"General Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples” is a break-through for protection of human rights throughout the world – states must now test their projects concerning land belonging to native peoples

The Society for Threatened Peoples International (GfbV) has welcomed as a "decisive break-through in the struggle for human rights of native peoples throughout the world” the passing of the General Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples by the UN General Assembly. "For the first time their collective rights are being expressly recognized”, commented Yvonne Bangert of the GfbV Department for Indigenous Peoples in Göttingen on Friday. "We call upon the international community to take its decision seriously now and check dam projects, mining of minerals and deforestation programmes on land belonging to native communities and to meet those affected for new negotiations.” The GfbV has been fighting for decades for the rights of the approximately 370 million native people and it has had a consultative status at the UN since 1993.

The UN Declaration has awoken great hopes with the representatives of the native peoples of being in future able to negotiate on equal terms when for example their land rights are being violated, reported the GfbV. It gives the indigenous peoples the right among other things to take decisions concerning their land, the mining of raw materials, questions of self-determination and health programmes.

For the uprooted members of indigenous communities who have been driven out of their traditional land and have had to lead miserable lives in the slums and favelas of large cities the GfbV has demanded immediate programmes like training projects.

Estimates of the GfbV show that there are in the world some 5000 indigenous communities in 75 states. Among them are the approximately 84 million Adivasi in India, the Sami in North Europe, the approximately 40 million Indians in North, Central and South America, the aborigines in Australia, the Maoris in New Zealand and the San in Southern Africa. Many of these communities must struggle for their survival. Thus about 300 peoples in Indonesia are affected by the planned extension of the oil-palm plantations. Because on their land palm-oil is to be produced the native peoples in Columbia or Burma are threatened with expulsion. In Brazil, Chile or Ecuador many Indian peoples are fighting against the deforestation of their forests, the mining of valuable minerals such as oil and natural gas. In Canada the Indians are living in extreme poverty, extensive racism and the problem of unsolved land rights. The native peoples of Siberia are already affected by the consequences of climate change and fear the complete loss of their means of sustenance through the melting of the ice.