The
Global
Landscapes Forum (GLF) was held in Germany to rally behind a new
approach to achieving a future that is more inclusive and sustainable
than the present – through the establishment of secure and proper
rights for all. On Jun. 22 and 23, experts, political leaders, NGOs
and indigenous peoples and communities gathered to deliberate on
rights for indigenous peoples and local communities in the management
and perseveration of landscapes. The forum took place alongside the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Bonn
Climate Change Conference.
According
to the United Nations, the land belonging to the 350 million
indigenous peoples across the globe is one of the most powerful
shields against climate change as it holds
80 percent of the world’s biodiversity and sequesters nearly 300
billion metric tons of carbon.
In
the climate and development arenas, the most current alarm being
sounded is for rights–securing the land rights and freedoms of
indigenous peoples, local communities and the marginalised members
therein.
How
can these custodians of a
quarter of the world’s terrestrial surface be expected to care
for their traditional lands if the lands don’t, in fact, belong to
them? Or, worse, if they’re criminalised and endangered for doing
so?
Indigenous
peoples, local communities, women and youth, are believed to be the
world’s most important environmental stewards but they are also
among the most threatened and criminalised groups with little access
to rights. It is for this
reason that amid the urgency to meet Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) under pressure from the climate threat, dialogues about the
global future have begun to wake up to the fact that indigenous
peoples’ relationships with the natural world are not only crucial
to preserve for their own sakes, but for everyone’s. The examples
of intimidation, criminalisation, eviction and hardship shared
throughout the first day clearly showcased what indigenous peoples
and local communities go through to preserve the forests or ‘lungs
of the earth’.
“We’re
defending the world, for every single one of us,” said Geovaldis
Gonzalez Jimenez, an indigenous peasant leader from Colombia. But
industries such as fossil fuels, large-scale agriculture, mining and
others are not only endangering landscapes but also the lives of the
people therein. Already this year, said Gonzalez, his region
witnessed 135 murders, adding that the day before the start of the
GLF a local leader was killed in front of a 9-year-old boy.
Diel
Mochire Mwenge, who leads the Initiative Programme for the
Development of the Pygme in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
one of the largest indigenous forest communities in Central Africa,
said he has witnessed more than one million people being evicted from
the national parkland where they have long lived. He explained that
they had not been given benefits from the ecotourism industries
brought in to replace them and were left struggling to find new
income sources.
“Our
identity is being threatened, and we need to avoid being completely
eradicated,” said Mwenge.
In
Jharkhand, India, activist Gladson Dungdung, whose parents were
murdered in 1990 for attending a court case over a local land
dispute, said an amendment to India’s Forest Rights Act currently
being reviewed by the Supreme Court could see 7.5 million indigenous
peoples evicted from their native forest landscapes. The act can
impact a further 90 million people who depend on these forests’
resources for their survival, he said. The amendment, Dungdung said,
would also give absolute power to the national forest guard; if a
guard were to see someone using the forest for hunting or timber
collection, they could legally shoot the person on-sight.
U.N.
Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Vicky
Tauli-Corpuz
said
lands managed by indigenous peoples with secure rights have lower
deforestation rates, higher biodiversity levels and higher carbon
storage than lands in government-protected areas.
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