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World Bank profiles at UN Ocean Conference spotlight coastal indigenous invisibility and Pacific rights
Summary
World Bank-supported profiles presented at the United Nations Ocean Conference warn that coastal indigenous peoples in Asia are often invisible to policy and law, exposing communities to pollution, weather risks and dispossession, while Pacific islanders retain stronger land and seabed recognition and local conservation successes.
Diana Pizaro, global coordinator for indigenous peoples at the World Bank, opened a panel at the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice by describing new regional profiles that aim to place indigenous coastal communities "on the map" of ocean policy.
The profiles — four regional studies developed with World Bank support and PROBLUE trust funding — found stark regional differences. "The main challenge is that they are not recognized in official policies," said Johnson German, a regional indigenous researcher for Asia who identified himself as belonging to the Muka community in south India, describing how that legal invisibility leaves coastal peoples without clear land or ocean rights.
Why it matters: lack of recognition, Johnson said, means communities cannot…
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