[News] Indigenous Peoples’ Declaration on Rights of Mother Earth

[Anti-Imperialist News]

World Peoples' Conference On Climate Change And The Rights Of Mother Earth



Indigenous Peoples' Declaration

By <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/manyauthors>Many Authors

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

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 preexistence 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, bio-engineering, 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 defense 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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