Documents - Livelihoods and Culture

Thinking Together For Those Coming Behind Us (Summary)

This brochure summarises key contents of the Wapichan people's territorial plan 'Baokopa’o wa di’itinpan wadauniinao ati’O Nii' ('Thinking Together For Those Coming Behind Us'). The summary includes examples of agreements made between villages on ways to secure and care for their lands, forests, savannahs, wetlands and mountains and promote self-determined development in Wapichan communities (The indigenous peoples of the South Rupununi, 2012).

Thinking Together For Those Coming Behind Us: An Outline Plan for the Care of Wapichan Territory

After years of painstaking work and multiple community consultations, the indigenous Wapichan people of southern Guyana have set out agreements and proposals for caring for their territory in a ground-breaking plan titled Baokopa’o wa di’itinpan wadauniinao ati’o nii (Thinking together for those coming behind us). This innovative grass-roots effort has resulted in more than one hundred inter-community agreements on sustainable land use, including proposals to establish an extensive Wapichan Conserved Forest over old-growth rainforest in the eastern part of their territory. Discussions and agreements also involved documenting a community vision for community land use, livelihood and culture in Wapichan Wiizi (Wapichan territory) in 25 years’ time (a document of the indigenous peoples of the South Rupununi, 2012).

Learn and Exercise your rights: A simplified version of the UNDRIP

This booklet presents in a simple and illustrative manner, the collective rights of indigenous peoples as contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It is intended as an educational tool for communities to understand indigenous peoples' rights and to know what they can do to promote and protect their rights (AIPP, IWGIA et al, 2013).

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 and is a key human rights instrument which indigenous peoples may use to ensure that their individual and collective rights are respected (United Nations 2008).

Training Manual on the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

This training manual is developed as a basic educational tool kit for the conduct of community trainings and seminars for raising awareness and generating advocacy of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The manual contains an overview of the UNDRIP, modules on nine thematic areas and one module on practical advocacy skills (AIPP, 2010).