Pope Francis on Wednesday reiterated his message that Indigenous Peoples should have control over their lands and be consulted with in a meaningful way on large resource extraction and other industrial projects. Only this time the pronouncement, delivered on February 15 to Indigenous Peoples at the Vatican for a conference, came amid continuing controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), addressing as it did the exact conditions prevailing in that conflict.
“I believe that the central issue is how to reconcile the right to development, both social and cultural, with the protection of the particular characteristics of indigenous peoples and their territories,” the pope said, according to Catholic News Service. “This is especially clear when planning economic activities which may interfere with indigenous cultures and their ancestral relationship to the earth.”
He was speaking to a 36-member delegation that included representatives from the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and came to Rome from Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean to participate in the Third Global Meeting of the Indigenous People Forum of IFAD, according to a statement from the fund.
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“For governments this means recognizing that indigenous communities are a part of the population to be appreciated and consulted, and whose full participation should be promoted at the local and national level,” Pope Francis said in the IFAD media release.
“In this regard, the right to prior and informed consent should always prevail,” he said, reported the Associated Press. “Only then is it possible to guarantee peaceful cooperation between governing authorities and indigenous peoples, overcoming confrontation and conflict.”
Free, prior and informed consent is a cornerstone of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted in 2007 by the U.N. General Assembly.
He did not identify DAPL specifically, but “used strong and clear language applicable to the conflict,” Reuters noted.
While no Indigenous Peoples from Turtle Island were at the meeting, the pope’s words resonated with the struggles of tribes in the United States, where the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes are making a last-ditch effort in court to stop Energy Transfer Partners from drilling under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. It would be the last leg of the 1,172-mile long, $3.8 billion pipeline that runs through four states. More than 700 people have been arrested since August 2016 as the unarmed water protectors faced off against a militarized police force bombarding them with rubber bullets, freezing-cold water, mace and other implements. On Tuesday February 14, Judge James Boasberg dismissed the Cheyenne River Sioux’s attempt to halt drilling while the tribes’ court case makes its way through the courts.
Since being elected in 2013, Pope Francis has made a number of statements in support of Indigenous Peoples’ land rights, and in deference to their understanding of how to care for the environment. In his 2015 encyclical on climate change, he stated that Indigenous Peoples “should be the principal dialogue partners, especially when large projects affecting their land are proposed.”
And a month later, on a visit to South America, he apologized to Indigenous Peoples for the “grave sins of colonialism.”
