UN Day of Indigenous Peoples (August 9)

On the occasion of the UN Day of Indigenous Peoples (August 8), the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) would like to draw attention to the fact that indigenous communities all over the world are under increasing threat. "Even the indigenous communities in Europe have little hope – despite the fact that the German Federal Government decided to send positive signals shortly before the end of the legislative period by ratifying ILO Convention 169 and by deciding on a supply chain law," stated Yvonne Bangert of the Indigenous Peoples Department of the Society for Threatened Peoples. Thus, the Sami in the far north of Norway fear that they will lose their livelihoods due to copper mining in the region. The region is home to their reindeer herds. Also, there are plans to dump the waste of the Nussir Copper Mine in the nearby Repparfjord, which could decimate their salmon stock. The German company Aurubis, which is based in Hamburg, is a project partner and recipient of the copper.

"Norway had already ratified ILO Convention in 1990, promising to respect the rights of the Sami. Nonetheless, the permits for the copper mining project and for dumping the waste were issued without consulting them properly," Bangert criticized. "That was regardless of the fact that the salmon stock had already been harmed significantly by pollution once before – in the 1970s, in the scope of a previous copper mining project. It had recovered only recently." Officially, there is a dialogue between Nussi ASA, Aurubis, and the Sami, but the fishermen and reindeer herders in the region are denying this. The copper mining project is expected to go into operation in 2022.

"On the other side of the world, in Brazil, new laws are to be brought underway – but very clearly against the interests of the indigenous population there," criticized Juliana Miyazaki of the STP's Indigenous Peoples Department. "Members of various indigenous communities have been protesting in front of the congress building in Brasilia for weeks, criticizing, among other things, draft law 2633/20, which is also known as the 'land grab law'. It is unconstitutional, as it will exacerbate any new demarcation procedures, which serve to identify and lay down the borders of indigenous territories.” It will even be possible to revoke existing demarcations. This is a threat to the 178 indigenous territories that were demarcated with financial help from Germany. Another law, PDL 177/2021, would allow President Bolsonaro to pull out of ILO Convention 169, which Brazil ratified in 2002, ruining everything the indigenous communities fought for over the past 30 years.  

So far, Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO 169), is the only international norm that guarantees indigenous communities legally binding protection. It was only ratified by 24 states, six of them in Europe. In the scope of the supply chain law, Germany has committed itself to grant indigenous communities more rights. Now, there are more possibilities to raise awareness for the lives of indigenous peoples among German companies – and to hold them accountable for their actions. Currently, there are about 370 million people who see themselves as members of one of the at least 5,000 indigenous communities worldwide.