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.
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.
Santa Fe, Panamá. La coordinadora del programa de educación, Iris Sánchez comenta sobre la labor que ha realizado la cooperativa fundada por el activista desaparecido Héctor Gallego al igual que la labor que cooperativa desempeña en la comunidad entre ellas enseñar el cultivo orgánico a los campesinos de forma alternativa al uso de químicos.
Estas entrevistas tratan de la reunión de la Asamblea General de la ONU conocida como la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos Indígenas, que se realizó el 22 y 23 de septiembre del 2014. Se escuchará análisis y crítica del estatus de observador que tuvo la mayoría de la gente indígena que asistió; la intervenciones de los representantes de México y Costa Rica; y estrategias para hacer cumplir a los estados con el Documento Final.
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."
Entrevistas sobre temas Indigenas desde La Segunda Cumbre Continental de Comunicación Indigena, celebrandose en Tlahuiltotepec, Oaxaca, Mexico en Octubre, 2013.
Un activista del pueblo Mapuche en Argentina nos habla de su lucha contra la explotación minera.
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.