“We say No! to all market-based mechanisms and false solutions to climate change and demand that indigenous peoples’ rights be respected worldwide in addressing the climate crisis,” stated the declaration that came out of a recent meeting of indigenous peoples representatives.
The International Conference on Indigenous Peoples Rights, Alternatives and Solutions to the Climate Crisis took place from 4-9 November 2010 in Baguio City, the Philippines. The meeting was organised by the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Land is Life, IBON International, Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network and the People’s Movement on Climate Change and was attended by 76 indigenous peoples representatives from 15 countries in Asia, Pacific, Australia, Africa, North and South America and Europe.
The Cordillera Peoples Alliance put out a press release after the meeting, below. And below that is the Declaration of Solidarity from the meeting.
Int’l IP groups say NO to market based mechanisms
BAGUIO CITY–“No to market based mechanisms!”
This was the resounding position of delegates to the International Conference on Indigenous Peoples Rights, Alternatives and Solutions to the Climate Crisis as they criticized the proposed solutions of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC).
Frances Quimpo of the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) stressed that market based mechanisms would not benefit indigenous peoples (IP). She added that some of the mechanisms would even worsen environmental degradation.
Quimpo said these mechanisms do not only undermine the IPs role in environmental preservation but reward the traditional players in deforestation. She explained that these mechanisms allows industrialized countries to buy a license to pollute the environment.
Further Quimpo said industrialized countries push these mechanisms because these are cost-effective and profitable to them. “It would only mean businesses as usual for industrialized countries,” she said.
Among the mechanisms criticized was the REDD, which according to Sandy Gauntlet from the Global Forest Coalition is commercialization of nature. He added that IPs were excluded from the policy making of REDD as only states and mostly industrialized countries can afford to participate in this undertaking. He said these countries are also the major players in the degradation of the environment.
“It is absolute insanity to go to the very people who destroyed the environment for the restoration of what they have destroyed its like giving them a blank check and signing your name,” Gauntlet stressed.
Moreover Gauntlet said IPs been historically responsible for the conservation and sustainable use of forests in their territories. He also said IP territories encompass a considerable proportion of areas important for biodiversity.
He pointed out that industrialized countries even changed the definition of forest and deforestation to suit their flawed programs of addressing the global crisis. He said it has reduced the number of trees that need to be present at a very law level and even considered agrofuel plantations as forests. He added that it allows logging corporation to remove most of the trees in the forest as long as the forest has the potential to regrow its cover.
Gauntlet, however said definition is not the only problem with these mechanisms. He said IPs should continue to assert their rights to their lands and to determine how to utilize these.
“You do not negotiate your rights. They are your birthright and they will stay with you for the rest of your life. At no point in your life should you negotiate your rights,” he stressed.
This Declaration of Solidarity is a result of the International Conference on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Alternatives and Solutions to the Climate Crisis, held from November 4 to 9, 2010 in Baguio City, the Philippines. The Conference was organized by the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Land is Life, IBON International, Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network and the People’s Movement on Climate Change.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS, ALTERNATIVES AND SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS
November 4-9, 2010
Baguio City, PhilippinesDECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY
We, 76 indigenous peoples representatives and advocates from 15 countries in Asia, Pacific, Australia, Africa, North and South America, and Europe, bind ourselves in solidarity for the pursuit of indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination and liberation at this international conference.
We reaffirm our inherent rights to self-determination and collective ownership of our land, territory and resources knowledge, and to freely determine our political status and define our own course of development appropriate to our particular situations and cultures. We have struggled to assert these rights since time immemorial. Along the way, we have had victories like the adoption of the UNDRIP (the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) and other UN instruments, as well as losses and martyrs, but we continue to struggle until today, in response to the alarming realities we continue to experience.
Indigenous peoples face serious and urgent problems including the violation of our collective rights as indigenous peoples, oppression by states, development aggression and plunder of our land and resources by multinational corporations and international financial institutions in collusion with the local elite. Government policies and neglect have led to continuing impoverishment, discrimination and deprivation of our identity. The US-led war of terror and State counter-insurgency programs and policies result in increased militarization and extrajudicial killings in an atmosphere of impunity. All of these amount to virtual genocide of indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, resulting in mental trauma, active population transfer,displacement, minoritization and marginalization of indigenous peoples in our own lands.
The urgent climate crisis exacerbates these difficult conditions that indigenous peoples are experiencing today. Northern governments, especially the US, corporations and IFIs are largely responsible for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. However, they have refused to honor their historical responsibility to reduce emissions and pay reparations, and are deepening the environmental crisis with new plans for expanded resource extraction, unregulated free trade, invasive investment, privatization and unlimited growth. Meanwhile, indigenous peoples, who contribute the least to global warming, are severely affected by climate change, hampering their capacities to cope with these problems.
Negotiations among States through the UNFCCC processes have turned climate change into a trade issue and an opportunity for profit. The right to pollute is being traded as a commodity through carbon emissions trading. Adaptation and mitigation measures such as REDD, REDD+ and other market-based mechanisms are offered as solutions but have negative impacts and cause divisions among indigenous peoples, whose access and control of forest resources are eroded. The WTO is also now talking of liberalizing trade of environmental goods and services, which will further compromise our rights. Throughout these discussions, indigenous peoples voices have not been heard because we have had no real and meaningful participation, being relegated to the sidelines as mere observers.
We believe that the root cause of the enormous problems we face today is the neoliberal global capitalist system, which puts profits before people and the planet. Central to this system is the expropriation and control of resources by multinational corporations, and dispossession and marginalization of small producers, workers, peasants, women and indigenous peoples.
A genuinely sustainable and comprehensive solution to the climate crisis lies in a fundamental shift towards people’s sovereignty over our shared heritage. This requires a thorough going change from current production and consumption patterns, which promote mass consumerism and extravagance to sustainable ways and standards of living.
To our credit, indigenous peoples around the world continue to practice and demonstrate viable alternatives and solutions to the climate crisisand the profit-driven development paradigm. We stand by our traditional knowledge and practices such as sustainable agriculture, biodiversity conservation, seed-keeping, simple living, cooperative labor and mutual help, indigenous socio-political institutions, community-based adaptation, mitigation and disaster response, which are viable solutions to the global crisis as proven through generations. We acknowledge the important role of indigenous women in maintaining our traditional waysof life.
We believe that building a strong and united international indigenous peoples movement for self-determination is the urgent call of the day. This movement stands for the right of indigenous peoples to govern ourselves and for liberation from imperialism, state oppression and human rights violations. In its various forms, self-determination may include legal recognition and proportionate representation of indigenous peoples in State mechanisms, autonomous self-rule, federalism or asserting sovereignty from an oppressive state. We will work for the empowerment of our peoples, and for the victory of the people’s will over the powers-that-be, while respecting the legitimacy and forms of struggle and self-determination that our peoples opt to employ.
On this historic occasion of the International Conference on IndigenousPeoples Rights, Alternatives and Solutions to the Climate Crisis, we celebrate our struggles as indigenous peoples. We commit to support each other, build wider solidarity and to continue to strengthen our peoples’ movements.
As a result of this conference, we resolve to:
1. Uphold indigenous peoples’ rights to survival, self-determination, liberation and social justice. Organize ourselves, as the Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-determination and Liberation, together with other indigenous peoples around the world, to strengthen our solidarity and coordinate our efforts beyond this conference.
2. Defend our land against development aggression and plunder of our resources by mining, logging, megadams, oil exploration, biofuel and industrial plantations, politically and economically motivated population transfer and other so-called “development” impositions. Work for the recognition and respect of indigenous peoples’ rights, including the important role of indigenous youth and women in the struggle for control and ownership over our ancestral territories and sustainable management of our resources.
3. Hold imperialist countries, MNCs/TNCs and financial institutions accountable for their historical environmental debt to humanity. We say No! to all market-based mechanisms and false solutions to climate change and demand that indigenous peoples’ rights be respected worldwide in addressing the climate crisis. We call for sustainable solutions tothe climate crisis, including adaptation and mitigation strategies based on indigenous peoples’ traditional knowledge and practices. Create our own spaces for indigenous peoples participation and engagement inthe climate change debate. Support and adopt the Peoples Protocol on Climate Change and enrich this further to reflect indigenous peoples’ perspectives.
4. Push for proactive government and international programs and policies in response to climate disasters affecting indigenous peoples, who are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Document successful efforts, indigenous science, traditional knowledge and practices on climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially indigenous women’s roles, and integrate these practices into our responses to climate disasters.
5. Resist corporate monopoly and control of agriculture and all its instruments such as IRRI, WTO, etc. and promote biodiverse ecological agriculture. Promote community-based indigenous sustainable agricultural practices, conduct continuing study and exchange on indigenous production systems, and do policy advocacy to get governments to commit to food sovereignty. Campaign against land acquisitions and military offensives that undermine the food sovereignty of indigenous peoples.
6. Condemn militarization, political repression, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, military invasion and occupation of ancestral lands and all forms of human rights violations perpetrated by State forces against indigenous peoples. Uphold the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Peoples (Algiers Declaration), and other international conventions. Combat criminalization, vilification, terrorist-labeling of indigenous activists and leaders and the misuse of indigenous culture for counter-insurgency objectives of States in line with the US-led War on Terror. Stop recruitment of indigenous persons, especially the youth into State military and paramilitary forces.
7. Stop all forms of socio-economic and politically motivated population transfer in indigenous peoples territory and cease cultural genocide and ethnocide of indigenous peoples.
8. Support the struggles of indigenous peoples for self-determination, liberation and sovereignty in its various forms. Continue to learn from each other and conduct studies on the various experiences in the exercise of self-determination. Form broad alliances and connect our movements to the wider struggles of other sectors, national and international movements across a wide spectrum of society in recognition of our common targets and aspirations.
In keeping with our indigenous tradition of consensus building, we affirm and approve this declaration. We draw lessons from our past struggles and strength from our martyrs. Let it be known widely that we will pursue our struggle for self-determination and liberation of indigenouspeoples to its rightful end!
“For us, our strength comes from our ancestors, our determination to succeed from our children, and our success from our unity.” – Maori activist
-Signed by the conference participants-
Good evening to you all, and thank you for allowing me to share my opinion in this issue. Just like any other issue arises against the Global Indigenous People.
Please do not forget to first seek your Legal Councils to re read the International labor Ordinance (ILO) and many Charter under UN Human Rights commission protecting the Indigenous Peoples Rights, leaving and surviving nearer and within the abundant forests worldwide.
If you a not careful, you will be charges and can be penalized under their protection laws.
Like Indigenous People of Papua New Guinea, who have the Rights to protect their Customary Land covering 93% of the entire Country, with a population of only 6 million plus.
These protection covers, Forests, Mineral Under the soil, protection of ecosystem, etc,…
Please quickly as possible seek your Local Law office who have access to Human Rights Commission Protection of Indigenous People in the Philippines, Indonesia, African Nations, Papua New Guinea, Pacific Islanders and South American Nations.
Let us protect and observe the Indigenous Rights First before proceeding further talking about Carbon Sinks Trading program.
I hope that will open ears to people who have no idea about this important issues
Genewa S Livinai
todas as areas indigenas deveriam ser persevadas pelas
industrias que poluem com os creditos de carbono
Good day sir’s, this is an additional information, which I wish to add on to what Ive sent out yesterday,dated 18 November, 2010 regarding the Rights and protection of Global Indigenous Peoples and their rich ASSETS.
It is a high time to observe and enforce the Indigenous Peoples Right Act of the Philippines (IPRA) for self determination and the Right to use their own resources such and gold, silver, copper, platiniun, paradium, Gas and oil, and now the Forest (Carbon Sinks).
Right to Ancestral Land/Domain:
The law RA 8371, the IPRA on October 1997, requires serious observation and amendment to polish up old laws and armed with new policies that are workable, recongnized and giving protection of the Ancestral Domain/Land Rights, self-governnance and empowerment,integrity, social justice and human right, spiritual, establishment of Sustainable Fiscal system to maintain and stabilize the Indigenous People’s Livelihood development programs using their vauable abundance rich resources such as, gold, silver, copper, platnium, paladium, and now the Carbon Sink from their Forest.
The term ancentral Land under the IPRA refers to land, occupied by Indigenous People,Individual, Families, and tribe and clans who are members of Indigenous Cultural Communities including residential lots, rice terrace or paddies, private forests, farms,and tree lots.
These land are required to have been accoupied,possessed,and utilized by them or their Ancestors, “since time immemorial, continusly to the present (Section 3 B)
The Law enumerates the rights of indigenous peoples of the Philippines, over their ancestral domains/lands. These right of Ownership over the ancestral land/domain, RIGHT TO DEVELOP AND MANAGE LANDS AND NATURAL RESOURCES, RIGHT TO STAY IN TERRTTORIES AND NOT TO BE DISPLACED THEREFROM,RIGHT TO REGULATE ENTRY OF MIGRANTS AND OTHER ENTITIES, RIGHT TO SAFE AND CLEAR WATERS,RIGHT TO CLAIM PARTS OF RESERVATIONS, AND RIGHT TO RESOLVE CONFLICTS ACCORDING TO CUSTOMARY LAW (Section 1-8, Rule III, Part II)
Indigenous people also have the rights to transfer (ancestral) land or property among members of their community,and to redeem those that have been acquired from them through FRAUDULENT TRANSACTIONS (Section 1,2, Part III)
The Law also stipulate that the Indigenous people and their communities have the full resposinbity to MAINTAIN ECOLOGOCAL BALANCE, RESTORE DENUDED AREAS, AND ADHERE TO THEIR SPIRIT AND INTENT OF THE ACT.
RIGHT TO SELF-GOVERNANCE AND EMPOWERMENT:
The IPRA upholds the right of indigenous peoples to “Self-Governanace and Empowerment. The IPRA further define the range of the Excercise of these rights. These are the rights to pursue their Economic, Social, Spiritual, Cultural development: to use commonly accepted justice systems, conflict resolution and mechanism, peace building process, and customary laws: to participate in decisiion making: to maintain and develop indigenous political structure: to have mandotary representative in Policy Making bodies: to determine their OWN PRIORITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT to establish their Tribal Barangay (Village) and equivalent voting procedures: and to organize people organmization
The Indigenous people decision to accept or reject a proposed policy, programs, or plan shall be accessed in accordance with their development framework and their VALUE SYSTEM for their protection of Land and Resources and shall within their communites, determine for themselves policies, development programs,projects and plan to meet their identified priority needs and concern.
The [Indigenosu people] shall have the right to accept or reject a certain development intervention in their particular communities.
Introduction of Inflation Free formula based on Gold, Silver, Copper, and Now the Forest>
For so many years there are much publicised bases of government policies that high GDP growth rate by itself will “achieve poverty redcution” is the version of the 2oth, century theory of trickle down effect. This theory has exposed itself through five decades of its operation as of little consequences to the subject.
As highlighted by many recognized institutions in the World development report 1900-2010. It says the greatest challenge of the 21st Century in ‘POVERTY AMIDST PLENTY’. What emerges from this statement is that “Todays problem is that of Management of plenty,and yet the poverty is increasng everyday, and leading towards the final Path: NO FOOD— NO-MONEY–RALLY AND RIOT = ECONOMIC CHAOS, WORLD CUREENCY WARS, NO JOBS, AND NO FREEDOM = SLAVERY.
So many years down the road, policies pursued by the government as a result of new theises, there has not been even the slightest change for the better on the poverty scene. If anything it has worsened,the reason been policies have not been attuned to the accepted challenge
The Fact is that “poverty eradictaion” is not the function of Economic alone. More importatnt in this regard is the pattern of sharing of the fruits of that growth. And this sharing take place in proportion to the THE OWNERSHIP OF RETURN-YIELDING NATIONAL ASSETS OF CLASSES AND INDIVIDUALS.
Until today,nothing is being done to bring about a change in the existing pattern of Asset Ownership. Reliance is being placed on improvement supposed to be effected in due course of time. This factor too, however, is being largely neutralized by host of other factors like high population growth among the poor and poorest, introduction of investment-intensive (macro finance) but highly rewarding technologies, etc.,,
Meanwhile policies continue to be framed and implemnented ontop of the same policies to strenthen the existing patterns of assets ownerships and distribution and still face and fully benefiting the entire population of the Country
What are these return-yielding Assets?:
These are Land, labour, Education, Skills, technology,Industrial and Commercial Assets, etc’s.
If the Distribution of Ownership of thses assets is unfair return sharing will be equally distorted,and the situation will continue to push marginal landowners/Indigenouse Paaoples below the exsiting level of Poverty, which Education and Health facilities are being limited by taking the state gradually out of these fields and their provisioning is being done through commercial pricing. Even the acquisition of upgraded skills is being commercialised.
IN OTHER WORDS, ALL REAL CHANCES OF POVERTY REDUCTION ARE BEING CLOSED
The primary responsibility of the Government is now supposedly to be to protect and promote the interest of Financial and industrial Conglomerates and create environment for their flourishing building up poor and poorest peoples (aborigines/ Indigenous peoples ASSETs in Education and health which is easier to achieve through direct action of the State is no more ever concessions and power bases.
Hope the above will give further information were I am heading.
Genewa S Livinai
11, 12 & 13 November, 2011
Peoples SAARC Conference
of
Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement
Invitation
The need of Peoples SAARC Conference of Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement can be understood by looking at the existing fundamental reality of the official SAARC. And this fundamental reality is that South Asia today has become the most dangerous area of the World where the World faces the threat of the extinction of all forms of life in case of Indo-Pak nuclear war which can occur at any moment because Indo-Pak border skirmishes have been a regular feature of Indo-Pak border.
At the present juncture, the South Asian Nations, like all other trading blocks in the World, have been caught in a 2-dimensional crisis i.e., environmental degradation in general and each of its components in particular, on the one hand, and the crisis of dehumanization of the present human society (called a “free and open democracy” with its over 2 centuries old theory and practice) in general and each of its social aspects [i.e., sociological (or ideological or theoritical) vision or standpoint; peoples belief and motivation; human gender relations and proportion of sexes; political performance covering its international, national and local aspects; economic progress dealing with its international, natioanl and local features and cultural ethics relating to all its components, i.e., education, science and technology, language, art (music, dance, drama, architecture, sculpture, painting, crafts, etc.) behaviour, manner of speech, dress etc.] on the other.
Environmental degradation expressed by global warming or climate change is the biggest challenge that the human community is now facing on this Earth. The crises is so serious that either the human community overcomes it immediately, or it will devour the human community and finish it for ever. The time at our disposal is very, very, very small. According to the whole World scientific community organized within the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC). The size or proportion of GHGs was 280 PPM (Part per million) in 1750 and it is 379 PPM in 2007. It is far greater than the natural increase from 180 PPM to 300 PPM over the last 650,000 years. Now the global temperature is 0.76 centigrade high. The World has less than a decade to change course. According to them, if the human community did not change its course by 2020, the crises of climate change will become irreversible and thus after very short time the human community along with the entire bio-life on this Earth will go out of existence.
Climate change is not a market problem. It is an existential problem. It can not be solved by market means. Corporate World makes it a market problem. Climate change problem demands that polluters immediately stop the production of GHGs.
Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement believes that the ongoing fatal environmental and social crisis is an outcome of the corporate theory of capital whose 2 facets, i.e. Western capitalism and Marxian communism, are one in holding capital as the supreme thing in society, which constantly misuses and over-uses environmental and human resources to achieve the maximum profit. It (i.e., Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement) firmly holds that the way out of the present life and death crisis lies in motivating and mobilizing the people for a peaceful transformation of the present corporate capitalist system (now operating in all the nation states) into a Nature-Human Centric System which consciously regards that the most precious thing in society comprises environmental and human resources and not the money capital. Hence, according to it, the development, progress and prosperity in society should be judged by the promotion of nature-human resources. Capital money or wealth, according to it, is merely a medium of exchange and nothing more. By falsifying the capital (i.e., money or wealth) as the personification of development, progress and prosperity, the corporate capitalist theoreticians have devised a system which ruthlessly destroys the environmental resources and violently and mercilessly exploits the human resources.
Obviously, the transformation of the present corporate capitalist order into a Nature-Human Centric Order is an urgent need of our times. The sooner it is done the better.
The different aspect of this agenda will be discussed in coming peoples SAARC Conference. A separate document will be provided to delegates and participants.
All other informations concerning this Conference are as below:
Venue :
‘Gandhi Bhawan’, Khadi gramodyog Sanstha Sangh, Bajaj Nagar,
Near Gandhi Nagar Railway Station, Jaipur (Rajasthan) India
Organizer : Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement, India
Postal Address : Sajjan Kumar, C/o Tejpal Singh, 9/702, Malviya Nagar, Jaipur (Raj.) India
Moblie : 0091-9478231558, 9001826467, Fax : 0091-141-2379713, 2720870
e-mail: ghan_demo@yahoo.co.in and sajjan_nhcpm@rediffmail.com
Contacts :
Tejpal Singh, Mobile 0091-9461203588, 9413341304, 9829526446, e-mail: tejpalsinghahd@yahoo.in
Sukhdev Singh 0091-9915342232, Rooplal Makhnotra 0091-9419116969,
Jawahar Lal 0091-9414131481, Manna Ram Dangi 0091-9414927387,
Vipin Chandra 0091-151-2521869, Mani Ram Pooniya 0091-9269870589,
Jasveer Kaur Pandher 0091-9464661998, Maghar Singh 0091-1679-238037,
Ghanshyam Democrat 0091-9414864548
Note : (A) (i) Jaipur is Capital city of Rajasthan State in India.
(ii) Venue is 5 km from Jaipur Railway Station. Direct city buses are available here to Bajaj Nagar or Gandhi Nagar Railway Station.
(iii) Gandhi Nagar Railway Station is situated at Delhi to Jaipur Railway route, all Express trains have got stopage here.
(iv) Venue is 3 km from Jaipur (Sanganer) Airport.
(B) (i) On 14th November, 2011 Jaipur visit for foreign delegates.
(ii) On 15, 16 & 17 November, 2011 there is a Study Circle on Nature-Human Centric Agenda. In this Study Circle further discussion will be conducted for expansion Nature-Human Centric Peoples Movement in SAARC countries and World. Delegates who want to participate in Study Circle, please inform in time to Sajjan Kumar.