It was indigenous peoples day in the Bonn Zone of COP 23 today, the first time such an event has ever taken place at a COP. The goal was to shine a spotlight on the importance of traditional knowledge and indigenous tenure of ancestral lands for mitigating climate change.
It can be easy to lose sight of the people in frontline communities when talking about an issue like climate change… I’m guilty of it, that’s for sure. I get caught up in the numbers, the science and the politics of it all. Which is why hearing directly from a plethora of indigenous representatives today was so important.
In one indigenous peoples panel I attended today, an Amazonian spiritual leader named Benke (second from the right above) spoke passionately (in Spanish) about the importance of a change in mentality among world leaders. “Whose hands is our future in?” he asked, “The scientists, the governments, the economists? Or us? Who will hold those responsible who destroy and kill for gold, oil, and cash crops? We have dead rivers and indigenous villages which have been massacred, who have shed their blood in defense of Mother Earth…” As he said this, his voice tailed off and he was on the verge of tears, speaking through clenched teeth and struggling to find the right words in his non-native tongue (Spanish). “I’m not here to just tell you the harm we’re doing to the planet, but to talk about how our villages are universities for academics to come and learn how to care for the planet.”
Robert Guimaraes describing the impacts of palm oil plantations on indigenous populations in Peru
Benke’s colleague Robert Guimaraes, a land defender who has received innumerable death threats for his work defending the land of the Santa Clara de Uchunya community in Peru, echoed many of the same thoughts. After elaborating on how important forests are for the cultures of indigenous peoples, he then described the conflicts that emerge when indigenous land rights are threatened. He explained how government-sanctioned palm oil industry concessions on indigenous lands not only destroy the forests and their ability to sequester carbon, but also indigenous peoples culture and safety. Recently, six farmers from Guimaraes’ community were killed for not giving up their land to a local gang eager to profit from the palm oil trade. He called for greater commitment by the international community to protect the forest from development by partnering directly with indigenous populations, and vowed to continue fighting for the forest hand in hand with his fellow land-defenders.
The stories participants heard today marked the latest in the COP’s attempts to integrate indigenous knowledge and traditional practices into the global climate mitigation and adaptation discussion. The biggest step was taken in 2015, when the Paris Agreement included a provision for the creation of an indigenous peoples platform intended for the “exchange of experiences and sharing of best practices on [climate] mitigation and adaptation” that has been under development ever since. Yesterday, as negotiations began at COP 23, one of the proposed agenda items was to operationalize the platform by the close of the talks in two weeks.
Representatives of the Canadian and Belgian official negotiating teams described the importance of the indigenous peoples platform by stressing that these groups have a “rightful voice” in the UNFCCC, while also being careful to note that the platform would not serve as a negotiating body or a “party” to the COP negotiations.
Indigenous representatives from Nepal, Siberia, Chad and beyond, meanwhile, called for faster operationalization of the platform so that indigenous communities can begin more formally engaging with parties in dialogue and have an impact on the nationally determined contributions due in 2020.
Although an exciting first, COP 23’s Indigenous Peoples Day is not a sufficient end in itself. It must be followed by strong, ongoing engagement with a well-funded, robust indigenous peoples platform by COP members. In the meantime, it will be important to see whether the document adopted by the parties in two weeks time will advance this platform and signal to indigenous peoples that their voices are indeed being heard.
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Aaron Danowski 