Section 1: Understanding our right to
Free, Prior and Informed Consent
1.1 What is Free, Prior and Informed Consent?
Free, Prior and Informed Consent is the collective right of Indigenous Peoples to decide together what activities we
will allow to take place on our traditional territories. It is also the right to have a say about activities that happen
outside of our territory, but that still could affect our people, our land, our resources and our lives.
For Indigenous Peoples, FPIC means:
•
Having the right to say, “Yes” or “No” to projects and government
policies and programmes that will affect our traditional territory. This is
true even if we do not have title over our whole territory;
•
Outsiders who want access to our lands and resources should deal
with us as the owners of the land. We are rights holders, not just
stakeholders. A “stakeholder” is a person, people or groups who have an
interest in a project or could be affected by it. Some examples are the
government, a company, other communities in the area and the bank or
donor country that puts money into a project;
•
Our right to make decisions for our territories must be respected. That
means respecting the authority of the leaders we choose to represent us
and respecting the decisions of our people as a whole;
•
It also means respecting our customary systems for making decisions,
even if they take more time; and
•
It is the main right that upholds our right to self-determination, our right to our territories and the full
range of rights that we hold as Indigenous Peoples.
As Indigenous Peoples
we realise the companies
and government want
us to decide yes, but yes
is not the only answer.
We have to consider how
our children’s lives will be
affected”
—Amerindian trainer, Region 1
All of the words in FPIC are equally important:
Free — For our decision to be truly free, whoever is proposing the project or policy cannot use violence, threats,
intimidation, pressure, manipulation, bribery or other means of coercion — for instance, withholding the stipends
of our leaders or making false promises to get them to agree. The company, government agency or organisation
proposing the project is usually called “the proponent,” although the law in Guyana uses the word “developer.”
Prior — Negotiations with our community should start from the very beginning: before we are asked to sign
anything, before plans are decided, before any permits are given, before prospectors start exploring our lands, and
long before construction begins.
A practical guide for Indigenous Peoples in Guyana
1