Tallgrass Institute Releases Investor Brief on Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact
Tallgrass Institute released Investor Brief: Indigenous Peoples in Isolation and Initial Contact, providing context and resources to help understand how accelerating extractive industry activity puts Indigenous Peoples in isolation and initial contact (IPIIC) around the world at “increased risk of territory and culture loss, violence, and genocide.”
“The lived consequences of the impacts of these activities are stark; nearly half of global IPIIC communities face threats so severe they could face eradication in the next 10 years,” says the brief “Investors must proactively include IPIIC in due diligence screens to minimize portfolio exposure to human-rights risks and to protect IPIIC in alignment with investor responsibilities to respect human rights under the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”
Noting that the United Nations system refers to IPIIC as “Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation and initial contact” and that regional names for IPIIC include “free peoples,” “invisible peoples,” “people in a natural state,” and PIACI (Pueblos Indígenas en Aislamiento y en Contacto Inicial), the brief defines IPIIC as:
Indigenous Peoples in isolation are individuals or groups of Indigenous Peoples who do not maintain regular contact with the majority population and who also avoid all contact with persons outside their group.
Indigenous Peoples in initial contact are those who were previously living in isolation and have recently initiated contact with outsiders, either by choice or coercion, and remain unfamiliar with the “patterns and codes of relationships in the majority population”. 6 Individuals from a community in isolation may themselves be in initial contact.
The brief concludes with the following recommendations for investors:
Encourage companies to adopt and implement policies that explicitly commit to respecting the rights of IPIIC aligned with the international standard of the precautionary and no-contact principles and the UNDRIP, including halting activities that potentially impact IPIIC territories;
Engage companies to strengthen due diligence policies and practices to identify, monitor, and prevent potential impacts to IPIIC and to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place across projects and operations, independent of state recognition of IPIIC;
Engage companies on their exposure to IPIIC-related risks, including how they avoid potential impacts to IPIIC territories and ensure alignment with the no-contact principle and Indigenous Peoples’ right to FPIC;
Assess portfolio exposure to IPIIC-related risks as part of stewardship and due diligence practices;
Integrate safeguards for IPIIC across other engagements related to biodiversity, climate change, and just energy transition; and,
Engage with standard setters to incorporate requirements that safeguard the rights of IPIIC.