Respect for the Rights of Indigenous Populations

55. Agrarian reform not only helps to solve the problem of latifundia, but is also very valuable in supporting policies which ensure that the rights of indigenous populations are recognized and respected.

The very close relationship between land and the models of culture, development and spirituality of these populations means that agrarian reform is a decisive component of the systematic and co-ordinated plan of action that governments must draw up in order to protect the rights of indigenous populations and guarantee respect for their specific identity.

An agrarian reform must allow for the identification of equitable and rational ways of dealing with the problem of restoring land traditionally occupied by indigenous populations to them, especially that taken away through various forms of violence or discrimination, sometimes very recently. In this case, the reform has to lay down criteria for recognizing the lands they occupied and exactly how their use is to be restored to them, guaranteeing effective protection for their rights of ownership and possession.

The reform must ensure their access to production and social services, thus giving them the means for pursuing the development of their land and benefitting from treatment equal to that received by other sectors of the population.

In a word, the agrarian reform must help indigenous communities in various ways: to protect and reconstruct the natural resources and ecosystems on which their survival and well-being depend; to preserve and develop their identity, culture and interests; to uphold their aspirations for social justice; and to ensure an environment that allows for active participation in the social, economic and political life of the country.

56. Two conditions must be respected if agrarian reform programmes are to fulfil all these aims.

a) Adequate attention must be paid to the necessary but delicate balance between the need for the preservation of common ownership and that of land privatization. Traditional systems of land possession based on common ownership — a form of ownership unsuited to the use of modern inputs and technological innovation — tend gradually to shift to individual ownership as agriculture develops. There are valid reasons to expect a policy of individual assignment of land ownership to develop also in the case of indigenous peoples.(⁵²)

b) The communities concerned must participate and co-operate in drawing up and implementing reform programmes. Agrarian reform must, on the one hand, guarantee indigenous communities access to productive and social services that they judge suited to their social organization and their view of environmental issues, and, on the other hand, provide a fresh orientation for economic and social factors that can otherwise be drawbacks.