UNITED NATIONS, July 16 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz stressed Monday that indigenous peoples should be consulted and involved in efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a milestone UN agenda.
At a press briefing on the sidelines of the 2018 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, Tauli-Corpuz said the indigenous peoples are one of the groups that have been left behind in the pursuit of SDG, suffering land seizure and displacement.
"Their territories have been taken by industry and infrastructure development, and they have been displaced from their communities," she said, pointing out that "some of the cases are done in the name of achieving Sustainable Development Goals."
In 2015, the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda that comprises 17 SDGs including eradicating poverty, ending hunger and enhancing health. The ongoing forum is a main UN platform on sustainable development with a central role in the follow-up and review of the agenda at a global level.
Tauli-Corpuz said that besides land seizure and displacement, more of a concern is the criminalizing the indigenous people who assert their right to control their territories and resources in the name of pursuing SDGs.
She encouraged consultation with and involvement of the indigenous in efforts toward achieving the SDGs, adding that some indigenous people are already trying their best to implement self-determined sustainable development in their communities.
As an example, she said some EU-funded programs are currently piloting indigenous people's capacities of implementing sustainable development.
