Securing a land base ensures Indigenous survival

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Negotiating a legal and internationally recognized land base for all Indigenous peoples is the only way to secure their future, a Non-Government Organization delegate told an Indigenous peoples working group at the Vienna NGO Forum.

"Our right to land and all rights to develop and live within the land," said Hjalamr Dahl, one of the three Aboriginal staff with the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples.

"Without it, we cannot exist. All possibility for survival will disappear in the future. Land and territory is very important. It's about time to direct this talk just for existence, just for the right to have land. It's a difficult issue, but it's my hope that Indigenous representatives will struggle to put the land rights issue in the declaration."

Land rights recognition is not out of the question, he told the assembly of about three dozen Native peoples June 11. The Danish government formally legislated Aboriginal self-determination in Greenland in 1979, which eventually led to the creation of a separate all-Inuit Parliament.

Although land ownership was not handed over to the new government, the Inuit have control over some aspects of economic development, including exploitation of mineral rights. The 27-member parliament, located in the Greenland capital of Nuuk, also receives half of all revenues generated from such development.

Dahl, who also works as a consultant on the committee overseeing the International Year of Indigenous Peoples, was in Vienna as a participant at both the NGO Forum and the United Nations Conference.

Although he would not speculate on the UN's response to Indigenous peoples' recommendations, Dahl said recognition of Indigenous peoples' "contributions to humanity" was what the UN should be working on.

"We're only asking for existence as a peoples," he said. "We're only asking for respect as a peoples and to develop our society for our children."

The working group later stressed the need to recognize land rights in a written statement issued June 12 before 1,400 forum delegates. Indigenous working group rapporteur Terry Janis called upon the UN to formally recognize land rights.

Julian Burger, secretary to the UN's Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, said recognizing the Indigenous' land rights would be addressed in future documents.

"At the present time, there is a United Nations draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and it has 42 articles, several of which have positive discrimination words, including compensation for land taken away and rehabilitation for land destroyed of course during development programs," he said.