Obligations relating to transboundary environmental harm

90. Two other States provide good practices in ensuring that efforts to abate or adapt to climate change respect the rights of indigenous and tribal peoples. The Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme, which was initiated by the sixteenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, creates incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, including through forest conservation and sustainable management. To avoid conflicts and to protect the rights of indigenous peoples in forests that might be subject to REDD+ projects, Suriname created the REDD+ Assistants Programme, in which representatives selected by their own communities are trained by the Government to understand REDD+ and to help involve indigenous and tribal peoples in the REDD+ decision-making process

100. Indigenous organizations have engaged in good practices to protect indigenous rights and promote the sustainable use of resources, including in connection with protected areas. For example, the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Forest Peoples Programme and other indigenous peoples’ organizations help local communities to assess and redress situations where they believe that they have been negatively affected by the designation or management of a protected area.

101. An example of a good practice in the management of protected areas is provided by the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), a community-based indigenous environmental organization that co-manages, together with the Forest Department of Belize, the Sarstoon Temash National Park on lands traditionally used by indigenous Garifuna and Maya communities. With the assistance of SATIIM, in 2008 the communities of Conejo and Santa Teresa prepared forest sustainable management plans, which identify the timber and other resources that each community can harvest based on ecological surveys, and which include mitigation measures for any possible adverse effects on the environment.

102. Another good practice is raising the awareness of indigenous communities of their rights. Natural Justice, a civil society organization based in South Africa, assists local communities and indigenous groups to prepare “community protocols” that set out their understanding of their customary, national and international rights relating to their land and natural resources. Each community develops its own protocols in a format that iis most meaningful to that community. Protocols can be written documents, and can also take the form of visual art, theatre or music.