Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Durban, South Africa (IPCCA). As the UNFCCC COP 17 opens in Durban, South Africa, a gathering of indigenous leaders from around the world discussing biocultural protocols and REDD warns the UNFCCC and the international community of the grave danger that REDD and market based solutions to climate change mitigation pose to their cultures, territories and livelihoods.
“For my people, the forest is sacred, it is life in all its essence, we can protect Pachamama only if this is respected. REDD and other market mechanisms have turned our relationship with forests into a business. As we are targeted, this is not only a new form of climate racism but also represents a false solution which undermines the climate regime” said Marlon Santi, a leader of the Sarayaku Quichua community of Ecuador.
The IPCCA leaders discussed their experiences with using a biocultural approach to assessing climate change impacts as well as the impacts on their livelihoods and the ecosystems found in their territories in order to develop appropriate responses. In forest ecosystems, impacts of REDD and market based mechanisms were analysed from diverse local contexts such as the Indian Adivasi and the Sapara Nationality of Ecuador to build a common understanding:
- They commodify life and undermine holistic community values and governance
- They block community access to forests and customary use
- They lead to establishment of monoculture tree plantations which promote land grabbing
- They are portrayed as vehicles for strengthening land tenure rights but in fact are used to weaken them
- They are used to justify continued emissions in the North and thus are hypocritical false solutions to the climate crisis
“IPCCA is an example of how indigenous communities are undertaking climate change assessments on their own terms, and are illustrating the danger of market based mitigation mechanisms. Our knowledge systems and our distinctive spiritual relationship to our territories can contribute to a deeper, localized and holistic understanding of what we and the world is facing” said Alejandro Argumedo, coordinator of IPCCA. “Solutions that will indeed reduce emissions and ensure local livelihoods must come from including such local analysis.” The IPCCA network is building alliances with organizations such as the Global Forest Coallition to bring much needed indigenous and local voices to forums as the UNFCCC COP 17.
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1 Comment | 
asociacion andes, climate change, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Marlon Santi | Tagged: carbon trading, cop17, durban declaration, http://ipcca.info, indigenous movements, indigenous struggles, ipcca, press release, redd | 
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Posted by colono
Monday, October 3, 2011
“Addressing scientific bias against Indigenous Knowledge will improve international responses to climate change”, say Indigenous Leaders, releasing the SEVETTIJARVI DECLARATION
Helsinki, Finland (IPCCA).
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Leave a Comment » | capitalism is murder, climate change, indigenous movements, indigenous rights | Permalink
Posted by colono
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Colonos have had many questions about volunteering in the Amazon, the Andes and elsewhere. Discussion have unfolded here and some “conclusions” are presented here. We have also given many answers in private emails and brought many in contact with local communities. We are no longer able to do so and have handed over this task to | t r 3 3 |:
Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Ayahuasca, brewing ayahuasca, Coca to Iquitos, corridors, Ecuador, http://tr33.org.uk, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, jatun sacha, Politics, rain forest, Rio Napo, voluntary work for free, Volunteering | Tagged: http://tr33.org.uk | Permalink
Posted by colono
Friday, May 21, 2010
This is a general and quick post in response to Frequently Asked Questions about the problems of choosing where to invest one’s time and labour when volunteering in foreign places with good intent. It started as a reply to a comment – part of a long thread about a conservation project in the Amazon – then expanded slightly to become this first draft of a short reply to questions concerning volunteering.
Where and what is good agency put into which structures? It is an endless journey through the soul and the corridors of political thinking, philosophical reflection, historical recognition and ethical considerations – and it is also that first single step of your journey. It begins in the mind, unfolds in the imagination and will have a material impact on the place you go to.
Over the years we have spend a lot of time and energy helping people finding their ways in Ecuador and Peru, we have spend a lot of time suggesting projects, providing contacts and so on. However, in the end, people mostly go and do their own thing anyway. However, if you have only 4-6 months time and want to connect sooner, and should you really want to do something in or around Tena, Napo, in the Ecuadorian Amazon, or in San Francisco in Peru, and if working on a small scale and community level with people outside of NGO structures, doing down-to-the-ground, bottom-up work, with lovely families, if that is your thing, then do get in touch.
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2 Comments | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, community based botanical gardens, ecological justice, Ecuador, grass-roots, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Volunteering | Tagged: ethics of volunteering, jatun sacha, NGOs, Volunteering, volunteering in Ecuador, volunteering in napo, volunteering in tena, working in the amazon | Permalink
Posted by colono
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Press Release: Carbon Markets Violate Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Threaten Cultural Survival
“Indigenous Peoples are being forced to sign over their territories for REDD to the Gangsters of the Century, carbon traders, who are invading the world’s remaining forests that exist thanks to the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples,” denounced Marlon Santi, President of the CONAIE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, one of the most powerful native organizations in the world. “Our forests are spaces for life not carbon markets.”
Indigenous leader kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to surrender carbon rights for REDD in Papua New Guinea
New York, USA — As carbon traders hawk permits to pollute at the Second Annual Carbon Trading Summit, Indigenous Peoples denounced that selling the sky not only corrupts the sacred but also destroys the climate, violates human rights and threatens cultural survival.
“Carbon trading and carbon offsets are a crime against humanity and Creation,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of Indigenous Environmental Network. “The sky is sacred. This carbon market insanity privatizes the air and sells it to climate criminals like Shell so they can continue to pollute and destroy the climate and our future, rather than reducing their emissions at source.”
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Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, bio-privateering, Capitalism, capitalism is murder, climate change, Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage, CONAIE, ecological justice, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, Globalisation, grass-roots, Green Politics, greenwash, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Marlon Santi, Politics, rain forest, sarayaku, Tree Hugging | Tagged: carbon trading, indigenous knowledge, indigenous peoples, indigenous struggle, Marlon Santi, redd | Permalink
Posted by colono
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
This is an unofficial translation of a Ecuadorian indigenous peoples’ statement on REDD:
CONFEDERATION OF INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON (CONFENIAE)
(Logo and letterhead, list of members including organizations of the Shuar, Kichwa, Achuar, Waorani, Siona, Secoya, Cofan, Zapara, Shiwiar and Andoa Peoples)
STATEMENT
Unión Base, Puyo August 3rd, 2009
CONFENIAE REJECTS ALL KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTAL NEGOCIATIONS ON FORESTS AND EXTRACTIVE POLICIES THAT DAMAGE THE TERRITORIES OF THE AMAZONIAN INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES AND PEOPLES OF ECUADOR.
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2 Comments | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, climate change, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, South America, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Tagged: climate change, CONFEDERATION OF INDIGENOUS NATIONALITIES OF THE ECUADORIAN AMAZON, CONFENIAE, Ecuadorian Indigenous Peoples', News, press release, redd | Permalink
Posted by colono
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Guardian’s John Vidal recently wrote a welcome piece – ‘We are fighting for our lives and our dignity’ - that connect some of the dots in the current end game for the Earth’s natural resources most of which are on indigenous land inhabited for thousands of years by people who care for it, worship and respect it. Transnational corporations drilling for oil, mining for minerals or cutting down all the trees and polluting the rivers – and so on – are competing to grab hold of the Earth’s last resources – and there really is not much left! (See also: UN expert puts forward measures to regulate ‘land grabbing’).
“An aggressive drive is taking place to extract the last remaining resources from indigenous territories,” says Victoria Tauli-Corpus, an indigenous Filipino and chair of the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. “There is a crisis of human rights. There are more and more arrests, killings and abuses.
“This is happening in Russia, Canada, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Amazon, all over Latin America, Papua New Guinea and Africa. It is global. We are seeing a human rights emergency. A battle is taking place for natural resources everywhere. Much of the world’s natural capital – oil, gas, timber, minerals – lies on or beneath lands occupied by indigenous people,” says Tauli-Corpus.
What until quite recently were isolated incidents of indigenous peoples in conflict with states and corporations are now becoming common as government-backed companies move deeper on to lands long ignored as unproductive or wild. As countries and the World Bank increase spending on major infrastructural projects to counter the economic crisis, the conflicts are expected to grow.
It is a pretty good article – constituting a very important step to bring together these issues in a coherent analytical manner and to the attention of mainstream readers – but one could really have wished for something more to the point with regard to the Ecuadorian context – it is widely known and well documented that the Chevron pits are still there, even mainstream U.S television have shown such images.
“In Ecuador, Chevron may be fined billions of dollars in the next few months if an epic court case goes against them. The company is accused of dumping, in the 1970s and 1980s, more than 19bn gallons of toxic waste and millions of gallons of crude oil into waste pits in the forests, leading to more than 1,400 cancer deaths and devastation of indigenous communities. The pits are said to be still there, mixing chemicals with groundwater and killing fish and wildlife.”
To use the expression “are said to be still there” is really not appropriate, when anyone having spend five seconds googling the issue will have seen horrible, terrifying images:
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4 Comments | Amazonia, capitalism is murder, Ecuador, enclosure, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, keep the oil in the soil | Tagged: amazon, Amazonia, chevron, chevron pits, corruption, Daryl Hannah, Ecuador, extractivism, indigenous peoples, industrialism, it is being killed, John Vidal, News, pollution, spin, The Earth is not dying, the guardian | Permalink
Posted by colono
Monday, June 8, 2009
colonos is reproducing here a text by Ben Powless on rabble.ca, including the “INTERNATIONAL DENUCIATION of President Alan García Pérez of Peru and his admistration” by the COORDINATING BODY OF ANDEAN INDIGENOUS ORGANZIACIONES – CAOI.
We have received various notices from people in the Amazon reporting about 10 – 40 indigenous protesters having been shot dead.
Photo by Marijke Deleu (upsidedownworld.org)
Here goes:
50 days of protest and one massacre in the Peruvian Amazon
I’m writing this right now from Peru after having taken part in a 5 day Indigenous Peoples Summit held in Puno, Peru in the high Andes. Read the rest of this entry »
3 Comments | Amazonia, Anti-capitalism, Anti-militarism, anti-terror laws, ecological justice, Ecuador, environmental destruction, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, Peru, rain forest, South America | Permalink
Posted by colona
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
colonos is reproducing here an Amazon Watch news release. Our comment: no news there.
Date: May 19, 2009
Source: Amazon Watch
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2009
Media Contacts:
USA – Gregor MacLennan (415) 395-6734 gregor AT amazonwatch.org
PERU – Edson Rosales +511 99-787-6616, +511 265-5011 comunicaciones AT aidesep.org.pe
Oil Production Interrupted as Peru Sends in Army to Suppress Peaceful Indigenous Protests
Dozens Injured in Government Attacks on Protesters
Video footage, photos, interviews available upon request
LIMA, Peru, May 19, 2009— Yesterday, on the 40th day of sustained protests by Peru’s indigenous peoples, the state oil company Petroperu, announced it had shut down the country’s main oil pipeline. On Saturday, the Garcia Government authorized the intervention of the armed forces to crack down on peaceful protests that have swept the Amazon region.
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Leave a Comment » | Amazonia, environmental destruction, Environmentalism, human rights violation, indigenous movements, indigenous rights, police brutality, strategy of tension, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples | Tagged: aidesep, free trade, FTA, oil, Peru | Permalink
Posted by colona
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