The amendment:
- Changes construction in nature to indigenous lands.
- Further expands the scope of protection of these lands beyond livelihoods to include cultural rights, environment, health, or any other rights.
- Further specifies how a negative effect is assessed, that is to say with consultation of possibly affected indigenous communities themselves, similarly to our amendment of operative clause 1.
Why:
- Indigenous lands go beyond simply nature, including historical, cultural and religious lands significant to indigenous communities. And nature itself is so vague as to the scope of its effect on indigenous peoples.
- Simply focusing on negative effects to livelihood limits the possible ways in which indigenous communities could be impacted by construction projects, thus we wanted to emphasise cultural rights, access to land, environment and health, but also make it possible for other rights to be considered if affected by such a project.
- Similar to our amendment of operative clause 1, the indigenous communities must be consulted when determining negative impacts. The original clause did intend so, this further specifies how this should be done.