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Indigenous People Demand Voice in Climate Talks
UNITED NATIONS - Calls for greater participation of the world's indigenous leaders are on the rise as another round of talks on global climate change opens in the Polish city of Poznan next week.
At the banquet on the first evening of the 2008 World Summit of Indigenous Cultures in Taipei. (flickr photo by davidreid)
"It
is incomprehensible how governments believe they can discuss the
effects of climate change and agree targets without the input of those
who already face [its] impacts," said Mark Lattimer of the London-based
Minority Rights Group International (MRG).
In a study released last week, MRG researchers warned that a new climate change agreement would be "seriously compromised" if policymakers continued to shut out the voices of those most affected by global warming.
More than 8,000 delegates from around the world are expected to participate in the meeting at Poznan. The two-week meeting is supposed to hammer out further international commitments to fight climate change, including climate-related financial assistance for developing countries.
UN officials hope the meeting will prove to be a "milestone on the road to success" for the negotiation process launched at past conferences, because it is tasked with setting the agenda for next year's final talks on a climate change treaty.
But in Lattimer's view, the UN process is deeply flawed, because it does not allow the communities that have first-hand experience of dealing with climate change to participate in the negotiations.
For one, official delegates in Poznan are expected to set targets on carbon emissions from deforestation, but forest-dwelling communities who are mostly indigenous people may not be included in those discussions.
According to MRG's new report, the impact of climate change hits indigenous communities hardest because they live in ecologically diverse areas and their livelihoods are dependent on the environment.
To cite some examples of climate change impact on indigenous communities, the report refers to unprecedented levels of ice-melt in the Arctic region, droughts in east Africa, and a rapid fall in crop yields in Vietnam.
Minorities, according to the report, are often among the poorest and most marginalized communities and are most likely to face discrimination when disasters occur during climate changes.
"There has been a lot of attention paid to the damage climate change is doing to the environment and the loss of certain plant or animal species, but we aren't sufficiently recognizing its impact on people," said Farah Mihlar, the report's author.
"There are entire communities that could be lost," she added in a statement. "Cultures, traditions, and languages could be wiped off the earth."
At the climate change conference held in Bali, Indonesia, last December, indigenous rights activists held a series of demonstrations against their exclusion from the official talks.
Among them, many had come from the communities living in the tropical forests of the world. At the conference, they expressed worries about plans by governments and international financial institutions to control forest degradation.
At the conference, they particularly expressed their concerns about
the World Bank's Carbon Partnership Facility, which is likely to
provide large-scale incentives for reducing emissions from
deforestation and forest degradation.
The
tropical and subtropical forest, the subject of the Facility, is home
to 160 million indigenous people who are seen by many scientists as
custodians and managers of forest biodiversity.
"While the Facility can be a good thing, we are very apprehensive on how this will work," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, "because of our negative historical and present experiences with similar initiatives."
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognizes native groups' right to control their lands and resources, including forests, but many governments and corporations continue to abuse the rights of forest communities.
"We remain in a very vulnerable situation," said Tauli-Corpuz, "because most states do not recognize our rights to these forests and resources found therein."
Last year, a report released by an international advocacy group raised similar concerns about the role of governments and corporations.
In its report, London-based Survival International named and shamed countries where the violations of tribal peoples' rights are most egregious, including Botswana, Brazil, New Zealand, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States.
The report entitled, "The Terrible Ten: Key Abusers of Tribal Peoples' Rights in 2007," said tribal people in West Papua were suffering abuses at the hands of the Indonesian army and that their native lands were often exploited by the government and foreign companies.
In Botswana, Bushmen were forcibly prevented from returning to their homes in the country's diamond-producing area, despite a court ruling that declared their 2002 eviction "unlawful and unconstitutional."
According to Survival, Guarani Indians in Paraguay continued to lose their lands as a result of violence perpetrated by cattle ranchers. A number of natives were killed and raped as well.
In the Peru-Brazil border region, which is home to half of the world's about 100 still uncontacted tribes, indigenous populations faced land grabs by oil companies and loggers backed by the government.
And similar cases also took place in other indigenous territories across the world. The UN Permanent Forum's Tauli-Corpuz demanded that governments and corporations obtain the "free and prior" consent of indigenous peoples before taking any initiative on forest protections.
"I imagine that donors and the private sector would not like to put their resources in high-risk projects which will not genuinely involve indigenous and other forest-dwellers," she said. "If there is an acceptance of the Facility, indigenous peoples must have a representation in [its] governance."
In contrast to the UN negotiation process on climate change issues, indigenous communities enjoy relatively participation in international discussions on preserving biodiversity. The secretariat of the UN treaty on biodiversity has established a working group to ensure for this.
Meanwhile, MRG has gathered a series of testimonies from the world's indigenous leaders in which they express "deep frustration" at their exclusion from the negotiations on climate change.
In a statement, the group called for the United Nations to set up a mechanism, similar to that of the treaty on biological diversity, so that indigenous communities could be able to have their voices heard at the international level.
"Indigenous peoples have for centuries adapted to changing environments and would be able to contribute substantially to adaptation strategies the UN is trying to include in a new climate change treaty," said Lattimer.
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35 Comments so far
Show AllIn one of history's ironies, until 1919, Poznzn was the German city of Posen and a majority of the people were German. In 1945, the Germans were expelled and Polish settlers moved in. There are no Indigenous People.
Indigenous people stewarded this planet well.
Since then it's been a races among the whites to see who can destroy the part they ripped off the fastest.
Not so fast. The Vietnamese forced the Meo (Montagnard) population into the hills. The people in the Nepal and Tibet region depleted the trees to use as firewood. There are some of all races guilty of abusing the land as well as trying to save it.
serena
Racism is not a one way street.
Actually, it IS a one-way street.
Otherwise it would not be racism.
Good point. Not totally valid, but a good point, none the less. However racism against whites is still racism. No less than blacks, Latinos or First Immigrants. Wouldn't you agree?
Consider a black racist and a white racist talking to each other...two way street?
The western perspective of semantics abour people who have thousands of years of history in a region that is verified by oral history, cross referenced with archeological, anthropological, historical documents as well as a living presence ARE indigenous people. Those who live on the land, know it, grow with it and steward it are experiencing genocide at the hand of land invaders, monoculture mass (10s of thousands of acres and both larger and smaller industries), ARE Indigenous Peoples.
These people are a part of the human race, regardless of what named race they may be, and as such, should have as much input into the matters of the earth they live on just as the rest of us do. (NOT!) It's that elite handful who also runs that show.
Then they better get in line with labor, environmentalists, & scientists, among others. Up to now, climate talks have mostly been bureaucrats and business types meeting. I wonder if Robert's Rule of Order will be applicable if all concerned actually get a place at the table.
www.wunderman-comics.com
"According to Survival, Guarani Indians in Paraguay continued to lose their lands as a result of violence perpetrated by cattle ranchers. A number of natives were killed and raped as well."
**meat eating shows its ugly head once again.
The trouble with indigenous people is that they are human, and therefore suffer from the same personality defects that other groups have.
Were tribes in North America killing each other before whites arrived?
Yes.
The Makah tribe of the Pacific Northwest which was very vocal about wanting to resume its traditional hunting practices also kept human slaves and a class system where those in the lower class could be killed.
The term "buffalo jump" refers to the practice of driving herds of buffalo off cliffs and picking through the bodies, leaving the rest to rot.
There was also a tribe in Central or South America that would make ceremonial masks using boar tusks, but in order to get them they had to force the boar tusk to grow in spirals, which accordingly caused great suffering to the animal.
Also a tribe in the Andes has(d) a ritual of sewing a condor on the back of a large quadruped.
The Inuit of the north have been known to sell the rights to hunt polar bears which they claim under one of these Indigenous treaties to non Inuit.
Stewardship isnt really appropriate. Its just that these tribes did not have the technology to engage in large scale exploitation.
While their religious beliefs may not be as egregious as Christianity has been, they still have dominionist aspects.
The Inuit may claim they are indigenous to the Arctic but they are born without the necessary gear to survive like polar bears, wolves, seals etc.
Those species are the true indigenous cultures.
Interesting points. I'm sure you weren't trying to say anything other than the first immigrants are just people like any other and they weren't some placid bunch of campfire singers. Their practices were not particularly different than others.
Without taking anything from the first immigrants as to their good points, I agree. Just people really.
snydly
There's another significant reason to include the world's indigenous peoples in these discussions.
If one takes the time to read the IPCC ice core data chart upon which the Gore/IPCC Nobel Prize was based, one can see that humans have lived through at least 5 planetary Ice Age cycles in the last 650ky.
"Modern" societies which ignore their experiences and cultures do so at great risk.
We are all descendants of survivors of these cycles, but they are the only ones of us who by strength of character, guts and luck, still carry the remnants of the life knowledge their cultures used to get through the past extaordinary climate challenges.
I offer as example a couple tidbits I recently re-read by chance in "Black Elk Speaks" by Neihart: The Ogallala Sioux Medicineman/Chief refers to the direction North, during his rituals, as "...where the great White Giant lives..."; and, his side comment at the end of a chapter, that: "The only things that work well are those that work the way Nature works". (Exact wording not guaranteed)
Our approach to climate change would be enhanced by the inclusion of our precious Natives, cultural- and paleo- anthropologists, and ethnologists.
Will "we" have the sense to do that?
Rape is not about meat eating nor is it about sexuality. It is fundamentally about egregious abuse of power.
Cosmology - how one envisions existence in the cosmos - determines how one functions in the cosmos. If -for instance - you see yourself in the distortion of Darwinian terms as having evolved from a beast (less than human) being a beast can, and is at times used as a rationalization for bestiality and inhumanity. If you see humanity as a spiritual essence, and other creatures as having their spiritual existance within the same cosmos of spirituality, the dominion balance is different from domination.
Stewardship is always appropriate, a social and spiritual good, enjoyable and necessary to practice. It is natural human impulse when not distorted by trauma.
Do not confuse normative Christianity with institutionalized distortions similar to narrow distortions and overinflations of Darwin's work.
No one ever said that Indigenous Peoples were not human. That in itself is an interesting comment to find. However, it contributes nothing to concerns for human rights that are egregiously abused.
As an ethnographer noted - until very recently the Amazon was considered "virgin" forest. It is increasingly documented that it is largely the result of indigenous stewardship for thousands of years. Just because it is then not seen as virgin does not give anyone the right to rape it - which is what is being done.
The traditional Indigenous Peoples leaderships are astute students of western concepts of constitutional and international law and participants according to the precepts that have been established in their name by the dominant society. It can be observed that the precepts are frequently beastialized to their and our own detriment. The perspective is one of simple, elegant social/spiritual stewardship - what western societies generally refer to as good citizenship.
Sioux Rose
As has been predicted by the Sun Bear(s), as resources become depleted and the search for survival grows more fierce, the children of the White man will have to turn to the Indigenous, who generally know how to live WITH nature, for the tools of survival. Tragic that too many wait until the cycles of nature spin out of control and threaten major interlocking ecosystems before showing respect for those who generally do respect and Love the Great Mother/Gaia.
The fact that dominant society debates whether or not human activity is causing global warming and pollution (where is corporate accountability and conscience?)is a measure of the extent to which nature is considered and treated as mute, passive, something to be used etc..
Little is popularly known in the dominant culture about the microbial networks between plant roots in and with the soil. The symbiosis between entire networks of insects, sunlight, rain, viral, bacterial, magnetic, bio electric, cyclical in response to the moon, planetary relationships on and on... Why?
Once time is spent focusing on being in the world outside of a domination paradigm many things simply fall away and another way of being emerges. Spend some time sharing breathing with a horse in greeting, laughing and scratching - something 'getting ahead' tends to consider inane and non-productive. Can you be settled, loving and quiet enough to get to know a resident bird and look each other in the eye? If not why not?
Nice post.
$20.-words, ethereal concepts, pseudo-cultism and other finger-pointings are neither explanations nor keys to enlightenment . The solution is simple: ZPG.
Native Americans are the proper stewards of the earth.
It is good that this issue has finally found voice in the media. We need to make the conversation LOUDER. Letters to editors as well as "officials", organized protests (not something Native people have a penchant for) need to be planned and expanded.
Inclusion of those with vital experience is imperative. Indigenas have symbiotic relationship with nature and so have key understandings to patterns that science can only graph. Native Voices must be recognized in all decisions that effect nature's patterns... CERTAINLY in choices that pertain to the lands that sustain them.
It is up to us to get this issue into headlines as much as failing banks and ailing corporations!
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
I'm sure they will be heard----and ignored.
The world is getting smaller. US is no longer the center of the Universe. We the People are the true Masters of the Universe, not a tiny oligarchy.
The UN could do international polls and referendums on issues that affect us all like climate change, war, oil, water, food.
Good suggestion. How can we make it so?
I often think that "representational government" is an outdated concept because of the sheer numbers involved. No way one person can represent their constituency. I would much rather have a direct vote/input in policy preferences. It is time for one person - one vote to actually count.
Live Simply So That Others May Simply Live
Yep,
Sun Bear's prophecies are being fulfilled as many other native prophecies have been fulfilled. The members of native tribes tended to listen to their prophets while the Israelites tended to murder their prophets. Many of the Israelite's prophecies have been fulfilled as have the prophecies of other peoples as the prophecies of many people state the same types of things will be happening upon the earth.
Creator/God is always watching & listening. Consider it like a digital movie is being made about everyone's life. Everything is recorded.
www.wovoca.com