"Indigenous peoples’ voices must be heard at Paris climate change conference, UN agency says", 19 Nov 2015

Indigenous peoples own, occupy or manage up to 65 per cent of the Earth’s land surface, yet they have largely been excluded from national plans prepared for next month’s United Nations climate change conference in Paris, according to the UN Development Programme...Together with the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change, UNDP is bringing indigenous leaders and high-level government officials together, often for the first time, to ensure that the priorities of indigenous peoples, whose lands are often seized for intensive greenhouse gas-emitting development, are embedded in national proposals for the conference, widely known as COP21...[UNDP] highlighted research showing that secure rights to indigenous and community-held land protect against deforestation, which with other land uses represents 11 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions blamed for climate change. It noted that a review by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of 119 national plans to combat the problem submitted as of last month makes no mention of indigenous peoples... more than 80 per cent of all lands utilized or occupied by indigenous peoples lack legal protection, and are highly vulnerable to being seized by private companies, individuals, and governments themselves, in a non-stop drive toward carbon-intensive investments in agriculture, logging, mining, oil and gas, dams and roads, and tourism.  “The same development that fuels climate change, continues to rob indigenous peoples of their human rights,” Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples...