised ways to access and protect water, without depleting its scarce reserves, and assisted each other by sharing their N!ores with other San tribes when food was scarce.
  When new settlers appeared with livestock, the fragile balance they had established was destroyed. The new settlers introduced new technologies such as boreholes, which pump masses of water from deep within the ground. Ever-increasing amounts of livestock herds depleted water and food resources. Finally, the San were dispossessed from their land: no land or services were allocated to the Bushmen, designated as nomadic.
• When the political leadership of the ‡Khomani San Association¹ sat with three of the most fluent speakers of the ancient N/u language, they asked the elders for guidance on the land claim and restitution process. The elders identified the three most important resources of their aboriginal culture in the Southern Kalahari (South Africa): water, land and truth. Water, and access to water, has been a key variable in the defence, conquest and colonisation of the Southern Kalahari.
• In Fiji, the indigenous population has long blended birth and death rituals with sound water management.
• The Qiang people live in the valleys of the Minjinga River, a main branch of the Yangtze, in China. This region, important for its mountain forests, has suffered from large-scale deforestation over the last four decades, leading to erosion and desertification. A project to rehabilitate this watershed has integrated the Qiang people and their practices of forest management, taking into account their main source of income, cultivation of plants for herbal medicines. Trees have been planted on terraces: horizontal strips of original vegetation, alternated with strips of tree seedlings. Indigenous species are thus preserved, preventing soil erosion, maintaining local traditions, local incomes, as well as involving and motivating Qiang people in the conservation project.
• According to the Karen people, living in Northern Thailand, 'if you eat from the forest, you must protect it, and if you drink from the river, you must conserve it.' Their land use strategy is based upon the maintenance of four categories of land, distinguished by their use, location and pattern of ownership: rice paddy fields, swidden cultivation, community forest and watershed forest. Fields are cultivated for only one or two seasons before being returned to fallow. Cultivation of plots is rotated every 7 to 10 years. Thus the Karen people maintain a high level of biological diversity - even the fallow plots are used for supplying medicine plants, food in the form of mushrooms, tubers and shoots.

Guidelines for Establishing and Strengthening Local Communities' and Indigenous People's Participation in the Management of Wetlands (Key Documents of the Ramsar Convention), 1999

These guidelines were conceived with the premise that local and indigenous people's involvement in wetland management can substantially contribute to effective management practices that further Ramsar's wise use objectives. As defined by Ramsar COP3 (1987), wise use of wetlands is 'their sustainable utilization for the benefit of mankind in a way compatible with the maintenance of the natural properties of the ecosystem'. Evidence from the 23 commissioned case studies and other experiences in participatory management indicates that local and indigenous people's involvement can, if carried out within the full framework of actions encouraged by the Convention, contribute significantly to maintaining or restoring the ecological integrity of wetlands, as well as contributing to community well-being and more equitable access to resources. In practical terms, the Ramsar Convention concept of 'wise use' is equivalent to 'sustainable use'.

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Indigenous Peoples Kyoto Water Declaration [PDF format - 96 KB] (3rd World Water Forum, Kyoto, Japan), 2003

This declaration [PDF format - 96 KB], which was launched by indigenous peoples from around the world within the scope of the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto in March 2003, requests that indigenous communities can execute their right to self-determination on water issues at all levels, and thus shape the administration, use, regulation, conservation and renewal of their water resources in unison with their special understanding of water as a sacred resource, one which cannot be possessed.

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Indigenous Approaches to Water Conflict Negotiations and Implications for International Waters By Aaron T. Wolf. Published in 'International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice' Volume 5:2, December 2000

This work addresses the following questions: Recognizing that delineating water allocations are a major obstacle to successful negotiations, what criteria are used to allocate scarce water resources and who has priority rights when the supplies decrease? Who in the community takes on the role of facilitator, mediator, or adjudicator? What dynamics in negotiations help ameliorate conflict? The answers to these questions are described and applied within the context of current international hydropolitical negotiations.

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Best Practices on Indigenous Knowledge

The aim of this database is to encourage researchers and policy-makers to incorporate indigenous knowledge into their project proposals, feasibility studies, implementation plans and project assessments and to take indigenous knowledge and practices into account in all activities affecting local communities.

Facts and Figures Section from International Year of Freshwater 2003: Water and Indigenous Peoples

This section of the official International Year of Freshwater 2003 website was created in order to illustrate the relationship between indigenous people and water related issues. The section contains information about who and where indigenous people are, where they live, development projects based on indigenous knowledge, and milestones. Two visions

Indigenous Perspectives on Water and Development

The purpose of this site is to promote better understanding of indigenous perspectives on water and development among non-indigenous water professionals, and to enhance dialogue between indigenous political and spiritual leaders on one hand and the agents of water resources development on the other.

Water is Life (Indigenous Environmental Network, IEN)

The Indigenous Environmental Network is an alliance of grassroots indigenous peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining and respecting the traditional teachings and natural laws.
The IEN implements a programme that networks with grassroots Indigenous peoples, tribal governments and non-Indigenous water activists and non-governmental organizations to protect the sacredness of water. Activities, declarations and links of many of these initiatives are included on this website.