Pan-Amazonian Indigenous Organisations debate environment and ancestral wisdom
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About 110 leaders are taking part in the event as well as representatives of environmental organisations, governmental bodies that are active in the Amazon region and representatives of international cooperation agencies. Responsible for organising and hosting the event are the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA is the Spanish Acronym), which coordinates the integration of actions in the Pan-Amazon region, and hosted by the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of Brazilian Amazon (COIAB is the Acronym in Portuguese). The institution is promoting the debate of issues such as “REDD+”, the so-called ‘green economy’ and the upcoming Rio+20, with the Indigenous Groups of each Amazonian country.
At the opening of the meeting’s activities, the head of the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), Edwin Vásquez, declared that the discussions on the themes would be conducted without neglecting Indigenous cosmological visions and without ‘importing’ the concepts of other peoples. “There can be no discussion of REDD+ (reduction of emissions from deforestation and ecosystem degradation and conservation) without due recognition of Indigenous Collective Rights and territories”, he insisted. Almir Suruí, from Rondonia, who received the International Human Rights Society award in 2008 for his intransigent defence of his people, defended processes conducted under Indigenous Leadership as was the case with his own experience.
COICA technical advisor Roberto Espinoza stated that, in principle, Indigenous Peoples were not interested in discussing directly or only Carbon or REDD+, but much more in discussing the living plans of their populations. And that only if such plans should happen to include a REDD perspective, would that alternative be sought after.
The objective of the meeting is to update the positions of Pan-Amazonian Indigenous Groups to address the evolution of contemporary realities and to prepare for upcoming international events. Events taking place this year and next year include the CoP-17 of the Climate Change Convention – Durban 2011, in South Africa; the Rio+20, in 2012; the CoP-11 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) – Hyderabad 2012, in India; and the UICN’s World Conservation Congress – Jeju 2012, in South Korea.
The programme includes panels, working groups, cultural presentations, and a demonstration of the Amazonian Peoples against the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Project. Indigenous Leaders from Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana are participating in the event. At the end of the meeting a Charter of Principles will be released setting out the positions of the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon basin and their view of some of the issues that were addressed in the course of the event.
WWF at the Summit Meeting
The Leader of WWF Network’s Living Amazon Initiative, Cláudio Maretti, explained that the event is highly important to all those that are struggling to achieve environmental conservation and particularly in the Amazon. “The Indigenous Peoples are the leading actors when the subject is the conservation of the Amazon and the region’s biodiversity. They hold the rights to the lands resources, they have a culturally differentiated vision and a fundamental role to play in the destiny of the Amazon”, declared the specialist.
Maretti remarked that in addition to respecting their collective rights and having an interest in establishing alliances with them for the future of the Amazon, WWF Network is in a position to collaborate on some specific issues such as: discussing the construction of principles and safeguards for Indigenous Peoples whenever climate change issues or the question of reducing emissions stemming from deforestation and reducing ecosystem degradation (REDD) come up for discussion; discussing and consolidating concepts associated to Indigenous Peoples Lands in the sphere of the discussions on protected areas; and in debating the impacts of the major infrastructure projects – hydroelectric plants and highways – that also affect the Indigenous Peoples of the greater Amazon region.
The discussion of safeguards for Indigenous populations has to do with a series of concepts and measures that need to be structured to guarantee the physical, social, cultural and territorial integrity of Indigenous Peoples that find themselves in polemical or controversial situations.
Andre Silva Dias, coordinator of the Living Amazon Initiative’s strategy for Bolstering the Value of Natural Ecosystems pointed out that in many cases the advantages accruing from carbon trading end up being concentrated in the hands of the intermediaries, or the governments or even those industries that use carbon trading as a compensation mechanism, and sometimes they actually jeopardises local communities by introducing social conflicts and leading to loss of territory. “The introduction of social safeguards and safeguards for biodiversity could reduce those risks”, said the expert.
In the view of the representative of IUCN – International Union for Conservation of Union, Gonzalo Oviedo, protected areas are among the most important mechanisms available for the conservation of Nature. The failure to consult Indigenous People about their creation, the lack of any space for their participation in the management of such areas and the conflict they generate with traditional Indigenous rights are among the current problems. On the other hand, he suggested that the existence or potential existence of protected areas could potentially offer opportunities of interest to Indigenous Peoples but there needs to be a revision of the legislation governing them to ensure that protected areas recognise the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The big infrastructure works that affect or jeopardise Indigenous Peoples in the Pan-Amazonian region is another issue under discussion at the meeting. One case is the 306 kilometre-long Vila Tunari–San Ignacio Moxos highway in Bolivia, which will cut across the Isiboro-Secure Indigenous Reserve and National Park (TIPNIS is the Spanish Acronym). The highway will cost US$ 415 million, of which Brazil was supposed to finance US$ 332 million (mostly through the Brazilian Social and Economic Development Bank - BNDES). The works are only at the initial stage but have already received the opposition of three Indigenous Ethnic Groups whose lands will be affected by the project.
In a similar way, several hydroelectric projects, like the many scheduled to be implanted in the Tapajos river basin in Brazil, tend to have an impact on protected areas and Indigenous Lands. It is essential that overall strategic planning and the specific planning of each project should consider the best alternatives, integrate the planning with that of other sectors (in this case, biodiversity conservation), minimise social and environmental impacts by taking preventative measures prior to the beginning of the works, and implement appropriate compensatory measures.
Pan-Amazonian partners
According to Maretti, the Living Amazon Initiative, by means of WWF-Peru, has been working alongside COICA for some years now. The WWF Network supports the Coordination of Indigenous Organisations of the Amazon Basin’s strategic planning assisting the entity to organise itself, concentrate its efforts and define lines of action.
WWF-Peru’s Liliana Lozano said that their present project with COICA is for three years and scheduled to terminate at the end of 2012. “We also have joint work that has been conducted in the sphere of a more technical approach. For example, we helped the organisation in its discussion of REDD issues when it decided to define its position and principles in addressing that question”, she explained.
According to Liliana, reinforcing the WWF-COICA partnership means transforming Indigenous issues into a topic on the agenda of the big global organisations. “COICA maintains dialogue with the United Nations Organisation, and the Inter-American Development Bank for example. Our objective in reinforcing and expanding these partnerships is to ensure that Indigenous problems come up for discussion in the global sphere, contributing, in that way, to the search for a solution that favours conservation of the Amazon and the effective achievement of WWF’s global deforestation reduction goals”, she explained.
The Living Amazon Initiative heads the WWF Network in all matters concerning the implementation of its sustainable development and conservation strategy for the entire South-American Amazon including public policy issues, ecosystem products and services, land-use, settlement and tenure regularisation, sustainable agricultural and livestock production, minimum-impact infrastructure, science and communication. Implementation is mainly conducted by the respective national WWF offices and organisations through regional strategy and leadership
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