Project’s Official Name: Energy and Extractive Industries and Afro American and Indigenous Territories in Central America. Articulating Territorial Agendas with National and Regional Agendas

Much of the indigenous and afro-descendant territories in Mesoamerica are stages for socioenvironmental conflicts derived from the expansion of the energy and extractive industry.

Regarding the control of natural resources, conciliations are not always reached between the interests in the traditional use with the economic expansion and growth processes. In some cases, the areas correspond to protected areas with great importance for the conservation of the ecosystem’s goods and services.

In this context, the indigenous and Afro American populations demand the exercise of their individual and collective rights consigned in multiple international tools ratified by the majority of the states in the region, especially, those related to their territorial rights, among them free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), as well as access and equity in the distribution of benefits.

As part of this process, indigenous and Afro American populations observe the need to broaden their knowledge and managing tools that will allow them to size in a comprehensive way the risks and opportunities that are conveyed in the expansion of energy and extractive industries.

On their part, the public institutional framework and private sponsors related to these economic activities frequently lack proper management tools to promote dialogue with intercultural vision and participatory processes in all phases of the projects’ cycles.

This presumes establishing a new way to relate between the state, the private sector and the indigenous and Afro American peoples, where the latter should be considered as political subjects with rights to full participation and effectively within the design of the legal framework, policies, programs and projects that involve their territories and natural resources.

The IUCN acknowledges the importance to work with all stakeholders and generate, under a rights approach and an intercultural vision, spaces for dialogue, the pursuit of understanding and conciliation, at the same time that it promotes the implementation of the applicable legislation with the following tools and principles:

·      The UN Declaration about the rights of indigenous peoples

·      ILO Convention No.169 about tribal and indigenous peoples

·      The Principles of the United Nations Global Compact

·      The United Nations Guiding Principles about businesses and human rights

·      Rulings from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the recommendations of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as well as that of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous Peoples

Project Goals

The strategic goal of this project is to improve, from a rights approach, the governance of the territories and natural resources of indigenous and Afro American peoples in Mesoamerica.

The project’s main objective is to contribute to the strengthening of the advocacy capabilities of the indigenous and afro-descendant organizations so that they can participate and influence the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of public policies, programs and projects related to energy and extractive industries and climate policies.

Through this effort, we are also seeking to promote space for intercultural dialogue to improve the governance of indigenous territories and with this we support a series of tools such as: research, training, experience exchange, technical assistance and support for the execution of advocacy plans on environmental policy.