There are over 476 million Indigenous Peoples living in 90 countries across the world, accounting for 6.2 percent of the global population. Indigenous Peoples are the holders of a vast diversity of unique cultures, traditions, languages, and knowledge systems. They have a special relationship with their lands and hold diverse concepts of development based on their own worldviews and priorities.
In this radio program, we hear from Nailejileji Tipap, who works as the Gender and Public Relations Coordinator at Pastoralists Indigenous NGOs Forum in Tanzania.
Humanity NPC travelled to the home of Rooibos Tea in Wuperthal, South Africa, to talk to the Indigenous people there about the origins of the tea, and how it had been in their families for generations. This podcast also discusses the benefit sharing agreement, which promises that a benefit of the sales of the tea will go to the Indigenous Khoi and San people of the region and what it means to the people of Wuperthal.
Produced by Humanity NPC
Music by Collin Fredericks
Funded by OXFAM South Africa
Image by Tristen Taylor
Though collaboration is crucial to finding solutions for climate change, Indigenous People must be able to maintain, protect, and control their cultural heritage, sciences, and technologies. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples provides a legal framework for intellectual ownership by Indigenous communities of their traditional knowledge. However, many additional cultural barriers to equal-footed climate change collaboration exist, such as the automatic devaluation of Indigenous science by Western science practitioners.
A close relationship with local environments and ecosystems is more critical than ever in the face of a rapidly changing climate. This program features two perspectives from Indigenous communities that are practicing resiliency to global warming by adapting their traditional knowledge and science to put a changing climate into the context of their communities' history and lifeways.
INTERVIEWEES
Elizabeth Azzuz (Yurok), Cultural Fire Management Council
Jannie Staffansson (Saami), Arctic and Environment Unit of the Saami Council
Indigenous communities in Honduras have stewarded the Muskitia, a rain forest which includes one of the richest concentrations of biodiversity in the world, for centuries. Osvaldo Munguia is a representative of MOPAWI, an organization that partners with Indigenous groups to protect this UNESCO world heritage site from being overtaken by logging, mining, and forestry business interests.
MUSIC
"Remember Your Children," by Salidummay. Used with permission.
Introduction: "Burn Your Village to the Ground" by A Tribe Called Red. Used with permission.
Ivy Gordon, Director of the Jeffrey Town Farmers Association, describes how her organization has worked for the past 25 years to combine sustainable living practices with community infrastructure needs. Jeffrey Town is now a prominent example in Jamaica of a highly resilient community, due to its adaptable and sustainable resources.
MUSIC
"Remember Your Children," by Salidummay. Used with permission.
Introduction: "Burn Your Village to the Ground" by A Tribe Called Red. Used with permission.
PRODUCTION
Dev Kumar Sunuwar, Indigenous Rights Radio
Ezekiel Tye Freeman is the executive director of Green-PRO, which helps Liberian communities develop sustainable livelihoods for self-reliance. Beekeeping training programs, for example, offer a lucrative and environmentally friendly economic alternative to mining or slash-and-burn farming for individuals. Freeman points to high levels of unemployment among Liberia's Indigenous population as a major problem that his organization wants to attempt to alleviate.
George ‘Bic’ Manahira describes how his community established the
world's first community-run octopus, sea grass, and mangrove reserve in partnership with Blue Ventures, a UK-based NGO, in order to strengthen the traditional sea-resource-based livelihood of the coastal Indigenous communities in Madagascar. They hope to expand and improve on the model in collaboration with other Indigenous groups and leaders in the coming years.
Indigenous Rights Radio producer Shaldon Ferris (KhoiSan) investigates the impacts of fishing regulations on Indigenous groups who have fished as a part of their livelihoods for centuries. The Convention on Biological Diversity, an international agreement which has inspired the implementation of many current fishing regulations, specifically discusses the importance of collaborating with Indigenous communities in order to preserve cultural knowledge in the pursuit of ecological preservation.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Vicky Tauli-Corpuz discusses the challenges faced by Indigenous peoples in protecting their claim to ancestral lands in the face of government-sanctioned landgrabbing in the name of conservation.
Music: Melodies of Nepal, by classical Instrumental band Sur Sudha
Bestang Dekdeken discusses the problems with FPIC as it is currently enforced in the Philippines, for example, how mining coorporations and extractive industries are able to find loopholes in FPIC in order to carry out their projects.
Indigenous leader and Chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples' Alliance of the Philippines gives his perspective on the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. "The bottom line in advancing the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' rights is fighting for these rights right in our own territories and communities."
Alta Outcome Document, produced from the Global Indigenous Preparatory Conference at the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples in Alta, Norway on 10–12 June 2013
States should work with indigenous communities to implement climate change initiatives which protect the lands and resources of Indigenous Peoples, through an ecosystem-based approach and enforceable safeguards.
Join Cultural Survival as we interview Dayamani Barla, winner of the 2013 Ellen Lutz award for Indigenous Leadership, as we catch up with her at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, May 2013.