Dear Colleagues ,
Do consider circulating /publishing the document below .
This document is also relevant for India which has a large
population of Indigenous people which exceeds the population
of several countries, who are presently facing indiscriminate
violent displacement by Transnational and Indian based mining
companies with predatory policies in Eastern and Central India ,
which will have a long term impact on the seasons and global
warming in the entire South Asia region, extending to other areas
and may even impact the monsoon the lifeline of South Asia, if
development by MNCs is not regulated and rapacious plundering
of resources of the Indigenous people is encouraged with serious
consequences to life and livelihood and climate change, if
rapid deforestation is not immediately controlled and and forestry
as a social resource of the community not encouraged .
Niloufer Bhagwat
This document is the Final Declaration of the Working Group 7 on Indigenous
Peoples at the Cochabamba World Peoples' Climate Conference held recently in
Bolivia hosted by the Evo Morales government .
The original of this in Spanish started circulating last Saturday, April 24
(and is available @ http://www.minkandina.org/index.php?news=312),
Please circulate this widely, and of course, feel free to publish it.
WORLD PEOPLES’ CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE
RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ DECLARATION
(Original document in Spanish ‘Declaración de Los Pueblos Indígenas del
Mundo’
(‘Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples of the World’)
available @ http://www.minkandina.org/index.php?news=312)
Mother Earth can live without us, but we can’t live without her.
We, the Indigenous Peoples, nations and organizations from all over the
world, gathered at the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the
Rights of Mother Earth, from April 19th to 22nd, 2010 in Tiquipaya, Cochabamba,
Bolivia, after extensive discussions, express the following:
We Indigenous Peoples are sons and daughters of Mother Earth, or “Pachamama”
in Quechua. Mother Earth is a living being in the universe that concentrates
energy and life, while giving shelter and life to all without asking anything
in return, she is the past, present and future; this is our relationship with
Mother Earth. We have lived in coexistence with her for thousands of years,
with our wisdom and cosmic spirituality linked to nature. However, the economic
models promoted and forced by industrialized countries that promote
exploitation and wealth accumulation have radically transformed our
relationship with Mother Earth. We must assert that climate change is one of
the consequences of this irrational logic of life that we must change.
The aggression towards Mother Earth and the repeated assaults and violations
against our soils, air, forests, rivers, lakes, biodiversity, and the cosmos
are assaults against us. Before, we used to ask for permission for everything.
Now, coming from developed countries, it is presumed that Mother Earth must ask
us for permission. Our territories are not respected, particularly those of
peoples in voluntary isolation or initial contact, and we suffer the most
terrible aggression since colonization only to facilitate the entry of markets
and extractive industries.
We recognize that Indigenous Peoples and the rest of the world live in a
general age of crises: environmental, energy, food, financial, ethical, among
others, as a consequence of policies and attitudes from racist and exclusionary
states.
We want to convey that at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, the peoples of
the world demanded fair treatment, but were repressed. Meanwhile the states
responsible for the climate crisis were able to weaken even more any possible
outcome of negotiations and evade signing onto any binding agreement. They
limited themselves to simply supporting the Copenhagen Accord, an accord that
proposes unacceptable and insufficient goals as far as climate change action
and financing to the most affected countries and peoples.
We affirm that international negotiation spaces have systematically excluded
the participation of Indigenous Peoples. As a result, we as Indigenous Peoples
are making ourselves visible in these spaces, because as Mother Earth has been
hurt and plundered, with negative activities taking place on our lands,
territories and natural resources, we have also been hurt. This is why as
Indigenous Peoples we will not keep silent, but instead we propose to mobilize
all our peoples to arrive at COP16 in Mexico and other spaces well prepared and
united to defend our proposals, particularly the “living well” and
plurinational state proposals. We, Indigenous Peoples, do not want to live
“better”, but instead we believe that everyone must live well. This is a
proposal to achieve balance and start to construct a new society.
The search for common objectives, as history shows us, will only be completed
with the union of Indigenous Peoples of the World. The ancestral and indigenous
roots shared by the whole world must be one of the bonds that unite us to
achieve one unique objective.
Therefore we propose, require and demand:
1. The recovery, revalidation and strengthening of our civilizations,
identities, cultures and cosmovisions based on ancient and ancestral Indigenous
knowledge and wisdom for the construction of alternative ways of life to the
current "development model", as a way to confront climate change.
2. To rescue and strengthen the Indigenous proposal of “living well”, while
also recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with whom we have an
indivisible and interdependent relationship, based on principles and mechanisms
that assure the respect, harmony, and balance between people and nature, and
supporting a society based on social and environmental justice, which sees life
as its purpose. All this must be done to confront the plundering capitalist
model and guarantee the protection of life as a whole, through the search for
inclusive global agreements.
3. We demand States to recognize, respect and guarantee the application of
international standards of human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights (i.e.,
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, ILO Convention 169) in
the framework of negotiations, policies, and measures to confront climate
change.
4. We demand States to legally recognize the pre-existence of our right to
the lands, territories, and natural resources that we have traditionally held
as Indigenous Peoples and Nations, as well as restitution and restoration of
natural goods, water, forests and jungles, lakes, oceans, sacred places, lands,
and territories that have been dispossessed and seized. This is needed to
strengthen and make possible our traditional way of living while contributing
effectively to climate change solutions. Inasmuch, we call for the
consolidation of indigenous territories in exercise of our self-determination
and autonomy, in conformity with systems of rules and regulations. At the same
time we demand that states respect the territorial rights of Indigenous Peoples
in voluntary isolation or in initial contact, as an effective way to preserve
their integrity and combat the adverse effects of climate change towards those
peoples.
5. We call on States not to promote commercial monoculture practices, nor to
introduce or promote genetically modified and exotic crops, because according
to our people’s wisdom, these species aggravate the degradation of jungles,
forests and soils, contributing to the increase in global warming. Likewise,
megaprojects under the search for alternative energy sources that affect
Indigenous Peoples’ lands, territories, and natural habitats should not be
implemented, including nuclear, bioengineering, hydroelectric, wind-power and
others.
6. We demand changes to forestry and environmental laws, as well as the
application of pertinent international instruments to effectively protect
forests and jungles, as well as their biological and cultural diversity,
guaranteeing Indigenous Peoples’ rights, including their participation and
their Free, Prior, and Informed Consent.
7. We propose that, in the framework of climate change mitigation and
adaptation measures, states establish a policy that Protected Natural Areas
must be managed, administered and controlled directly by Indigenous Peoples,
taking into account the demonstrated traditional experience and knowledge
towards the sustainable management of the biodiversity in our forests and
jungles.
8. We demand a review, or if the case warrants, a moratorium, to every
polluting activity that affects Mother Earth, and the withdrawal of
multinational corporations and megaprojects from Indigenous territories.
9. We urge that states recognize water as a fundamental human right, avoiding
its privatization and commodification.
10. We demand the application of consultations, participation, and the Free,
Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples and affected populations in
the design and implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation
measures and any other intervening actions on Indigenous territories.
11. States must promote mechanisms to guarantee that funding for climate
change action arrives directly and effectively to Indigenous Peoples, as part
of the compensation for the historical and ecological debt owed. This funding
must support and strengthen our own visions and cosmovisions towards “living
well”.
12. We call for the recovery, revalidation and strengthening of Indigenous
Peoples’ technologies and knowledge, and for their incorporation into the
research, design and implementation of climate change policies. This should
compliment Western knowledge and technology, ensuring that technology transfer
processes do not weaken indigenous knowledge and technologies.
13. We propose the recovery, development and diffusion of indigenous
knowledge and technology through the implementation of educational policies and
programs, including the modification and incorporation of such knowledge and
ancestral wisdom in curricula and teaching methods.
14. We urge States and international bodies that are making decisions about
climate change, especially the UNFCCC, to establish formal structures and
mechanisms that include the full and effective participation of Indigenous
Peoples. They must also include local communities and vulnerable groups,
including women, without discrimination, as a key element to obtain a fair and
equitable result from climate change negotiations.
15. We join in the demand to create a Climate Justice Tribunal that would be
able to pass judgement and establish penalties for non-compliance of
agreements, and other environmental crimes by developed countries, which are
primarily responsible for climate change. This institution must consider the
full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples, and their principles of
justice.
16. We propose the organization and coordination of Indigenous Peoples
worldwide, through our local, national, regional, and international
governments, organizations, and other mechanisms of legitimate representation,
in order to participate in all climate change related processes. With that in
mind, we call for an organizational space to be created that will contribute to
the global search for effective solutions to climate change, with the special
participation of Elders.
17. We propose to fight in all spaces available to defend life and Mother
Earth, particularly in COP16, and so we propose a 2nd Peoples’ Conference to
strengthen the process of reflection and action.
18. The ratification of the global campaign to organize the World March in
defence of Mother Earth and her peoples, against the commodification of life,
pollution, and the criminalization of Indigenous and social movements.
Created in unity in Tiquipaya, Cochabamba, Bolivia, the 21st day of April,
2010
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