Agenda for indigenous peoples' food security: Assert indigenous peoples' right to land and resources

Hereunder is a six-point comprehensive agenda that attempt to ensure the indigenous peoples’ rights to their land and their rightful claim to its resources in order to assure their food security.
 
The agenda address the issues that affect indigenous peoples in the Philippines: the rights to their land; their rightful claim to resources, including but not exclusive of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity; and the use, protection and sustainability thereof, toward ensuring food security.
 
This document is the end-product of a continuing partnership among the EED-TFIP, civil society, and non-governmental and indigenous peoples’ organizations. It embodies and articulates the recommendations of the participatory researches and conferences that were initiated or supported by EED-TFIP.
 
The following are the strategic goals:

• To secure the access to, and control over ancestral lands and domains, and
• To exercise the right to self-determination.

 
The short and medium-term initiatives, pursued within the framework of the above-mentioned goals, include:

• To retrieve, revive and strengthen indigenous knowledge, institutions and practices that enhance biodiversity and food security,
• To increase land productivity through sustainable agriculture in order to attain food sufficiency,
• To diversify the livelihood activities of indigenous communities by creating opportunities, both within and outside agriculture,
• To sustain and expand the access to basic social services, such as health, nutrition and sanitation, and to formal and non-formal education, and
• To rehabilitate and enhance the indigenous community’s natural resource base through systematic and participatory natural resource management programs.

 
THE SIX-POINT FOOD SECURITY AGENDA
 
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to determine their own development.
 
We assert and defend the indigenous peoples' right to self-determination. Thus, we shall take action to ensure the following:
 
1.a. That the right of indigenous peoples to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) that also
takes into account a community’s socio-economic and historical context is recognized and exercised;
 
1.b. That the genuine struggle toward the indigenous peoples’ self-determination is acknowledged and recognized;
 
1.c. That genuine development programs that are undertaken and asserted by the indigenous peoples themselves are promoted and assisted;
 
1.d. That the various forms of expression of IP’s self-determination as collectively defined by the indigenous peoples themselves are recognized;
 
1.e. That support in the following forms be mobilized to assist both the national, as well as the local, campaigns and advocacies that affect indigenous peoples’ rights:

• holding formal policy briefings on IP-related issues,
• participation of partners in various solidarity activities, such as mass mobilization and educational discussions, among others, and
• monitoring the compliance of the government and intergovernmental agreements, instruments and policies, it has ratified.

 
1.f. That the international instruments recognizing indigenous peoples’ rights, such as, but not limited to, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 on Indigenous Peoples (ILO 169), Article 8J of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, be ratified and fully implemented.
 
2. Ancestral domains are the nexus of indigenous peoples' survival and development.
 
We shall defend and promote the indigenous peoples' right to their ancestral domain through the following efforts:
 
2.a. Studying the national and local policies on land use and tenure toward eventually proposing the policies that genuinely protect the indigenous peoples’ rights to their ancestral domains, and that guarantee and promote the sustainable use and management of the domains’ resources;
 
2.b. Reviewing and critiquing the state’s policies in order to propose policy alternatives that enhance the welfare of indigenous peoples, such as, but not limited to, the following:

• Indigenous Peoples Rights Act (IPRA),
• Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA),
• Philippine Mining Act, and the
• Philippine government commitments to World Trade Organization on agriculture and trade, as well as to other multilateral and/or bilateral treaties and agreements.

 
2.c. Initiating or supporting national campaigns through the following actions:

• Conducting policy briefings on IP-related issues,
• Participating in various solidarity activities, such as mass mobilizations, educational discussions, et al.,
• Participating in public hearings in Congress and other fora, especially toward the restoration of lands expropriated through various proclamations (e.g. Presidential Decree No. 108 on the Tumandok domain),
• Lobbying for local legislations,
• Campaigning to repeal the Philippine Mining Act of 1995, and
• Conducting research on the socio-economic dynamics of small-scale mining in order to enhance its role in the local economy.

 
3. Indigenous knowledge systems are the basis of development, hence, they must be studied, protected and promoted.
 
We shall study, protect, respect and promote the knowledge systems of indigenous communities, their respective agricultural practices and biodiversity conservation by the following measures:
 
3.a. Recognizing, reviving, and strengthening indigenous institutions, knowledge and practices that promote and enhance food security and agricultural biodiversity;
 
3.b. Conducting enriching research on, and documenting the exemplary indigenous knowledge systems, with a focus on, but not limited to:

• Natural resource management,
• Sustainable agriculture,
• Conflict resolution,
• Gender and development,
• Mutual aid and collective benefits, and
• Community Intellectual Property Rights

3.c. Showcasing exemplary indigenous knowledge systems by teaching them at all grade levels of the school curricula;
 
3.d. Engaging the government in a dialogue via campaigns that point out and explain how particular policies and programs are detrimental to the indigenous knowledge systems;
 
3.e. Embarking on grassroots advocacy toward a strong public policy (e.g. local and national legislations) that recognize, protect and promote indigenous knowledge systems;
 
3.f. Recognizing and developing sui generis systems of protecting traditional knowledge, especially with respect to:

• Customary law,
• Community systems of fines and penalties,
• Community registers, and
• Community intellectual property rights;

 
3.g. Working for the implementation of a genuine free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) process.
 
4. Genetic resources form the essential core of the livelihood system and, thus, the food security of indigenous peoples.
 
We shall defend and protect those resources by the following means:
 
4.a. Implementing sustainable natural resource management programs, specifically those that rehabilitate the forest and water resources in order to protect the natural resource base;
 
4.b. Conducting scientific research on the effects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs);
 
4.c. Reviewing state legislations and policies that affect indigenous peoples’ genetic resources, and where these resources are adversely affected, and proposing alternatives thereto;
 
4.d. Embarking on grassroots advocacy toward a strong public policy (e.g. local and national legislations) that would protect and promote the rights of indigenous peoples to their genetic resources, along the following:

• Enactment of the mandatory labeling bill, banning of GMOs, ratification of the Cartagena Protocol, and the signing of the National Biosafety Framework,
• Development and formulation of a policy framework specific to biosafety and GMOs, including the effective liability and redress regime,
• Development of biosafety regulations (e.g. on liability and redress, and on the terminator technology, et al.) following the Cartagena Protocol and the Convention of Biological Diversity, and
• Declaration of GMO-free zones at the local level, and the assertion of the rights of indigenous peoples to their cultural integrity and FPIC in relation to GMOs.

 
5. Indigenous socio-political systems are essential to food security.
 
We shall respect, promote and strengthen the role of indigenous socio-political systems to attain food security through the following efforts:
 
5.a. Conduct the study of, and document the exemplary indigenous socio-political systems operating in local communities;
 
5.b. Recognize their role in order to enhance the engagement of indigenous socio-political systems in local governance;
 
5.c. Provide a venue for the open exchange of ideas and experiences about the operation of indigenous socio-political systems in various fora for lessons learned;
 
5.d. Provide the mechanisms for multimedia dissemination where information is shared and exchanged.
 
6. Food sufficiency and food security are essential conditions for the survival of indigenous peoples.
We shall promote and enhance food sufficiency and food security of indigenous peoples' communities by the following efforts:
 
6.a. Promoting sustainable agricultural practices while intensifying food production in order to achieve staple crop sufficiency and ensure food security;
 
6.b. Developing the capacity of indigenous peoples to strengthen their food production systems;
 
6.c. Diversifying the livelihood activities of indigenous communities in order to ensure food security;
 
6.d. Locating and protecting the respective market niches for selected produce from indigenous communities;
 
6.e. Recognizing and advancing the role of indigenous women as co-stewards in ensuring food and livelihood security, and
 
6.f. Intensifying the campaign and advocacy of the EED-TFIP regarding issues that affect food and livelihood security of indigenous peoples, especially in connection with, but not limited to:

• Agricultural modernization and trade liberalization,
• Extractive industries, such as large-scale mining, log and lumber extraction, and hydroelectric power generation via large dams,
• Piracy of biogenetic resources,
• Development aggression, and
• Militarization.

 
In pursuit of this agenda, we shall conduct researches, organize educational fora, tap news media, build and strengthen linkages, launch and support campaigns, initiate and support policy reform efforts, and enhance the capacity of partner organizations, as well as those of our stakeholders and advocates.