Indigenous Wisdom Against Climate Change - Obama: Sign Native Rights Declaration
RIGHTS: Indigenous Wisdom Against Climate Change
Submitted by Western Shoshone Defense Project
Thursday, April 30, 2009
By Stephen Leahy*
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Apr 28 (Tierramérica**) - While industrialised countries like Canada continue to emit ever-higher levels of greenhouse-effect gases, indigenous peoples around the world are working to survive and adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate.
Over millennia, indigenous peoples have developed a large arsenal of practices that are of potential benefit today for coping with climate change, including some holistic and refreshingly practical ideas. "Why not give automobiles and planes a day of rest? And then later on, two days of rest. That would cut down on pollution," suggested Carrie Dann, an elder from the Western Shoshone Nation, whose ancestral lands extend across the western United States.
Dann, winner of the 1993 Right Livelihood Award - known as the Alternative Nobel Prize - for her efforts to protect ancestral lands, made her proposal before the 400 delegates gathered in Anchorage, Alaska, Apr. 20-24 for the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change.
Dann warned that Mother Nature is getting warmer and the "fever" needed to be cured. "We see many range (grassland) fires in my territory, it is getting so hot," she said. To prevent similar uncontrolled wildfires that have burned up large portions of Australia and killed hundreds of people in recent years, the Aborigines of Western Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, are using traditional fire practices to reduce such wildfires.
Preventing these fires also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and, for the first time in the world, these Aborigines have sold 17 million dollars' worth of carbon credits to industry, generating significant new income for the local community, according to a report presented in Anchorage.
Australia's Aborigines have traditionally used controlled burning following the rainy season to create barriers to stop the intense wildfires later during the dry season. Wildfires account for a substantial portion of Australia's carbon emissions and have been very destructive. However, in recent years few Aborigines live on the land any more so there have been fewer controlled burns.
But now there is a new role to play in the fight against global warming. According to Sam Johnston, of the Tokyo-based United Nations University, a summit co-sponsor, it is in the world's best interest to take into account indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge. In Asia, indigenous people are developing diverse crop varieties and utilising different cropping patterns, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Filipina leader and chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told the delegates. They are also involved in sustainable agro-forestry and energy production based on small-scale biomass and micro-dam projects.
On the Indonesian island of Bali, indigenous peoples are doing reef rehabilitation work and protecting mangroves. In the Philippines, they are mapping ancestral waters and developing an integrated management plan. "Many are doing these things on their own, with no support," said Tauli-Corpuz.
In Honduras, faced with increasing hurricane strikes and drastic weather changes, the Quezungal people have developed a farming method that involves planting crops under trees so the roots anchor the soil and reduce the loss of harvests during natural disasters. Indigenous peoples in Guyana have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, moving to more forested zones during the dry season, and are now planting manioc, their main staple, in alluvial plains where it was previously too moist to grow crops.
Farmers in Belize are returning to traditional agricultural practices and moving up to higher ground, other delegates reported. In Africa, the Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon and the Bambendzele of Congo have developed new fishing and hunting methods to adapt to a decrease in precipitation and an increase in forest fires.
Although indigenous peoples have great capacity to adapt, many treaties and international laws guarantee their rights to food and traditional livelihoods, but climate change threatens all of this, according to Andrea Carmen, a member of the Yaqui Indian Nation, of the U.S. southwest.
When the chiefs of the tribes in the western Canadian province of Alberta declared that there should be no more oil production from tar sands, they were ignored, said Carmen who is also executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council. Alberta's tar sands oil projects are the major reason why Canada's latest greenhouse gas inventory increased four percent from 2006 to 2007. That increase puts the country 33.8 percent over its commitments established in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, in force since 2005.
But indigenous peoples are also wary of recent actions by governments and industries undertaken in response to climate change, such as building wind farms and biofuel plants, because these are often located on or directly affect their lands and livelihoods, says Gunn-Britt Retter, of Finland's Saami Council. "We have the knowledge of how to live through these climate changes. We need to use traditional knowledge to help all our cultures live through these changes," Retter said.
"Our message to the world is that we need full and effective participation at the national and international levels in order for our cultures to survive these changes," he added. It has been 17 years since the first U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings were held to solve the climate crisis, said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the former head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "We must act quickly... This is the last chance to take control," she told the delegates by videoconference from her home in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. "The world needs the wisdom of our cultures."
(*Correspondent Stephen Leahy's travel to Alaska was financed by the United Nations University and Project Word, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation for media diversity.
This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)
Posted on Reznews by: Larry Kibby - lkibby1@citlink.netNevada, U.S.A.
Larry Kibby - American Indian Poetryhttp://www.freewebs.com/lkibby1/index.htm
Obama Urged To Sign Native Rights Declaration
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 (IPS) - The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources.
"The position on [this issue] is under review," Patrick Ventrell, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the U.N., told IPS about the Barack Obama administration’s stance on the non-binding U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Approved by a vast majority of the U.N. member states in September 2007, the General Assembly resolution on the declaration was rejected by the George W. Bush administration over indigenous leaders’ argument that no economic or political power has the right to exploit their resources without seeking their "informed consent.
" Three other "settler nations" of European descent, namely Canada, New Zealand and Australia, also voted against the declaration, which states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and remain on their land. However, last month, the new left-leaning government in Canberra reversed its position, announcing support for the declaration. "We show our respect for indigenous peoples," said Jenny Macklin, a member of the Australian parliament. "We show our faith in a new era of relations between states and indigenous peoples in good faith." The new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also offered an apology to the indigenous communities who suffered at the hands of European settlers for decades.
Indigenous rights activists in the United States say they want the new liberal democratic government in Washington to make a similar move to address the grievances of native communities who have long been subjected to abuse and discrimination.
"The U.S. [should] become a resolute supporter of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," argued James Polk, who writes for Foreign Policy in Focus, a progressive periodical published by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "It’s a comprehensive document that affirms that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, and that, in the exercise of their rights, they should be free from their discrimination," he added.
The declaration reflects growing concerns of aboriginal communities about the continued exploitation of their resources and suppression of their cultural vales and practices by commercial concerns and governments that are alien to their cultures. According to many scientists, the traditional knowledge and cooperation of indigenous communities are vital elements in the global fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity. During his election campaign, President Obama repeatedly said that he cared about the issues facing Native American communities and insisted that they could trust him – pledges that are now being watched closely.
As reached out to new voter blocs last summer, Obama made a campaign stop at an Indian reservation in Montana, where he told the audience, that, as an African American, he identified with their struggles. "I know what it’s like to not have always been respected or to have been ignored and I know what it’s like to struggle and that’s how I think many of you understand what’s happened here on the reservation," Obama said.
In his speech, Obama added: "A lot of times you have been forgotten, just like African-Americans have been forgotten or other groups in this country have been forgotten." In the Nov. 4 presidential elections, a vast majority of Native people voted for Obama, according to Frank LaMere of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, who led the American Indian delegation to the Democratic Convention.
On the campaign trail in Montana, Obama was adopted as an honourary member of the Crow Tribe, a ceremony that natives say is reserved for special guests. On that occasion, he was given a new name, "Barack Black Eagle."
Before Obama became the first-ever non-white president of the United States, the country faced scathing criticism from a Geneva-based U.N. rights body for its treatment of the indigenous communities and objectionable use of their traditional lands and resources. In March 2006 and again in 2008, a panel of U.S. experts analysed the U.S. government’s treatment of indigenous citizens and ruled that it was guilty of racial discrimination.
Canada, another settler-nation founded on the indigenous territories in North America, has also been scolded by the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for its abusive and discriminatory treatment of acts of native communities. The right-wing government in Ottawa continues to justify its current policies towards the native population as just and fair with no indication whatsoever of a willingness to sign the U.N. document on indigenous peoples’ rights.
In the United States, there appears to be some signs of policy shift with regard to the U.S. government’s relations with the American Indian communities. Some representatives of indigenous tribes are currently working with Obama as advisors. However, it remains unclear when and if the Obama administration would sign the declaration. "I can’t comment further," said Ventrell about the outcome of discussions on possible U.S. support.
Posted on Reznews by: Larry Kibby -
lkibby1@citlink.netNevada, U.S.A.
Larry Kibby - American Indian Poetry
http://www.freewebs.com/lkibby1/index.htm
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
'Seminole Museum Earns National Accreditation'
NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/
Check Out Native Pride - It's a great site!
http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com
FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
Submitted by Western Shoshone Defense Project
Thursday, April 30, 2009
By Stephen Leahy*
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Apr 28 (Tierramérica**) - While industrialised countries like Canada continue to emit ever-higher levels of greenhouse-effect gases, indigenous peoples around the world are working to survive and adapt to an increasingly dangerous climate.
Over millennia, indigenous peoples have developed a large arsenal of practices that are of potential benefit today for coping with climate change, including some holistic and refreshingly practical ideas. "Why not give automobiles and planes a day of rest? And then later on, two days of rest. That would cut down on pollution," suggested Carrie Dann, an elder from the Western Shoshone Nation, whose ancestral lands extend across the western United States.
Dann, winner of the 1993 Right Livelihood Award - known as the Alternative Nobel Prize - for her efforts to protect ancestral lands, made her proposal before the 400 delegates gathered in Anchorage, Alaska, Apr. 20-24 for the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change.
Dann warned that Mother Nature is getting warmer and the "fever" needed to be cured. "We see many range (grassland) fires in my territory, it is getting so hot," she said. To prevent similar uncontrolled wildfires that have burned up large portions of Australia and killed hundreds of people in recent years, the Aborigines of Western Arnhem Land, in the Northern Territory, are using traditional fire practices to reduce such wildfires.
Preventing these fires also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and, for the first time in the world, these Aborigines have sold 17 million dollars' worth of carbon credits to industry, generating significant new income for the local community, according to a report presented in Anchorage.
Australia's Aborigines have traditionally used controlled burning following the rainy season to create barriers to stop the intense wildfires later during the dry season. Wildfires account for a substantial portion of Australia's carbon emissions and have been very destructive. However, in recent years few Aborigines live on the land any more so there have been fewer controlled burns.
But now there is a new role to play in the fight against global warming. According to Sam Johnston, of the Tokyo-based United Nations University, a summit co-sponsor, it is in the world's best interest to take into account indigenous peoples' traditional knowledge. In Asia, indigenous people are developing diverse crop varieties and utilising different cropping patterns, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Filipina leader and chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, told the delegates. They are also involved in sustainable agro-forestry and energy production based on small-scale biomass and micro-dam projects.
On the Indonesian island of Bali, indigenous peoples are doing reef rehabilitation work and protecting mangroves. In the Philippines, they are mapping ancestral waters and developing an integrated management plan. "Many are doing these things on their own, with no support," said Tauli-Corpuz.
In Honduras, faced with increasing hurricane strikes and drastic weather changes, the Quezungal people have developed a farming method that involves planting crops under trees so the roots anchor the soil and reduce the loss of harvests during natural disasters. Indigenous peoples in Guyana have adopted a nomadic lifestyle, moving to more forested zones during the dry season, and are now planting manioc, their main staple, in alluvial plains where it was previously too moist to grow crops.
Farmers in Belize are returning to traditional agricultural practices and moving up to higher ground, other delegates reported. In Africa, the Baka Pygmies of southeast Cameroon and the Bambendzele of Congo have developed new fishing and hunting methods to adapt to a decrease in precipitation and an increase in forest fires.
Although indigenous peoples have great capacity to adapt, many treaties and international laws guarantee their rights to food and traditional livelihoods, but climate change threatens all of this, according to Andrea Carmen, a member of the Yaqui Indian Nation, of the U.S. southwest.
When the chiefs of the tribes in the western Canadian province of Alberta declared that there should be no more oil production from tar sands, they were ignored, said Carmen who is also executive director of the International Indian Treaty Council. Alberta's tar sands oil projects are the major reason why Canada's latest greenhouse gas inventory increased four percent from 2006 to 2007. That increase puts the country 33.8 percent over its commitments established in the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, in force since 2005.
But indigenous peoples are also wary of recent actions by governments and industries undertaken in response to climate change, such as building wind farms and biofuel plants, because these are often located on or directly affect their lands and livelihoods, says Gunn-Britt Retter, of Finland's Saami Council. "We have the knowledge of how to live through these climate changes. We need to use traditional knowledge to help all our cultures live through these changes," Retter said.
"Our message to the world is that we need full and effective participation at the national and international levels in order for our cultures to survive these changes," he added. It has been 17 years since the first U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change meetings were held to solve the climate crisis, said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the former head of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. "We must act quickly... This is the last chance to take control," she told the delegates by videoconference from her home in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada. "The world needs the wisdom of our cultures."
(*Correspondent Stephen Leahy's travel to Alaska was financed by the United Nations University and Project Word, a U.S.-based non-governmental organisation for media diversity.
This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.)
Posted on Reznews by: Larry Kibby - lkibby1@citlink.netNevada, U.S.A.
Larry Kibby - American Indian Poetryhttp://www.freewebs.com/lkibby1/index.htm
Obama Urged To Sign Native Rights Declaration
By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, May 6 (IPS) - The United States is considering whether to endorse a major U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for the recognition of the rights of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples over their lands and resources.
"The position on [this issue] is under review," Patrick Ventrell, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the U.N., told IPS about the Barack Obama administration’s stance on the non-binding U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Approved by a vast majority of the U.N. member states in September 2007, the General Assembly resolution on the declaration was rejected by the George W. Bush administration over indigenous leaders’ argument that no economic or political power has the right to exploit their resources without seeking their "informed consent.
" Three other "settler nations" of European descent, namely Canada, New Zealand and Australia, also voted against the declaration, which states that indigenous peoples have the right to maintain their cultures and remain on their land. However, last month, the new left-leaning government in Canberra reversed its position, announcing support for the declaration. "We show our respect for indigenous peoples," said Jenny Macklin, a member of the Australian parliament. "We show our faith in a new era of relations between states and indigenous peoples in good faith." The new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has also offered an apology to the indigenous communities who suffered at the hands of European settlers for decades.
Indigenous rights activists in the United States say they want the new liberal democratic government in Washington to make a similar move to address the grievances of native communities who have long been subjected to abuse and discrimination.
"The U.S. [should] become a resolute supporter of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples," argued James Polk, who writes for Foreign Policy in Focus, a progressive periodical published by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "It’s a comprehensive document that affirms that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples, and that, in the exercise of their rights, they should be free from their discrimination," he added.
The declaration reflects growing concerns of aboriginal communities about the continued exploitation of their resources and suppression of their cultural vales and practices by commercial concerns and governments that are alien to their cultures. According to many scientists, the traditional knowledge and cooperation of indigenous communities are vital elements in the global fight against climate change and loss of biodiversity. During his election campaign, President Obama repeatedly said that he cared about the issues facing Native American communities and insisted that they could trust him – pledges that are now being watched closely.
As reached out to new voter blocs last summer, Obama made a campaign stop at an Indian reservation in Montana, where he told the audience, that, as an African American, he identified with their struggles. "I know what it’s like to not have always been respected or to have been ignored and I know what it’s like to struggle and that’s how I think many of you understand what’s happened here on the reservation," Obama said.
In his speech, Obama added: "A lot of times you have been forgotten, just like African-Americans have been forgotten or other groups in this country have been forgotten." In the Nov. 4 presidential elections, a vast majority of Native people voted for Obama, according to Frank LaMere of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, who led the American Indian delegation to the Democratic Convention.
On the campaign trail in Montana, Obama was adopted as an honourary member of the Crow Tribe, a ceremony that natives say is reserved for special guests. On that occasion, he was given a new name, "Barack Black Eagle."
Before Obama became the first-ever non-white president of the United States, the country faced scathing criticism from a Geneva-based U.N. rights body for its treatment of the indigenous communities and objectionable use of their traditional lands and resources. In March 2006 and again in 2008, a panel of U.S. experts analysed the U.S. government’s treatment of indigenous citizens and ruled that it was guilty of racial discrimination.
Canada, another settler-nation founded on the indigenous territories in North America, has also been scolded by the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for its abusive and discriminatory treatment of acts of native communities. The right-wing government in Ottawa continues to justify its current policies towards the native population as just and fair with no indication whatsoever of a willingness to sign the U.N. document on indigenous peoples’ rights.
In the United States, there appears to be some signs of policy shift with regard to the U.S. government’s relations with the American Indian communities. Some representatives of indigenous tribes are currently working with Obama as advisors. However, it remains unclear when and if the Obama administration would sign the declaration. "I can’t comment further," said Ventrell about the outcome of discussions on possible U.S. support.
Posted on Reznews by: Larry Kibby -
lkibby1@citlink.netNevada, U.S.A.
Larry Kibby - American Indian Poetry
http://www.freewebs.com/lkibby1/index.htm
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
'Seminole Museum Earns National Accreditation'
NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/
Check Out Native Pride - It's a great site!
http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com
FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
posted by BobbieoAZ @ 8:42 PM
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