COO: Comparative Analysis of Cook Islands’Legal Framework and ADB Safeguard Policy Statement: Indigenous Peoples

The term Indigenous Peoples is used in a generic sense to refer to a distinct, vulnerable, social and cultural group possessing the following characteristics in varying degrees: (i) self-identification asmembers of a distinct indigenous cultural group and recognition of this identity by others; (ii) collective attachment to geographically distinct habitats or ancestral territories in the project area and to the natural resources in these habitats and territories; (iii) customary cultural, economic, social, or political institutions that are separate from those of the dominant society and culture; and (iv) a distinct language, often different from the official language of the country or region. ....A group that has lost collective attachment to geographically distinct habitats or ancestral territories in the project area because of forced severance remains eligible for coverage under this policy.