COP15 calling attention to indigenous rights
COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, the Arctic, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and communities throughout the world that depend on their natural ecosystem for sustenance, livelihood and culture have front row seats to climate change, some painfully watching as their lands experience its earliest and most devastating impacts.
Yet they have little say in the 15th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations that began Dec. 8, something that Inupiat Patricia Cochran, chair of the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change said, “epitomizes climate injustice.”
The historic climate talks aimed at reworking agreements to combat climate change when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – a pact of agreed targets emissions between 37 industrialized countries and the European Union runs out, offers indigenous peoples a critical venue: the eyes of the world.
There’s little question on the part of those “on the ground” that not only is climate change happening, it is happening now and it is happening fast. These indigenous communities are living proof that climate change is hurting people and animals alike.
“It’s not only an Arctic issue, but it’s so very real here,” says long time Gwichi’in Arctic Village leader Sarah James. The Global Gender and Climate Alliance is filming James’ efforts to call attention to climate change and the industrial development that affects the ecology of the Arctic.
“The permafrost just melts away now, drains the lakes, leaves a fire hazard,” James says. The Gwichi’in have counted eighteen vanished lakes, entire ecosystems perished. “The fires burn the lichen the caribou depend on. It’s displacing and disorienting the animals. It confuses people even.”
And it’s poised to get worse. The intent of the UNFCCC proposals known as ‘Reduced Emissions from Reforestation and Forest Degradation’ is to halt deforestation by having governments of developing nations agree to protect forestlands designated a carbon sink to help stabilize the system thrown off-kilter by industrial emissions. REDD is expected to play a key role in the post-Kyoto agreement.
Supporters say that properly designed policy offers unprecedented opportunities to create sustainable livelihoods for forest people while safeguarding biodiversity and services provided by healthy forest ecosystems.
But a new report by Survival International says too little attention is given to the impacts these measures are having or will potentially have on indigenous peoples. REDD makes it easier for governments, corporations and others to lay claim to, exploit and, “in some cases,” destroy indigenous lands under the guise of climate change, says the report. Activists already report increased human rights violations such as forced evictions.
A growing chorus of environmental scientists and educators including Forests and European Union Resource Network say that allowing nations to trade designated carbon sinks for added carbon emissions would only justify more emissions by putting fossil fuel users over their allowance under the Kyoto Protocol. Environmental groups say linking REDD with emissions trading allows industrial nations to find novel places to bury their emissions rather than cut back.
REDD schemes “threaten our rights and our very existence,” the International Forum of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change has said. Consultations often take the form of simply informing their communities, and instead “need to include all affected and involved indigenous peoples, and our representative organizations.”
The agendas of indigenous delegations includes a discussion of REDD at a special Indigenous Day symposium Dec. 12.
The U.S.-based Indigenous Environmental Network sent 15 delegates to COP15 including executive director Tom Goldtooth, lead energy and climate organizer Jihan Gearon, tar sand indigenous organizer Clayton Thomas-Muller, and tribal campus climate challenge organizer Kandi Mossett. “We are currently meeting to discuss our actions strategy,” Mossett said at the start of the talks. “IEN is looking into doing five direct actions while we are here.”
IEN youth delegate Gemma Givens represents 30 youth with SustainUS: The US Youth Network for Sustainable Development, who with all the international youth delegations came together to craft their goals into one cohesive statement.
“Our futures are being negotiated and we have to make sure we are heard in this process,” Givens said. “The U.S. has a lot to lose from a weak agreement and a lot to gain from the transition to clean and safe energy and a stable environment. We’ll be asking the U.S. to re-engage as a leader and put together a meaningful and just binding treaty to demonstrate the power and dedication of the U.S. youth climate movement.”
Terri Hansen
December 11, 2009
Copenhagen, Denmark
There are two types of societies – Command Structured and Common-Mind (“Modern” vs Indigenous). I am a Haida Oral Historian and, none of this is going to make any difference. One simple reason: all of the non-indigenous nations’ economies are based upon Scarcity. When anything becomes scarce, they do not stop taking, they simply raise the price. In indigenous societies we are taught to “give back” – does not mean, simply replace what you took.