Indigenous Perspectives on Protecting Environmental Rights in ASEAN

The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) has identified the need for Southeast Asia to have an environmental rights instrument to strengthen the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD)'s commitment to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The hope for the declaration is to emphasise the importance of environmental rights as part of human rights, aiming to create a framework for their promotion and protection within ASEAN, ensuring sustainable development and the well-being of current and future generations. Stakeholders were here in Malaysia just a couple of weeks ago for meetings and engagement sessions, for the fifth ASEAN Environmental Rights Working Group (AER WG) meeting. We speak to Nicholas Mujah Anak Ason, the General Secretary of the Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA) and the core representative from the Asia Pacific Network of Environment Defenders (APNED), and also Celine Lim, the Managing Director of Save Rivers, who was at the meetings as an observer, to discuss how indigenous perspectives were taken into consideration, in the drafting process of this regional declaration on environmental rights.