048 - Renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery to Rediscover care for Mother Earth
048 - Renunciation of the Doctrine of Discovery to Rediscover care for Mother Earth
GRATEFUL that IUCN has full participation of representatives of Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations among its Members;
SEEKING to advance further IUCN’s 2008 endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and SUPPORTING the International Labour Organization’s Convention 169 and IUCN’s continuous participation in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues;
CONSCIOUS of the many contributions Indigenous Peoples make to restoring and sustaining Mother Earth and the alliances all IUCN Members embrace to conserve biodiversity and natural and cultural heritage;
TROUBLED that the denials of the human rights of Indigenous Peoples are fundamentally unjust and impede IUCN policies and programmes to restore ecologically and socially just relations among all living beings;
AWARE that the rights of Indigenous Peoples have been denied since the beginnings of the colonial era in the 15th century, when Papal Bulls and royal edicts legitimised their enslavement and seizures of their assets, and occupying the lands where they lived, through proclaiming the legal ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations;
MINDFUL that many governments seek to establish just and equitable relations with the Indigenous Peoples in the lands of which they are stewards, and that the Arctic Council has embraced the Permanent Representatives of Indigenous Peoples as full participants in the stewardship of the Arctic regions;
RECOGNISING that many post-colonial legal regimes still formally recognise the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations, despite most acknowledging that Indigenous Peoples have long inhabited lands European powers claimed to have discovered and that neither the Holy See nor the Church of England have annulled their Papal Bulls and Edicts that gave moral and religious support for the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’; and
CONVINCED that acknowledgements of truth and testimonies for reconciliation are essential predicates for building social justice and peaceful relations among peoples;
1. RENOUNCES the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations;
2. REQUESTS Council, in alignment with the IUCN Programme 2021–2024, to establish an IUCN Truth and Reconciliation Working Group, to explore and explain best practices for involving Indigenous Peoples in co-stewardship of protected natural areas, conservation of nature, and sustainable use of species, and other appropriate activities for the care of Mother Earth;
3. URGES all states to repeal all legal vestiges of the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’, and to consider establishing truth and reconciliation commissions though which the story of the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations can be made known and pathways toward justice discovered; and
4. INVITES the leaders of all religions to repeal and renounce their past proclamations that legitimised the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in all its manifestations, and FURTHER URGES the leaders of all nations to promote new paradigms in conservation, where the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous Peoples is incorporated, in the struggle to conserve the nature of the planet.
