September 10, 2018
Ramaytush and Ohlone Territory (San Francisco, California)
Pueblos originarios y naciones indígenas del mundo se reunieron en el territorio Ramaytush y Ohlone en California apoyados por el Convenio 169 de la OIT sobre Pueblos Indígenas y Tribales (1989) y la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas (2007) para protestar la Cumbre Global de Acción Climática (GCAS) organizado por el Gobernador Jerry Brown y el Grupo de Trabajo de Gobernadores para el Clima y los Bosques (GFC). El GCAS y GCF no deben poner un valor de mercado sobre la capacidad de captura de carbono de nuestros bosques en el Sur y en el Norte.
The Sacred cannot be commodified – we reject these market solutions to climate change and projects such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), because they are false solutions that further destroy our rights, our ability to live in our forests, our sovereignty and our self-determination. False solutions to climate change and the climate crisis destroy our material and spiritual relationship to Mother Earth. The GCF does not represent us and they have no authority over our peoples or our territories.
There is an intrinsic relationship between our forests and our peoples in the North and South. All Creation is alive and interrelated. The air we breathe is alive and gives life to everything and cannot be bought, sold or traded. As our Sarayaku brothers and sisters say, KAWSAK SACHA, the jungle is alive. The spirits of our ancestors reside in these living jungles, the tundra, the plains, the deserts, the mountains, and the oceans. We are children of the same mother, Mother Earth. Our relationship with our forests compels us to follow the original instructions of Mother Earth.
It has been proven that carbon markets never reduce emissions. However, our communities and territories are under increasing pressure, manipulation and coercion to accept the sale of forests and air as carbon offsets. Furthermore, REDD and extractivism are two sides of the same coin. Like fossil fuels, REDD+ by any name displaces our people from our lands and territories, dispossesses vast tracts of our land, violently and forcibly displaces our people, restricts our lives and livelihoods, and violates our human rights. REDD+ and extractivism result in intimidation, the militarization of our communities, arrests, criminalization and even murder.
La mayoría de los bosques del mundo se encuentran en los territorios de los pueblos indígenas. Es bien conocido que los bosques sobreviven y se regeneran bajo la gobernanza indígena. Los verdaderos impulsores de la deforestación y el cambio climático son estados, empresas multinacionales y otros que construyen carreteras en nuestros bosques, promueven colonos, maderería legal e ilegal, el agronegocio e las industrias de gran escala, monocultivos, la explotación petrolera y de gas natural y otros megaproyectos impuestos. Estos amenazan nuestras formas de vida, nuestros ríos y arroyos, soberanía alimentaria, vida silvestre y biodiversidad y contribuyen al agudizamiento del cambio climático.
Nos encontramos aquí gracias al apoyo de pequeñas ONGs indígenas y no-indígenas y la sociedad civil. Sabemos que otras organizaciones se encuentran aquí financiadas por ONGs millonarias que apoyan los mercados de carbono o les dejan abierta la puerta. Las consultas cuando acaso se dan en muchos casos son nada más reuniones en los cuales las agencias estatales, las ONGs ricas y otros buscan sacar beneficios económicos, ahogan nuestras voces, y socavan nuestro derecho a la libre-determinación. Para procurar la aceptación de estas falsas soluciones, se suelen hacer falsas promesas de titular y proteger y nuestros bosques y entregar raquíticos beneficios económicos que conllevan a algunos aceptar REDD+.
It hurts us and makes us angry to see how every day our Mother Earth gets sicker and sicker. This happens because the management of our forests has been left in their hands and their decisions that affect our territories have failed. It is not us but you who have led to deforestation and destruction of ecosystems. The forest is our home, it belongs to us by inherent right, We will protect what we have left.
To monopolize our territory, they invent forms of state property such as “conservation areas” or “sustainable development areas. They invent more forms of compensation such as smart agriculture, “biodiversity offsets” and even “butterfly offsets” that harm our lives, food sovereignty, forests, biodiversity and sovereignty. We will never accept the “ecological area of sustainable development” in the province of Pastaza and anywhere else in the 37 provinces 10 countries and a third of the forests [that the GFC intends to dispossess.] Our forests are not carbon dumps, they are our homes.
After centuries of hurting other human beings and Mother Earth, governments now behave as if it is time to save and protect humanity. Yet for decades, the UN has come together only to find ways to profit from the privatization of the air in the name of responding to climate change. Mother Earth will only be saved if you respect and love her. Mother Earth will only be made whole by stopping the extraction and burning of fossil fuels – we must keep the fuels in the ground.
We affirm this so that our future generations may be free like the rivers, mountains, lakes and birds that flood us with their songs. We affirm this on behalf of our ancestors who reside in these forests, mountains, rivers and lakes. We affirm this in honor of our struggle that has always demanded respect and dignity. We have the right to choose how we want to live, how we want to feel, and how we want to breathe. The rights of Mother Earth and the rights of indigenous peoples must not be violated. That is essential if we really want to live in harmony and preserve humanity.
The Sacred cannot be commodified or marketed. We reject the Climate and Forests Task Force and demand its cancellation. We affirm this on behalf of our future generations so that they have the possibility of living free like our forests and the eagle of the Amazon. We demand respect for our right to choose how we want to live, feel and breathe.
No carbon colonialism! Not REDD+! No commodification of the air!
Not land grabs! No carbon price!
Mother Earth and Father Sky are not for sale!
Let us be Protectors of Heaven!
Firms
indigenous organizations, Nations or Peoples