What do the criticism of the Pope’s encyclical by carbon market and REDD proponents reveal?

Aug 9, 2015

The new Pope Francis’ “Laudato Sí” encyclical addressing the ecological crisis, particularly the climate crisis, has been much discussed in the last month. It is uncommon to see so many organizations and individuals discussing a papal encyclical. Although it did not take into account important issues such as the place and role of women in these matters, the document was quite incisive and effective in its analysis and questioning of the current globalized capitalist over-consumption and production model. With this, the encyclical reinforced what social movements and other groups have been pointing out and denouncing for a long time.

In this document, the Pope also questioned some of the false solutions to the climate crisis that have been presented to the people of the world. The document states that carbon trading “can lead to a new form of speculation, which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide“. It also affirms “in no way does it [this mechanism] allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors”. Some defenders of the carbon offset mechanism, which allows the selling and buying of carbon credits, also known as carbon trading, were upset. The question then is: What does the criticism publiched by some of them reveal?

Such defenders start their answers affirming that the sale and purchase of carbon credits is an excellent and effective tool since it already has shown results, with projects that even were “certified” and awarded “quality labels”. This defensive posture reveals an intransigent desire to protect carbon trading, without a willingness to acknowledge the widespread conclusive criticism of carbon market mechanisms as a whole (1), as well as the experiences on the ground with tools that aim at commodifying carbon in tropical forests, such as REDD (2). Likewise, carbon market defenders cannot provide even basic developed responses to the content of each enquiry raised in the Pope’s statements.

Despite some praises to the analysis of the causes of the climate crisis in the papal encyclical, defenders end up evaluating the proposed solutions as weak and unrealistic, partly because it would cost an amount of money that would not exist. For them, defending a “radical change” is synonymous with not being “down to earth”. This reveals how they try to convince us that we must accept the world as it is, especially the fact that it is dominated by a capitalist market economy. Apparently they do not care that this economy is controlled by just a few hundred corporations, which despite being largely responsible for the climate crisis, receive all sorts of concessions from our governments – and for that there is money – and do not accept limits to the continuous expansion of their markets and profits at the expense of the majority of the people and the destruction of the environment. Some examples can be seen in the articles in this bulletin on the growth of large-scale monoculture projects in Papua, as well as mining expansion in Madagascar and the criminalization of social movements in India for fighting against the construction of a dam. The fact that carbon market advocates do not speak about, much less defend, the urgent need to dramatically curb these concessions, reveals how they live and collaborate with the world of financial institutions and companies representing big capital. Those are also the institutions and companies that so far have taken full advantage of the existence of carbon trading and these are the key players taking advantage of this new market and its speculative potential. In their anxiety to show the success of carbon trading, proponents also reveal another position: the “technician” or “specialist” who “knows” and understands that his/her role is to inform men and women who (still) “do not know” about these so called “complex” issues like “CO2″ and “carbon credits”, since only the “technician” or “specialist” (generally from the North) really understands those issues.

Communities affected by REDD projects have suffered first-handed. The “technicians” who come to the communities to propose projects decide which information the “beneficiaries” of the project will have access to. They rarely inform for example, that REDD does not reduce the impacts of the climate crisis because it allows pollution and destruction to continue, so in practice it is in fact a diversion from the main problem. Moreover, the time and energy invested in REDD discussions within climate conferences have confirmed why there are still no decisions to approve and implement real solutions, such as a drastic reduction of carbon emissions by the main responsible parties. “Specialists” do not inform either that if continuing with this situation for much longer, climate change will be intensified, and will particularly affect the livelihoods of rural communities and/or those living in the forest – because the climate crisis even compromises the future of the forests which many communities depend on. They also fail to mention that due to REDD projects, other communities neighboring main polluters in countries like the US or Canada, which buy carbon credits to supposedly “offset” their emissions, will keep suffering more and for longer because of polluting activities, such as extraction and/or refining of oil; activities that would have now been “compensated” with REDD. These communities are often indigenous and/or black communities which have been suffering from environmental racism for years due to the fact that they are neighbors of the oil companies (3)

Finally, there are advocates who argue that the Pope’ criticism is not applicable since the carbon market mechanism was already accepted by governments, i.e., it is already part of the negotiations for a new global climate agreement to be decided in Paris later this year. This reveals how carbon market advocates have made progress in their strategy to capture governments to serve their interests. But above all, it reveals that these advocates do not seem to be bothered by the disturbing fact that communities generally are not invited, and much less can influence the extremely important decisions that will define the direction the world will take in relation to the climate change struggle  – or lack thereof, and which impacts will be felt by everyone. The disinterest in allowing more popular involvement and voice has a reason: If communities were actually present, they could see up close how many of their representatives -governments and the UN – are “prisoners” of the interests of a small group of corporations and NGOs, which in order to avoid structural changes, have been “selling” false solutions to the climate crisis for years, mainly the idea of ​​carbon trading, including REDD. If people really were represented and present in these discussions, they could rebel and change the course of events.

We reaffirm the need for our governments to make decisions that “the present circumstances require” by the end of the year in Paris. The “radical change” advocated for years by many organizations and social movements merely lies in exercising to take conclusions based on the analysis of the facts that led and aggravate environmental destruction and climate change; namely, being “down to earth”! Our governments should also act accordingly, if they were serious about their role and if they cared about the future of the people they supposedly represent. It also means that false solutions like carbon trading and REDD, which do not represent any actual or structural change, must be rejected.

We call on everyone to join the Call to Action to reject REDD and the extractive industries, already signed by over 150 organizations and social movements worldwide – see also the article in this bulletin – which was released in the run up to the climate conference in Lima, Peru, in 2014

1. See for example: http://www.fern.org/tradingcarbon
2. See for example: http://wrm.org.uy/books-and-briefings/redd-a-collection-of-conflicts-contradictions-and-lies/
3. See for example: http://www.ienearth.org/category/climate-justice/carbon-trading-and-offsets/

Genetically engineered eucalyptus trees approved in Brazil. How long before we see GE tree monocultures in REDD?

Jun 7, 2015

Paulo Pase de Andrade works in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Until September 2012, he was a member of CTNBio. The day before CTNBio approved the release of GE eucalyptus, he wrote to theCampaign to STOP GE Trees, explaining that the decision had already been taken – the CTNBio meeting the following day was a technicality.

The CTNBio decision, Andrade explained, was based solely on the biological risks of GE eucalyptus. Andrade also sent a 23-pagerisk assessment (in Portuguese) of GE eucalyptus that he co-authored.

What CTNBio did not consider is that industrial tree plantations have serious social and environmental impacts. GE tree plantations intensify these impacts. Industrial tree plantations take up vast areas of land, land that is often already in use. Faster growing treesneed more water, sucking streams dry and leaving less water for communities living nearby.

In March 2015, a meeting of CTNBio was occupied by 300 peasants from Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST). The decision to approve FuturaGene’s GE trees was postponed.

FuturaGene claims that because its GE eucalyptus trees grow faster, they absorb more carbon dioxide. Here’s Stanley Hirsch, FuturaGene’s chief executive, quoted in a 2014 article in Nature News & Comment:

The tree’s speedy growth boosts absorption of carbon dioxide from the air by about 12% … aiding in the fight to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Hirsch’s argument makes no sense, because the trees are clearcut and converted to short-lived paper products, at which point the carbon dioxide returns to the atmosphere.

But does the approval of GE trees in Brazil mean that we can now expect REDD payments to go to companies planting vast monocultures of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees? After all, business as usual would mean planting slower growing non-GE eucalyptus trees that would absorb less carbon dioxide.

As far as I am aware, the issue of GE trees has not been discussed during the UN climate negotiations on REDD. (If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know via the comments.)

Part of REDD, as agreed at the UN climate negotiations in Cancun (COP-16) in 2010, is “Enhancement of forest carbon stocks”.

Instead of REDD, perhaps GE tree plantations would be included in the clean development mechanism’s afforestation/reforestation methodologies. But because there is still no agreed definition of “forest” in the REDD negotiations, plantations (including GE tree plantations) are not explicitly excluded.

Of course, “safeguards” were also agreed in Cancun, including this one:

(e) That actions are consistent with the conservation of natural forests and biological diversity, ensuring that the actions referred to in paragraph 70 of this decision are not used for the conversion of natural forests, but are instead used to incentivize the protection and conservation of natural forests and their ecosystem services, and to enhance other social and environmental benefits;[1]

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[1] Taking into account the need for sustainable livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities and their interdependence on forests in most countries, reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as the International Mother Earth Day.

But as I’ve previously pointed out on REDD-Monitor, the UN only encourages governments to “promote and support” the safeguards. This safeguard translates as follows:

Governments are encouraged to “promote and support” “actions” to conserve forests, biodiversity, and to ensure that REDD does not lead to clearcutting forests in order to replace them with industrial tree plantations.

None of this rules out clearcutting industrial tree plantations (as part of business as usual) and replacing them with industrial tree plantations of genetically engineered trees.

We can look forward to arguments about faster growing GE trees requiring less land to produce the same amount of timber, thus allowing more room for biodiversity and conservation. But given that Suzano plans to expand its pulp production from 1.92 million tons in 2013, to 3.42 million tons by 2015, these arguments don’t stand up. The plantations to feed Suzano’s expanding pulp production will require more and more land.

Clear definitions of “forests”, “deforestation” and “degradation” in the REDD negotiations could exclude the possibility of REDD payments going to monoculture GE tree plantations. But there are still no agreed definitions to differentiate rainforests from monoculture tree plantations (genetically engineered or otherwise) in the UNFCCC REDD negotiations.

Safeguarding Investment: Safeguards for REDD+, women and indigenous peoples

Mar 10, 2015

Originally posted on Mar 10, 2015 in World Forest Movement

The meaning of the term “safeguards” depends on who uses it and in what context. It may imply positive action in terms of human rights or the environment, or it may simply be a rhetorical flourish aimed at preventing losses of investments and profits. Nowadays there is much talk around the world about safeguards for the implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) projects, conservation, sustainable forest management and increasing forest carbon stocks. (1)

Safeguards have an economic origin. When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was created in 1995, there was already debate about trade safeguards. The idea was to protect or look after national interests when problems arose related to international trade. However, they generated countless controversies and ultimately all safeguards were declared illegal. This shows that when the interests of trade conflict with any other interests, trade interests always win. Given this history, nothing better could be expected in the case of REDD+ safeguards.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the World Bank (WB) have also established their own safeguards and social and environmental standards for the projects they fund. However, we know that instead of protecting communities and nature, what they seek is to protect their projects or “the natural resource assets implicated in the execution of a project.” (1) The World Bank is currently revising its safeguards and standards policies downwards, as it is seeking even greater flexibilisation of environmental and social “requirements” for its projects. The consequences are serious, as the World Bank influences and guides social and environmental policy standards for many public and private, national and international entities. It is no coincidence that this review is taking place now. It is framed within the context of the new international scenario defined by the application of the REDD+ mechanism.

The seven REDD+ safeguards approved at the 2010 United Nations climate negotiations (2) are: complementarity and consistency with national forestry systems and natural forest conservation, transparent and effective governance, full stakeholder participation, respect for the knowledge and rights of native peoples, and two other “safeguards” of a clearly commercial nature to do with reversals and emissions displacement.

REDD+ project safeguards seem to be a merely formal requirement, almost in the shape of a checklist, with the goal not of ensuring respect for the rights of local communities, but of avoiding social conflict at minimum cost, while guaranteeing the working of the carbon market. These safeguards would in fact be aimed at effective implementation of REDD+ through minimizing – not preventing – the social and environmental risks inherent in REDD activities. (3)

As in every similar process, the United Nations REDD+ program (UN-REDD) has set up phony participation processes for national endorsement of the safeguards, carrying out consultations with different stakeholders to arrive at a “consensus” on the safeguards to be instituted to ensure the success of REDD+. (4) Moreover, in addition to the safeguards there is a series of “guidelines,” “principles” “participation systems,” “fair value assignment,” and other tools. Behind the jargon they hide purely commercial interests.

Indigenous peoples obviously had to be included in these safeguards since they are the owners of most of the world’s remaining natural forests. Women, too, were quickly incorporated as stakeholders in REDD+ national programs, a decision that was part of social pacification policies in the face of increasing conflict and rejection – above all by women in local communities – of projects and public policies  of an extractivist nature, and others. So in order to sugar the pill of these developments, indigenous people and women were integrated as “stakeholders” in all investment projects, including REDD+.

No “safeguard” will liberate women

The UN-REDD process has incorporated the concept of gender equality to make “REDD+ more efficient, effective and sustainable.” (5) This approach has already attracted criticism of various kinds. For instance, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD+ and for Life has said: “It is clear that REDD+ also constitutes a new form of violence against women because it limits or prohibits women’s access to the land where we farm, gather food and draw water (for) our families.” (6) Women are responsible for 90 percent of these activities in rural communities worldwide. Moreover, women own less, inherit less, and in general have less access to community goods than men.

It should also be noted that under the mechanisms of payment for environmental services – like the carbon credits marketed through REDD+ – it is generally the men of the communities who receive the benefits, since the agreements are signed with associations or organizations’ councils, made up mostly of men. And when women are the recipients of payments, usually incentives for planting forestry plantations, it may lead to increased domestic violence, with men wanting to control the money. Worse still, women are tasked with preventing forest clearance (7) although they are not responsible for the problem. In this way, women have been recruited to the global pool of cheap labour that watches over the merchandise (carbon, water, biodiversity, or any defined environmental service) from which capital derives profits. They are obliged to travel for hours to receive the payments; they must not only act as rangers in their own forests, but police officers in their own communities. They have become exploited workers (8) toiling for a pittance.

We are experiencing a global economic crisis due to overproduction and overaccumulation which has led to poverty, debt, unemployment and so on; and an environmental crisis with serious effects, such as climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pollution, etcetera. In such a context, inequalities are always exacerbated, affecting mainly women and indigenous peoples. This is a foregone conclusion, since under capitalism and its crises, the weakest are obviously the most vulnerable. Women are exposed to a double risk: they face capitalist exploitation, and on top of that, the oppression of the crises it generates.

According to feminist author Silvia Federici, (9) the United Nations has effectively redefined the feminist agenda. The inclusion of the gender perspective in instruments like REDD+ is an example of this. But in practice it might turn out to be a trap. According to Federici, when women receive payment for their work, they are not really gaining autonomy or liberation. This is not to say there should not be differential subsidies for women; however, the capitalist system undervalues the work of caring, and women care for their families, their farm plots and the forest. Therefore capitalism devalues the lives of women in order to continue devaluing workers. By means of REDD+, capitalism is extracting the labour of millions of indigenous women. This signifies a commodification of women’s emotions and particular needs. That is why no “safeguard” can liberate women.

This thesis is fundamental to an understanding of why we must oppose the marketing of environmental services. A woman, or a community, given a payment for looking after the forest under REDD+ is indirectly allowing capitalism to reproduce and be strengthened through the exploitation of workers who produce goods, extract oil, work in mines, etcetera. By making these payments, States, banks and companies buy the right to continue to overproduce and overaccumulate by means of the exploitation of workers and nature.

This is a fundamental issue that is not being taken into account in the debate on REDD+, but is key in the agenda of the defence of women’s rights and debates on climate change, forests and environmental services.

Ivonne Yanez, Acción Ecológica, Ecuador

Email: ivonney@accionecologica.org

(1) World Bank. Social and Environmental Safeguards Workshop. July 14, 2012 – in Spanishhttp://www.bancomundial.org/es/news/feature/2012/07/14/taller-de-salvaguardas-sociales-y-ambientales-bolivia
(2) http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2010/cop16/eng/07a01.pdf
(3) On the Road to REDD+. The UN-REDD Programme’s Support to REDD+ Readiness 2008-2013, UN-REDD Programme, Geneva. 2014. http://www.un-redd.org/Portals/15/documents/FINAL%20Road%20to%20REDD%2017-06-14.pdf
See also, REDD: A Gallery of Conflicts, Contradictions and Lies, WRM, 2014,
http://wrm.org.uy/books-and-briefings/redd-a-gallery-of-conflicts-contradictions-and-lies/
(4) Developing Social and Environmental Safeguards for REDD+: A guide for a bottom-up approach. Imaflora, 2010,
http://www.imaflora.org/downloads/biblioteca/guiaREDD_ingles_digital2.pdf
(5) Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Women in REDD+. UN-REDD Programme,http://www.leafasia.org/sites/default/files/public/resources/GenderLit_LessonsLearnBrochure.pdf
(6) http://www.ienearth.org/global-alliance-of-indigenous-peoples-and-local-communities-on-climate-change-against-redd-and-for-life/
(7) The forest grant programme and payment systems for environmental services (in Portuguese), JUS,http://jus.com.br/artigos/32871/o-programa-bolsa-floresta-e-os-sistemas-de-pagamento-por-servicos-ambientais
(8) See WRM Bulletin 208. November 2014. Why are women fighting against extractivism and climate change? http://wrm.org.uy/articles-from-the-wrm-bulletin/section1/why-are-women-fighting-against-extractivism-and-climate-change/
(9) The Italian writer has pointed out that capitalism seeks to control all the sources of the workforce, all the sources that produce workers, and women’s bodies are the primary source of this wealth. See Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, 2004, https://libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf

The great REDD gamble. Time to ditch risky REDD for community-based approaches that are effective, ethical and equitable.

Dec 9, 2014

A Friends of the Earth report looks at specific case studies which demonstrate that REDD projects can facilitate rather than prevent the continued use of fossil fuels; exacerbate tensions over land and resource rights; have significant negative impacts on forest-dependent Indigenous Peoples and local communities; threaten food security; and even endanger forests. Some REDD projects have also faced significant financial difficulties, wasting considerable amounts of public funding.

See full report at: http://www.foei.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/The-great-REDD-gamble.pdf

Kari-Oca II Declaration: Indigenous Peoples at Rio +20 reject the Green Economy and REDD

Jun 20, 2012

By Chris Lang of REDD Monitor

In 1992, while the first Rio Earth Summit took place, hundreds of indigenous peoples met and produced the Kari-Oca Declaration and the Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter. 20 years later, in parallel with Rio +20 meeting, more than five hundred indigenous peoples met and produced the Kari-Oca II Declaration.

The words “Kari-Oca” mean “white man’s house” in the Tupí-Guaraní language. That’s what the indigenous people living in what is now Rio de Janeiro called the first settlements of Portuguese colonists. The Kari-Oca II declaration rejects the “Green Economy”:

The “Green Economy” promises to eradicate poverty but in fact will only favor and respond to multinational enterprises and capitalism. It is a continuation of a global economy based upon fossil fuels, the destruction of the environment by exploiting nature through extractive industries such as mining, oil exploration and production, intensive mono-culture agriculture, and other capitalist investments.

The declaration also rejects REDD as one of many false solutions to climate change. The declaration demands that the UN abandon these false solutions:

We demand that the United Nations, governments and corporations abandon false solutions to climate change, like large hydroelectric dams, genetically modified organisms including GMO trees, plantations, agro-fuels, “clean” coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, bio-energy, biomass, biochar, geo-engineering, carbon markets, Clean Development Mechanism and REDD+ that endanger the future and life as we know it.

The 1992, Kari-Oca meeting played an important part in the development of an international movement for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and in the recognition of the role that Indigenous Peoples play in conserving their environment. But many of the agreements from 20 years ago have been ignored by the world’s governments. For example, the 1992 Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter includes the following:

We urge governments to ratify International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 to guarantee an international legal instrument for Indigenous Peoples.

At the time only four countries had ratified ILO 169 (Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico and Norway). Twenty years later, that figure has increased, but only to 22 countries.

The Kari-Oca II Declaration is an important document, as Windel Bolinget, of the Igorot people in the Philippines explains,

“The Kari-Oca II declaration is not just a paper. It is a sacred document that encompasses our struggles worldwide. It makes clear that we will walk the path of our ancestors.”

The Kari-Oca II Declaration is posted in full below (in English, Portuguese and Spanish). The photographs were taken by Mohawk Ben Powless, who works with the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Kari-Oca 2 Declaration“Indigenous Peoples Global Conference on Rio+20 and Mother Earth”

We, the Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth assembled at the site of Kari-Oka I, sacred Kari-Oka Púku, Rio de Janeiro to participate in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20, thank the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil for welcoming us to their territories. We reaffirm our responsibility to speak for the protection and enhancement of the well-being of Mother Earth, nature and future generations of our Indigenous Peoples and all humanity and life. We recognize the significance of this second convening of Indigenous Peoples of the world and reaffirm the historic 1992 meeting of the Kari-Oca I, where Indigenous Peoples issued The Kari-Oca Declaration and the Indigenous Peoples Earth Charter. The Kari-Oca conference, and the mobilization of Indigenous Peoples around the first UN Earth Summit, marked a big step forward for an international movement for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and the important role that Indigenous Peoples play in conservation and sustainable development. We also reaffirm the Manaus Declaration on the convening of Kari-Oca 2 as the international gathering of Indigenous Peoples for Rio+20.

The institutionalization of Colonialism

We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the “Green Economy” and its premise that the world can only “save” nature by commodifying its life giving and life sustaining capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years. The “Green Economy” promises to eradicate poverty but in fact will only favor and respond to multinational enterprises and capitalism. It is a continuation of a global economy based upon fossil fuels, the destruction of the environment by exploiting nature through extractive industries such as mining, oil exploration and production, intensive mono-culture agriculture, and other capitalist investments. All of these efforts are directed toward profit and the accumulation of capital by the few.

Since Rio 1992, we as Indigenous Peoples see that colonization has become the very basis of the globalization of trade and the dominant capitalist global economy. The exploitation and plunder of the world’s ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as the violations of the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples that depend on them, have intensified. Our rights to self determination, to our own governance and own self-determined development, our inherent rights to our lands, territories and resources are increasingly and alarmingly under attack by the collaboration of governments and transnational corporations. Indigenous activists and leaders defending their territories continue to suffer repression, militarization, including assassination, imprisonment, harassment and vilification as “terrorists.” The violation of our collective rights faces the same impunity. Forced relocation or assimilation assault our future generations, cultures, languages, spiritual ways and relationship to the earth, economically and politically.

We, Indigenous Peoples from all regions of the world have defended our Mother Earth from the aggression of unsustainable development and the over exploitation of our natural resources by mining, logging, mega-dams, exploration and extraction of petroleum. Our forests suffer from the production of agro-fuels, bio-mass, plantations and other impositions of false solutions to climate change and unsustainable, damaging development.

The Green Economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature; a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying, and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and all the genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, animals, fish, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and traditional knowledge that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable.

Gross violations of Indigenous Peoples’ rights to food sovereignty continue unabated thus resulting to food “insecurity”. Our own food production, the plants that we gather, the animals that we hunt, our fields and harvests, the water that we drink and water our fields, the fish that we catch from our rivers and streams, is diminishing at an alarming rate. Unsustainable development projects, such as mono-cultural chemically intensive soya plantations, extractive industries such as mining and other environmentally destructive projects and investments for profit are destroying our biodiversity, poisoning our water, our rivers, streams, and the earth and its ability to maintain life. This is further aggravated by Climate change and hydroelectric dams and other energy production that affect entire ecosystems and their ability to provide for life.

Food sovereignty is one fundamental expression of our collective right to self-determination and sustainable development. Food sovereignty and the right to food must be observed and respected; food must not be a commodity to be used, traded and speculated on for profit. It nourishes our identities, our cultures and languages, and our ability to survive as Indigenous Peoples.

Mother Earth is the source of life which needs to be protected, not a resource to be exploited and commodified as a ‘natural capital.’ We have our place and our responsibilities within Creation’s sacred order. We feel the sustaining joy as things occur in harmony with the Earth and with all life that it creates and sustains. We feel the pain of disharmony when we witness the dishonor of the natural order of Creation and the continued economic colonization and degradation of Mother Earth and all life upon her. Until Indigenous Peoples rights are observed and respected, sustainable development and the eradication of poverty will not be achieved.

The Solution

This inseparable relationship between humans and the Earth, inherent to Indigenous, Peoples must be respected for the sake of our future generations and all of humanity. We urge all humanity to join with us in transforming the social structures, institutions and power relations that underpin our deprivation, oppression and exploitation. Imperialist globalization exploits all that sustains life and damages the Earth. We need to fundamentally reorient production and consumption based on human needs rather than for the boundless accumulation of profit for a few. Society must take collective control of productive resources to meet the needs of sustainable social development and avoid overproduction, over consumption and over exploitation of people and nature which are inevitable under the prevailing monopoly capitalist system. We must focus on sustainable communities based on indigenous knowledge, not on capitalist development.

We demand that the United Nations, governments and corporations abandon false solutions to climate change, like large hydroelectric dams, genetically modified organisms including GMO trees, plantations, agro-fuels, “clean” coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, bio-energy, biomass, biochar, geo-engineering, carbon markets, Clean Development Mechanism and REDD+ that endanger the future and life as we know it. Instead of helping to reduce global warming, they poison and destroy the environment and let the climate crisis spiral exponentially, which may render the planet almost uninhabitable.

We cannot allow false solutions to destroy the Earth’s balance, assassinate the seasons, unleash severe weather havoc, privatize life and threaten the very survival of humanity. The Green Economy is a crime against humanity and the Earth. In order to achieve sustainable development, states must recognize the traditional systems of resource management of the Indigenous Peoples that have existed for the millennia, sustaining us even in the face of colonialism. Assuring Indigenous Peoples’ active participation in decision making processes affecting them, and their right of Free Prior and Informed Consent is fundamental. States should likewise provide support for Indigenous Peoples appropriate to their sustainability and self determined priorities without restrictions and constricting guidelines.

Indigenous youth and women’s active participation must also be given importance as they are among the most affected by the negative impacts brought by the commodification of nature. As inheritors of Mother Earth, the youth play a vital role in continuing defending what is left of their natural resources that were valiantly fought for by their ancestors. Their actions and decisions amidst the commercialization of their resources and culture will determine the future of their younger brothers and sisters and the generations to come.

We will continue to struggle against the construction of hydroelectric dams and all other forms of energy production that affect our waters, our fish, our biodiversity and ecosystems that contribute to our food sovereignty. We will work to preserve our territories from the poison of monoculture plantations, extractive industries and other environmentally destructive projects and continue our ways of life, preserving our cultures and identities. We will work to preserve our traditional plants and seeds, and maintain the balance between our needs and the needs of our Mother Earth and her life sustaining capacity. We will demonstrate to the world that it can and must be done. In all matters we will gather and organize the solidarity of all Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world, and all other sources of solidarity with non-indigenous of good will to join our struggle for food sovereignty and food security. We reject the privatization and corporate control of resources such as our traditional seeds and food. Finally, we demand the states to uphold our rights to the control of our traditional management systems and by providing concrete support such as appropriate technologies for us to develop our food sovereignty.

We reject the false promises of sustainable development and solutions to climate change that only serve the dominant economic order. We reject REDD, REDD+ and other market-based solutions that focus on our forests, to continue the violation of our inherent rights to self determination and right to our lands, territories, waters, and natural resources, and the Earth’s right to create and sustain life. There is no such thing as “sustainable mining.” There is no such thing as “ethical oil.”

We reject the assertion of intellectual property rights over the genetic resources and traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples which results in the alienation and commodification of Sacred essential to our lives and cultures. We reject industrial modes of food production that promote the use of chemical substances, genetically engineered seeds and organisms. Therefore, we affirm our right to possess, control, protect and pass on the indigenous seeds, medicinal plants and traditional knowledge originating from our lands and territories for the benefit of our future generations.

The Future We Want

In the absence of a true implementation of sustainable development, the world is now in a multiple ecological, economic and climatic crisis; including biodiversity loss, desertification, deglaciation, food, water, energy shortage, a worsening global economic recession, social instability and crisis of values. In this sense, we recognize that much remains to be done by international agreements to respond adequately to the rights and needs of Indigenous Peoples. The actual contributions and potentials of our peoples must be recognized by a true sustainable development for our communities that allows each one of us to Live Well.

As peoples, we reaffirm our rights to self-determination and to own, control and manage our traditional lands and territories, waters and other resources. Our lands and territories are at the core of our existence – we are the land and the land is us; we have a distinct spiritual and material relationship with our lands and territories and they are inextricably linked to our survival and to the preservation and further development of our knowledge systems and cultures, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem management.

We will exercise the right to determine and establish priorities and strategies for our self-development and for the use of our lands, territories and other resources. We demand that free, prior and informed consent must be the determinant and legally binding principle of approving or rejecting any plan, project or activity affecting our lands, territories and other resources. Without the right of Free Prior and Informed Consent, the colonialist model of the domination of the Earth and its resources will continue with the same impunity.

We will continue to unite as Indigenous Peoples and build a strong solidarity and partnership among ourselves, local communities and non-indigenous genuine advocates of our issues. This solidarity will advance the global campaign for Indigenous Peoples rights to land, life and resources and in the achievement of our self-determination and liberation. We will continue to challenge and resist colonialist and capitalist development models that promote the domination of nature, incessant economic growth, limitless profit-seeking resource extraction, unsustainable consumption and production and the unregulated commodities and financial markets. Humans are an integral part of the natural world and all human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights, which must be respected and observed by development.

We invite all of civil society to protect and promote our rights and worldviews and respect natural law, our spiritualities and cultures and our values of reciprocity, harmony with nature, solidarity, and collectivity. Caring and sharing, among other values, are crucial in bringing about a more just, equitable and sustainable world. In this context, we call for the inclusion of cultureas the fourth pillar of sustainable development.

The legal recognition and protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples to land, territories, resources and traditional knowledge should be a prerequisite for development and planning for any and all types of adaptation and mitigation to climate change, environmental conservation (including the creation of “protected areas”), the sustainable use of biodiversity and measures to combat desertification. In all instances there must be free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples.

We continue to pursue the commitments made at Earth Summit as reflected in this political declaration. We call on the UN to begin their implementation, and to ensure the full, formal and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples in all processes and activities of the Rio+20 Conference and beyond, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

We continue to inhabit and maintain the last remaining sustainable ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots in the world. We can contribute substantially to sustainable development but we believe that a holistic ecosystem framework for sustainable development should be promoted. This includes the integration of the human-rights based approach, ecosystem approach and culturally sensitive and knowledge-based approaches.

We declare our solidarity and support for the demands and aspirations of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil found in the Annex to this Declaration.

We Walk in the Footsteps of our Ancestors.

Accepted by Acclamation, Kari-Oka Village, at Sacred Kari-Oka Púku, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 17 June 2012.

Declaração KARI‐OCA 2“CONFERÊNCIA MUNDIAL DOS Povos Indígenas SOBRE RIO+20 e a Mãe TERRA” 13‐22 Junho 2012

Nós, os Povos Indígenas da Mãe Terra reunidos na sede da Kari-Oca I, sagrado Kari-Oka Púku, no Rio de Janeiro para participar da Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável Rio+20, agradecemos aos Povos Indígenas do Brasil por nos darem o bem vindo aos seus territórios. Reafirmamos nossa responsabilidade para falar sobre a proteção e o bem-estar da Mãe Terra, da natureza e das futuras gerações de nossos Povos Indígenas e toda a humanidade e a vida. Reconhecemos o significado desta segunda convocatória dos Povos Indígenas do mundo e reafirmamos a reunião histórica de 1992 da Kari-Oca I, onde os Povos Indígenas emitiram a Declaração da Kari-Oca e a Carta da Terra dos Povos Indígenas. A conferência da Kari-Oca e a mobilização dos Povos Indígenas durante a Reunião da Terra marcou um grande avanço do movimento internacional para os direitos dos Povos Indígenas e o papel importante que desempenhamos na conservação e no desenvolvimento sustentável. Reafirmamos também a Declaração de Manaus sobre a convocatória da Kari-Oca 2 como o encontro internacional dos Povos Indígenas na Río+20.

A institucionalização do colonialismo

Consideramos que os objetivos da Conferência das Naciones Unidas sobre Desenvolvimento Sustentável (UNCSD) Río+20, a “Economia Verde” e seu argumento de que o mundo somente pode “salvar” a natureza com a mercantilizar de suas capacidades de dar vida e garantir a vida como uma continuação do colonialismo que os Povos Indígenas e nossa Mãe Terra tem resistido durante 520 anos. A “Economia Verde” se promete erradicar a pobreza, mas na realidade somente vai favorecer e responder as empresas multinacionais e o capitalismo. Se trata da continuação de uma economia global baseada nos combustíveis fósseis, na destruição do meio ambiente mediante a exploração da natureza através das indústrias extrativistas, tais como a mineração, a extração e produção petrolífera, a agricultura intensiva de monoculturas e outras inversões capitalistas. Todos esses esforços estão encaminhados as ganâncias e a acumulação de capital por uns poucos.

Desde Rio 1992, nós como Povos Indígenas vemos que o colonialismo está sendo transformado na base da globalização do comércio e da hegemonia econômíca capitalista mundial. Se vem intensificado a exploração e o roubo dos ecossistemas e biodiversidade do mundo, assim como a violação aos diretos inerentes dos povos indígenas. Nosso direito a livre determinação, a nossa própria governança e ao nosso desenvolvimento livremente determinado, nossos direitos inerentes as nossas terras, territórios e recursos estão cada vez mais atacados por uma colaboração de governos e empresas transnacionais. Ativistas e líderes indígenas que defendem seus territórios seguem sofrendo repressão, militarização, incluindo assassinatos, prisões, humilhações e classificação como “terroristas”. A violação de nossos direitos coletivos enfrenta a mesma impunidade. O deslocamento forçado ou assimilação ameaça nossas futuras gerações, culturas, idiomas, espiritualidade y relação com a Mãe Terra económica e políticamente.

Nós, povos indígenas de todas as regiões do mundo, temos defendido a Nossa Mãe Terra das agressões do desenvolvimento não sustentável e a super exploração de nossos recursos por mineração, madeireiras, grandes represas hidroelétricas, exploração e extração petrolífera. Nossos bosques sofrem pela produção de agrocombustíveis, biomasa, plantaçõess e outras imposições como as falsas soluções à mudança climática e ao desenvolvimento não sustentável e danoso. A Economía Verde é nada menos que o capitalismo da natureza; um esforço perverso das grandes empresas, as indústrias extrativistas e dos governos para converter em dinheiro toda a Criação mediante a privatização, mercantilização e venda do Sagrado e todas as formas de vida, assim como o céu, incluindo o ar que respiramos, a água que bebemos e todos os genes, plantas, sementes nativas, árvores, animais, peixes, diversidade biológica e cultural, ecossistemas e conhecimentos tradicionais que fazem possivel e disfrutável a vida sobre a terra.

Violações graves dos direitos dos povos indígenas da soberania alimentar continuam sem parar ao que da lugar a inseguridade alimentar. Nossa própria produção de alimentos, as plantas que nos rodeiam, os animais que caçamos, nossos campos e as plantações, a água que bebemos e a água dos nossos campos, os peixes que pescamos de nossos rios e riachos, está diminuindo a um ritmo alarmante. Projetos de desenvolvimento não sustentável, tais como mono-culturas plantações de soja químicamente intensiva, as indústrias extrativistas como a mineração e outros projetos destrutivos do meio ambiente e as inversões com fins de lucro, estão destruindo nossa biodiversidade, envenenando nossa água, nossos rios, riachos, e a terra e sua capacidade para manter a vida. Isto se agrava ainda mais debido ao cambio climático e as represas hidroeléctricas e outras formas de produção de energia que afetam a todo o ecossistema e sua capacidade para promover a vida. A soberania alimentaria é uma expressão fundamental de nossos direitos coletivo a livre determinação e desenvolvimento sustentável. A soberania alimentar e o direito a alimentação devem ser reconhecidos e respeitados: alimentação não deve ser mercadoria que se utiliza, comercializa ou especula com fins de lucro. Nutre nossas identidades, nossas culturas e idiomas, e nossa capacidade para sobreviver como povos indígenas.

A Mãe Terra é a fonte da vida que se requer proteger, não como um recurso para ser explorado e mercantilizado como “capital natural”. Temos nosso lugar e nossas responsabilidades dentro da ordem sagrada da Criação. Sentimos a alegria sustentadora quando as coisas ocorrem em harmonia com a Terra e com toda a vida que cria e sustenta. Sentimos a dor da falta de harmonia quando somos testemunho da desonra da ordem natural da Criação e da colonização econômica e continua, assim como a degradação da Madre Terra e toda a vida nela. Até que os direitos dos povos indígenas sejam observados, velados e respeitados, o desenvolvimento sustentável e a erradicação da pobreza não ocorrerão.

A solução

A relação inseparável entre os seres humanos e a Terra, inerente para os povos indígenas deve ser respeitada pelo bem das gerações futuras e toda a humanidade. Instamos a toda a humanidade a se unir conosco para transformar as estruturas sociais, as instituições e relações de poder que são a base de nossa pobreza, opressão e exploração. A globalização imperialista explora todo o que garante a vida e a terra. Necessitamos reorientar totalmente a produção e o consumo na base das necessidades humanas no lugar da acumulação desenfreada de ganância para com poucos. A sociedade deve tomar controle coletivo dos recursos produtivos para satisfazer as necessidades de desenvolvimento social sustentável e evitar a sobreprodução, o sobreconsumo e a sobreexploração das pessoas e da natureza que são inevitáveis abaixo o atual sistema capitalista monopólico. Devemos enfocar sobre comunidades sustentáveis com base nos conhecimentos indígenas e no desenvolvimento capitalista.

Exigimos que as Nações Unidas, os governos e as empresas abandonem as falsas soluções a mudança climática, tais como as grandes represas hidroelétricas, os organismos geneticamente modificados, incluindo as árvores transgênicas, as plantações, os agro combustíveis, o “carbono limpo”, a energia nuclear, o gás natural, a transposição das águas dos rios, a nanotecnologia, a biologia sintética, a bio energia, a biomassa, o biochar, a geoengenharia, os mercados de carbono, o Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo e REDD+ que colocam em perigo o futuro e a vida tal como a conhecemos. No lugar de ajudar a reduzir o aquecimento global, eles envenenam e destroem o meio ambiente e deixam que a crise climática aumente exponencialmente, o que pode deixar o planeta praticamente inabitável. Não podemos permitir que as falsas soluções destruam o equilíbrio da Terra, assassinem as estações, desencadeiem o caos do mal tempo, privatizem a vida e ameacem a supervivência da humanidade. A Economia Verde é um crime de lese humanidade e contra a Terra.

Para lograr o desenvolvimento sustentável os Estados devem reconhecer os sistemas tradicionais de manejo de recursos dos povos indígenas que há existido por milênios, nos sustentando assim durante o colonialismo. È fundamental garantir a participação ativa dos povos indígenas nos processos de tomada de decisões que os afetam e seu direito ao consentimento livre, prévio e informado. Os Estados também devem proporcionar apoio aos povos indígenas que seja adequada a sua sustentabilidade e prioridades livremente determinadas, sem restrições e diretrizes limitantes.

Seguiremos lutando contra a construção de represas hidrelétricas e todas as formas de produção de energia que afetam nossas águas, nossos peixes, nossa biodiversidade e os ecossistemas que contribuem com a nossa soberania alimentar. Trabalharemos para preservar nossos territórios contra o veneno das plantações de monoculturas, das indústrias extrativas e outros projetos destrutivos do meio ambiente, e continuar nossas formas de vida, preservando nossas culturas e identidades. Trabalharemos para preservar nossas plantas e as sementes tradicionais, e manter o equilíbrio entre nossas necessidades e as necessidades de nossa Mãe Terra e sua capacidade de garantir a vida. Demonstraremos ao mundo que se pode e se deve fazer. Em todos estes assuntos documentaremos y organizaremos a solidariedade de todos os povos indígenas de todas as partes do mundo, e todas as demais fontes de solidariedade dos não indígenas de boa vontade a se unir a nossa luta pela soberania alimentar e a seguridade alimentaria. Rejeitamos a privatização e o controle corporativo dos recursos, tais como nossas sementes tradicionais e dos alimentos. Por último, exigimos aos estados que defenda nossos direitos ao controle dos sistemas de gestões tradicionais e ofereça um apoio concreto, tais como as tecnologias adequadas para que possamos defender nossa soberania alimentar.

Rejeitamos as promessas falsas do desenvolvimento sustentável e soluções ao cambio climático que somente serve a ordem econômica dominante. Rejeitamos a REDD, REDD+ e outras soluções baseadas no mercado que têm como enfoque nossos bosques, para continuar violando nossos direitos inerentes a livre determinação e ao direito as nossas terras, territórios, águas e recursos, e direito da Terra a criar e manter a vida. Não existe tal coisa como “mineração sustentável”. Não existe tal coisa como “petróleo ético”.

Rejeitamos a aplicação de direitos de propriedade intelectual sobre os recursos genéticos e o conhecimento tradicional dos povos indígenas que resulta na privatização e mercantilização do Sagrado essencial para nossas vidas e culturas. Rejeitamos as formas industriais da produção alimentícia que promove o uso de agrotóxicos, sementes e organismos transgênicos. Portanto, afirmamos nosso direito a ter, controlar, proteger e herdeiros as sementes nativas, plantas medicinais e os conhecimentos tradicionais provenientes de nossas terras e territórios para o beneficio de nossas futuras gerações.

Nosso Compromisso com o Futuro que Queremos

Por falta da falta da implementação verdadeira do desenvolvimento sustentável o mundo está em múltiplas crises ecológicas, econômicas y climáticas. Incluindo a perda de biodiversidade, desertificação, o derretimento dos glaciares, escassez de alimentos, água e energia, uma recessão econômica mundial que se acentua, a instabilidade social e a crise de valores. Nesse sentido, reconhecemos que temos muito fazer para que os acordos internacionais respondam adequadamente aos direitos e necessidades dos povos indígenas. As contribuições atuais potenciais de nossos povos devem ser reconhecidas como um desenvolvimento sustentável verdadeiro para nossas comunidades que permita que cada um de nós alcance o Bem Viver.

Como povos, reafirmamos nosso direito a livre determinação a controlar e manejar nossas terras e territórios tradicionais, águas e outros recursos. Nossas terras e territórios são a parte estrutural de nossa existência – somos a Terra a Terra, é nós -. Temos uma relação espiritual e material com nossas terras e territórios e estão intrinsecamente ligados a nossa supervivência e a preservassem e desenvolvimento de nossos sistemas de conhecimentos e culturas, a conservação, uso sustentável da biodiversidade e o manejo de ecossistemas.

Exerceremos o direito a determinar e estabelecer nossas prioridades e estratégias de auto desenvolvimento para o uso de nossas terras, territórios e outros recursos. Exigimos que o consentimento livre, prévio e informado seja o princípio de aprovação ou desaprovação definitivo y vinculante de qualquer plano, projeto ou atividade que afete nossas terras, territórios e outros recursos. Sem o direito ao consentimento livre, prévio e informado o modelo colonialista, o domínio da Terra e seus recursos seguirá com a mesma impunidade.

Seguiremos nos unindo como povos indígenas e construindo una solidariedade e aliança forte entre nós mesmos, comunidades locais e verdadeiros promotores não-indígenas de nossos temas. Esta solidariedade avançará a campanha mundial para os direitos dos povos indígenas a sua terra, vida e recursos e o lugar de nossa livre determinação e liberação. Seguiremos desafiando e resistindo aos modelos colonialistas e capitalistas que promovem a dominação da natureza, o crescimento econômico desenfreado, a extração de recursos sem limite para ganâncias, o consumo e a produção insustentável e as acordos não regulamentados e os mercados financeiros. Os seres humanos são uma parte integral do mundo natural e todos os direitos humanos, incluindo os direitos dos povos indígenas, devem ser respeitados e observados por o desenvolvimento.

Convidamos a toda a sociedade civil a proteger e promover nossos direitos e cosmovisões e respeitar a lei da natureza, nossas espiritualidades e culturas e nossos valores de reciprocidade, Harmonia com a natureza, a solidariedade e a coletividade. Valores como cuidar o compartilhar, entre outros, são cruciais para criar um mundo más justo, equitativo e sustentável. Neste contexto, fazemos um chamado para inclusão da cultura como o quarto pilar do desenvolvimento sustentável.

O reconhecimento jurídico e a proteção dos direitos dos povos indígenas da terra, dos territórios,dos recursos e os conhecimentos tradicionais deveriam ser um requisito para o desenvolvimento e planificação de todos e cada um dos tipos de adaptação e mitigação da mudança climática, conservação ambiental (incluindo a criação de “áreas protegidas”), o uso sustentável da biodiversidade e medidas a combater desertificação. Em todos os casos, tem que haver consentimento livre, prévio e informado.

Continuamos dando seguimento aos compromissos assumidos na Reunião da Terra tal como se reflete nesta declaração política. Fazemos um chamado a ONU a começar sua implementação, e assegurar a participação plena, formal e efetiva dos povos indígenas em todos os processos e atividades da Conferência de Rio+20 e mais além, de acordo com a Declaração das Nações Unidas sobe os Direitos dos Povos Indígenas (DNUDPI) e o principio do consentimento livre, prévio e informado (CLPI). Seguimos habitando e mantendo os últimos ecossistemas sustentáveis com as mais altas concentrações de biodiversidade no mundo. Podemos contribuir de uma maneira significativa ao desenvolvimento sustentável porém acreditamos que o marco holístico de ecossistemas para o desenvolvimento se deve promover. isso inclui a integração do enfoque de direitos humanos, o enfoque de ecossistemas e enfoques culturalmente sensíveis e baseados em conhecimentos.

Expressamos nossa solidariedade e apoio para as demandas e aspirações dos povos indígenas no Brasil encontradas no anexo a esta declaração.

“Caminhamos para o futuro nos rastros de nossos antepassados”.

Aprovado por aclamação, Aldeia de Kari-Oca, no Sagrado Kari-Oca Púku, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 18 de junho de 2012

DECLARACION DE KARI‐OCA 2“CONFERENCIA MUNDIAL DE LOS PUEBLOS INDIGENAS SOBRE RIO+20 Y LA MADRE IERRA” 13 ‐22 Junio 2012

Nosotros los Pueblos Indígenas de la Madre Tierra reunidos en la sede de Kari-Oca I, Sacred Kari-Oka Púku en Rio de Janeiro para participar en la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sostenible Rio+20, agradecemos a los Pueblos Indígenas de Brasil por darnos la bienvenida a sus territorios. Reafirmamos nuestra responsabilidad para hablar para la protección y del bienestar de la Madre Tierra, de la naturaleza y de las futuras generaciones de nuestros Pueblos Indígenas y toda la humanidad y la vida. Reconocemos el significado de esta segunda convocatoria de los Pueblos Indígenas del mundo y reafirmamos la reunión histórica de 1992 de Kari-Oca 1, donde los Pueblos Indígenas emitieron la Declaración de Kari-Oca y la Carta de la Tierra de los Pueblos Indígenas. La conferencia de Kari-Oca y la movilización de los Pueblos Indígenas durante la Cumbre de la Tierra, marcó un gran avance del movimiento internacional para los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y el papel importante que desempeñamos en la conservación y el desarrollo sostenible. Reafirmamos también la Declaración de Manaos sobre la convocatoria de Kari-Oca 2 como el encuentro internacional de los Pueblos Indígenas en Río+20.

La institucionalización del colonialismo

Consideramos que los objetivos de la Conferencia Mundial de las Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sostenible (UNCSD) Río+20, la “Economía Verde” y su premisa de que el mundo sólo puede “salvar” a la naturaleza con la mercantilización de sus capacidades de dar vida y sostener la vida como una continuación del colonialismo, que los Pueblos Indígenas y nuestra Madre Tierra han resistido durante 520 años. La “Economía Verde” se promete erradicar la pobreza, pero en realidad sólo va a favorecer y responder a las empresas multinacionales y el capitalismo. Se trata de una continuación de una economía global basada en los combustibles fósiles, la destrucción del medio ambiente mediante la explotación de la naturaleza a través de las industrias extractivas, tales como la minería, la explotación y producción petrolera, la agricultura intensiva de mono-cultivos y otras inversiones capitalistas. Todos estos esfuerzos están dirigidos hacia las ganancias y la acumulación de capital por unos pocos.

Desde Rio 1992, nosotros como Pueblos Indígenas vemos que el colonialismo se ha convertido en la base de la globalización del comercio y la hegemónica economía capitalista mundial. Se han intensificado la explotación y el saqueo de los ecosistemas y biodiversidad del mundo, así como la violación los derechos inherentes de los pueblos indígenas. Nuestro derecho a la libre determinación, a nuestra propia gobernanza y a nuestro desarrollo libremente determinado, nuestros derechos inherentes a nuestras tierras, territorios y recursos están cada vez más atacados por una colaboración de gobiernos y empresas transnacionales. Activistas y líderes indígenas que defienden sus territorios siguen sufriendo represión, militarización, incluyendo asesinatos, encarcelamientos, hostigamiento y calificación como “terroristas”. La violación de nuestros derechos colectivos enfrenta la misma impunidad. La reubicación forzosa o asimilación amenaza nuestras futuras generaciones, culturas, idiomas, espiritualidad y relación con la Madre Tierra, económica y políticamente.

Nosotros, pueblos indígenas de todas las regiones del mundo, hemos defendido a Nuestra Madre Tierra de las agresiones del desarrollo no sustentable y la sobreexplotación de nuestros recursos por minería, maderería, megarepresas hidroeléctricas, exploración y extracción petrolera. Nuestros bosques sufren por la producción de agrocombustibles, biomasa, plantaciones y otras imposiciones como las falsas soluciones al cambio climático y el desarrollo no sustentable y dañino.

La Economía Verde es nada menos que capitalismo de la naturaleza; un esfuerzo perverso de las grandes empresas, las industrias extractivas y los gobiernos para convertir en dinero toda la Creación mediante la privatización, mercantilización y venta de lo Sagrado y todas las formas de vida, así como el cielo, incluyendo el aire que respiramos, el agua que bebemos y todos los genes, plantas, semillas criollas, árboles, animales, peces, diversidad biológica y cultural, ecosistemas y conocimientos tradicionales que hacen posible y disfrutable la vida sobre la tierra. Violaciónes graves de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas de la soberanía alimentaria continúan sin cesar lo que da lugar a la inseguridad alimentaria. Nuestra propia producción de alimentos, las plantas que nos reunimos, los animales que cazamos, nuestros campos y las cosechas, el agua que bebemos y el agua de nuestros campos, los peces que pescamos de nuestros ríos y arroyos, está disminuyendo a un ritmo alarmante. Proyectos de desarrollo no sostenibles, tales como mono-culturales plantaciones de soja químicamente intensiva, las industrias extractivas como la minería y otros proyectos destructivos del medioambiente y las inversiones con fines de lucro están destruyendo nuestra biodiversidad, envenenando nuestra agua, nuestros ríos, arroyos, y la tierra y su capacidad para mantener la vida. Esto se agrava aún más por el cambio climático y las represas hidroeléctricas y otras formas de producción de energía que afectan a todo el ecosistema y su capacidad para proveer la vida. La soberanía alimentaria es una expresión fundamental de nuestro derecho colectivo a la libre determinación y desarrollo sustentable. La soberanía alimentaria y el derecho a la alimentación deben ser reconocido y respetados: alimentación no debe ser mercancía que se utiliza, comercializa o especula con fines de lucro. Nutre nuestras identidades, nuestras culturas e idiomas, y nuestra capacidad para sobrevivir como pueblos indígenas.

La Madre Tierra es la fuente de la vida que se requiere proteger, no como un recurso para ser explotado y mercantilizado como “capital natural”. Tenemos nuestro lugar y nuestras responsabilidades dentro del orden sagrado de la Creación. Sentimos la alegría sustentadora cuando las cosas ocurren en armonía con la Tierra y con toda la vida que crea y sostiene. Sentimos el dolor de la falta de armonía cuando somos testigos de la deshonra del orden natural de la Creación y de la colonización económica y continua, la degradación de la Madre Tierra y toda la vida en ella. Hasta que los derechos de los pueblos indígenas sean observados, velados y respetados, el desarrollo sustentable y la erradicación de la pobreza no se lograrán.

La Solución

La relación inseparable entre los seres humanos y la Tierra, inherente para los pueblos indígenas debe ser respetada por el bien de las generaciones futuras y toda la humanidad. Instamos a toda la humanidad a unirse con nosotros para transformar las estructuras sociales, las instituciones y relaciones de poder que son la base de nuestra pobreza, opresión y explotación. La globalización imperialista explota todo lo que sostiene la vida y daña la tierra. Necesitamos reorientar totalmente la producción y el consumo en base de las necesidades humanas en lugar de la acumulación desenfrenada de ganancia de para unos pocos. La sociedad debe tomar control colectivo de los recursos productivos para satisfacer las necesidades de desarrollo social sostenible y evitar la sobreproducción, el sobreconsumo y la sobreexplotación de las personas y la naturaleza que son inevitables bajo prevaleciente sistema capitalista monopólico. Debemos enfocar sobre comunidades sostenibles con base en conocimientos indígena y no desarrollo capitalista.

Exigimos que las Naciones Unidas, los gobiernos y las empresas abandonen las falsas soluciones al cambio climático, tales como las grandes represas hidroeléctricas, los organismos genéticamente modificados, incluyendo los árboles transgénicos, las plantaciones, los agrocombustibles, el “carbón limpio”, la energía nuclear, el gas natural, el fracturamiento hidráulico, la nanotecnología, la biología sintética, la bioenergía, la biomasa, el biochar, la geoingeniería, los mercados de carbono, el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio y REDD+ que ponen en peligro el futuro y la vida tal como la conocemos. En lugar de ayudar a reducir el calentamiento global, ellos envenenan y destruyen el medio ambiente y dejan que la crisis climática aumente exponencialmente, lo que puede dejar el planeta prácticamente inhabitable.

No podemos permitir que las falsas soluciones destruyan el equilibrio de la Tierra, asesinen a las estaciones, desencadenen el caos del mal tiempo, privaticen la vida y amenacen la supervivencia de la humanidad. La Economía Verde es un crimen de lesa humanidad y contra la Tierra.

Para lograr el desarrollo sostenible los Estados deben reconocer los sistemas tradicionales de manejo de recursos de los pueblos indígenas que han existido por milenios, sosteniéndonos aún durante el colonialismo. Es fundamental asegurar la participación activa de los pueblos indígenas en los procesos de toma de decisiones que les afectan y su derecho al consentimiento libre, previo e informado. Los Estados también deben proporcionar apoyo a los pueblos indígenas que sea apropiado a su sustentabilidad y prioridades libremente determinadas, sin restricciones y directrices limitantes.

Seguiremos luchando contra la construcción de represas hidroeléctricas y todas las formas de producción de energía que afectan a nuestras aguas, nuestros peces, nuestra biodiversidad y los ecosistemas que contribuyen a nuestra soberanía alimentaria. Trabajaremos para preservar nuestros territorios contra el veneno de las plantaciones de monocultivos, de las industrias extractivas y otros proyectos destructivos del medioambiente, y continuar nuestras formas de vida, preservando nuestras culturas e identidades. Trabajaremos para preservar nuestras plantas y las semillas tradicionales, y mantener el equilibrio entre nuestras necesidades y las necesidades de nuestra Madre Tierra y su capacidad de sostener la vida. Demostraremos al mundo que se puede y se debe hacer. En todos estos asuntos recopilaremos y organizaremos la solidaridad de todos los pueblos indígenas de todas partes del mundo, y todas las demás fuentes de solidaridad con los no indígenas de buena voluntad a unirse a nuestra lucha por la soberanía alimentaria y la seguridad alimentaria. Rechazamos la privatización y el control corporativo de los recursos, tales como nuestras semillas tradicionales y de los alimentos. Por último, exigimos a los estados que defendían nuestros derechos al control de nuestros sistemas de gestión tradicionales y ofrezcan un apoyo concreto, tales como las tecnologías apropiadas para que podamos desarrollar nuestra soberanía alimentaria.

Rechazamos las promesas falsas del desarrollo sostenible y soluciones al cambio climático que solamente sirven al orden económico dominante. Rechazamos REDD, REDD+ y otras soluciones basadas en el mercado que tienen como enfoque nuestros bosques, para seguir violando nuestros derechos inherentes a la libre determinación y el derecho a nuestras tierras, territorios, aguas y recursos, y el derecho de la Tierra a crear y sostener la vida. No existe tal cosa como “minería sostenible”. No hay tal cosa como “petróleo ético”.

Rechazamos la aplicación de derechos de propiedad intelectual sobre los recursos genéticos y el conocimiento tradicional de los pueblos indígenas que resulta en la enajenación y mercantilización de lo Sagrado esencial para nuestras vidas y culturas. Rechazamos las formas industriales de la producción alimentaria que promueve el uso de agrotóxicos, semillas y organismos transgénicos. Por lo tanto, afirmamos nuestro derecho a poseer, controlar, proteger y heredar las semillas criollas, plantas medicinales y los conocimientos tradicionales provenientes de nuestras tierras y territorios para el beneficio de nuestras futuras generaciones.

Nuestro Compromiso con el Futuro que Queremos

Debido a la falta de implementación verdadera del desarrollo sostenible el mundo está en múltiples crisis ecológicas, económicas y climáticas. Incluyendo la pérdida de biodiversidad, desertificación, el derretimiento de los glaciares, escases de alimentos, agua y energía, una recesión económica mundial que se agudiza, la inestabilidad social y la crisis de valores. En ese sentido reconocemos que queda mucho que hacer para que los acuerdos internacionales respondan adecuadamente a los derechos y necesidades de los pueblos indígenas. Las contribuciones actuales y potenciales de nuestros pueblos deben ser reconocidas como un desarrollo sostenible y verdadero para nuestras comunidades que permita que cada uno de nosotros alcancemos el Buen Vivir.

Como pueblos, reafirmamos nuestro derecho a la libre determinación y a poseer, controlar y manejar nuestras tierras y territorios tradicionales, aguas y otros recursos. Nuestras tierras y territorios son la parte medular de nuestra existencia -somos la Tierra y la Tierra es nosotros-. Tenemos una relación espiritual y material con nuestras tierras y territorios y están intrínsecamente ligados a nuestra supervivencia y a la preservación y desarrollo de nuestros sistemas de conocimientos y culturas, la conservación y uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y el manejo de ecosistemas.

Ejerceremos el derecho a determinar y establecer nuestras prioridades y estrategias de autodesarrollo y para el uso de nuestras tierras, territorios y otros recursos. Exigimos que el consentimiento libre, previo e informado sea el principio de aprobación o rechazo definitivo y vinculante de cualquier plan, proyecto o actividad que afecte nuestras tierras, territorios y otros recursos. Sin el derecho al consentimiento libre, previo e informado el modelo colonialista del dominio de la Tierra y sus recursos seguirá con la misma impunidad.

Seguiremos uniéndonos como pueblos indígenas y construyendo una solidaridad y alianza fuertes entre nosotros mismos, comunidades locales y verdaderos promotores no-indígenas de nuestros temas. Esta solidaridad avanzará la campaña mundial para los derechos de los pueblos indígenas a su tierra, vida y recursos y el logro de nuestra libre determinación y liberación.

Seguiremos retando y resistiendo los modelos colonialistas y capitalistas que promueven la dominación de la naturaleza, el crecimiento económico desenfrenado, la extracción de recursos sin límite para ganancias, el consumo y la producción insostenibles y las mercancías no reglamentadas y los mercados financieros. Los seres humanos son una parte integral del mundo natural y todos los derechos humanos, incluyendo los derechos de los pueblos indígenas deben ser respetados y observados por el desarrollo.

Invitamos a toda la sociedad civil a proteger y promover nuestros derechos y cosmovisiones y respetar la ley de la naturaleza, nuestras espiritualidades y culturas y nuestros valores de reciprocidad, armonía con la naturaleza, la solidaridad y la colectividad. Valores como cuidar y compartir, entre otros, son cruciales para crear un mundo más justo, equitativo y sostenible. En este contexto, hacemos un llamado por la inclusión de la cultura como el cuarto pilar del desarrollo sostenible.

El reconocimiento jurídico y la protección de los derechos de los pueblos indígenas a la tierra, territorios, recursos y los conocimientos tradicionales deberían ser un requisito para el desarrollo y planificación de todos y cada uno de los tipos de adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático, conservación ambiental (incluyendo la creación de “áreas protegidas”), el uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y medidas a combatir desertificación. En todos los casos, tienen que haber consentimiento libre, previo e informado.

Continuamos dando seguimiento a los compromisos asumidos en la Cumbre de la Tierra tal como se refleja en esta declaración política. Hacemos un llamado a la ONU a comenzar su implementación, y asegurar la participación plena, formal y efectiva de los pueblos indígenas en todos los procesos y actividades de la Conferencia de Rio+20 y más allá, de acuerdo con la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los derechos de los Pueblos Indigenas (DNUDPI) y el principio del consentimiento libre, previo e informado (CLPI). Seguimos habitando y manteniendo los últimos ecosistemas sostenibles con las más altas concentraciones de biodiversidad en el mundo. Podemos contribuir de una manera significativa al desarrollo sostenible pero creemos que el marco holístico de ecosistemas para el desarrollo se debe promover. Eso incluye la integración del enfoque de derechos humanos, el enfoque de ecosistemas y enfoques culturalmente sensibles y basados en conocimientos.

Manifestamos nuestra solidaridad y apoyo para las demandas y aspiraciones de los Pueblos Indigenas de Brasil encontradas en el anexo de esta declaración. Caminamos al futuro en las huelles de nuestros antepasados.

Aprobado por aclamación, Aldea de Kari-Oca, en el sagrado Kari-Oca Púku, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, 18 de junio de 2012

PHOTO Credit: Ben Powless, Indigenous Environmental Network.

NO REDD+! in RIO +20: A Declaration to Decolonize the Earth and the Sky

Jun 19, 2012

By Chris Lang of Redd-Monitor.org

Last week, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life held a press conference denouncing REDD and the green economy. The press conference was part of the People’s Summit, a nine day event taking place in parallel to the UN Rio +20 conference.

“How can you sell the air? “How can you sell Mother Earth And Father Sky?” asked Marlon Santi of the Ecuadorian Amazon at the press conference. Berenice Sanchez of the Nahua People of Mexico added, “Not only does REDD+ corrupt the Sacred and fuel financial speculation, it also serves as greenwash for extractive industries like Shell and Rio Tinto.”

The press conference launched the Global Alliance’s declaration opposing REDD (posted below inEnglish, Spanish and Portuguese).

REDD-Monitor looks forward to discussion about the declaration, particularly from REDD proponents who didn’t fill in a job application form that includes the words “rape and pillaging of Mother Earth”, “crimes against humanity”, “genocide” and “a thinly-veiled, wicked, colonialist planet grab”.

NO REDD+! in RIO+20 – A Declaration to Decolonize the Earth and the SkyGlobal Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD+

After more than 500 years of resistance, we, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, peasant farmers, fisherfolk and civil society are not fooled by the so-called Green Economy and REDD+ because we know colonialism when we see it. Regardless of its cynical disguises and shameful lies, colonialism always results in the rape and pillaging of Mother Earth, and the slavery, death, destruction and genocide of her peoples.[1] Rio+20’s Green Economy and REDD+ constitute a thinly-veiled, wicked, colonialist planet grab[2] that we oppose, denounce and resist. Rio+20 is not an Earth Summit, it is the WTO of Life.

Just as historically the Doctrine of Discovery was used to justify the first wave of colonialism by alleging that Indigenous Peoples did not have souls, and that our territories were “terra nullius,” land of nobody,[3] now the Green Economy and REDD+ are inventing similarly dishonest premises to justify this new wave of colonialization[4] and privatization of nature. Indigenous Peoples and peasants are being killed, forcibly relocated, criminalized, and blamed for climate change.[5] Our land is being labeled “unused,”[6] “degraded”[7] or in need of “conservation”[8] and “reforestation,”[9] to justify massive land grabs[10] for REDD+, carbon offset projects and biopiracy.[11]

But what exactly is the Green Economy and REDD+? The Green Economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature;[12] a perverse attempt by corporations,[13] extractive industries[14] and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying, and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and all the genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, animals, fish, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and traditional knowledge that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable.[15]

The Green Economy is the umbrella for all kinds of ways to sell nature including REDD+,[16] the Clean Development Mechanism,[17] carbon trading,[18] PES (Payment for Environmental Services),[19] the financialization of nature,[20] the International Regime on Access to Genetic Resources,[21] patents on life,[22] TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity),[23] natural capital,[24] green bonds,[25] species banking[26] and state and business “partnerships” with indigenous peoples. Under the Green Economy, even the rain, the beauty of a waterfall or a honey bee’s pollen will be reduced to a barcode price tag[27] and sold to the highest bidder. At the same time, the Green Economy promotes and greenwashes environmentally and socially devastating extractive industries like logging,[28] mining[29] and oil drilling[30] as “sustainable development.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

REDD+, like carbon trading and the Clean Development Mechanism, is a false solution to climate change promoted by the United Nations, the World Bank and climate criminals such as Shell[31] and Rio Tinto[32], which allows polluters to continue to burn fossil fuels and not reduce their emissions at source.[33] Officially, REDD+ stands for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. But, REDD+ really means Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of biodiversity.[34] REDD+ constitutes a worldwide land grab and gigantesque carbon offset scam.[35]

Originally, REDD just included forests and plantations, but its scope has been expanded to include GMO trees, soils and agriculture.[36] Ultimately, REDD+ may try to include and expropriate the entire surface of the Earth including most of the forests, soils, fields, grasslands, deserts, wetlands, mangroves, marine algae and oceans to use them as sponges for industrialized countries’ pollution. REDD+ is also the pillar of the Green Economy and has been blasphemously heralded as “the spiritual core” of the “business plan” that the governments of the world are writing for the planet.[37] REDD+ turns the sources of life on Earth into carbon garbage dumps;[38] it turns the planet’s wombs into tombs. But we are not going to let this happen!

Maybe the Green Economy is called green because that is the color of the dollar and maybe REDD+ was so dubbed in anticipation of its bloody consequences. Ask Olivia Mukamperezida, mother of Friday, an eight-year-old boy from Uganda who, according to The New York Times, was killed when his home was burned to the ground as over 22,000 small farmers with land deeds were violently evicted for a carbon offset plantation.[39] Ask farmer Antonio Alves who was persecuted, arrested at gun point and thrown in jail for 11 days by Força Verde, the armed guards of Chevron’s REDD+ project in Brazil, for cutting down a tree to repair his mother’s leaky roof.[40] Ask Chief Daniel Jiménez of the Matsés People of the Peruvian Amazon who had criminal charges brought against him for defending his people against an exploitive REDD+ contract in a foreign language that gave the carbon trader total control over the Matsés’ rainforest and way of life, forever.[41] Ask the Batwa Pygmy People who have suffered servitude on the World Bank’s Ibi-Batéké Forest Carbon Plantation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.[42] Ask the Ngaju Dayak People of Indonesia who have denounced the Kalimantan REDD+ project because it generates conflict and violates their right to free, prior, informed consent[43] enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.[44]

These examples help us all see through the shameful lies and crass propaganda that try to hide the truth about REDD+. We know that REDD+ is not about saving the climate or protecting forests or eradicating poverty or distributing “benefits” or empowering women. Even the United Nations itself admits that REDD+ could result in the “lock-up of forests,” “loss of land,” “conflict over resources,” “new risks for the poor” and “marginalize the landless.”[45]

In fact, all the negative impacts of REDD+ that the UN foresaw are already happening. For example, in Africa, REDD+, carbon credits, agrofuels and export crops, are driving huge land grabs.[46] Furthermore, since REDD+ now includes plantations and agriculture, already existing plantations, agrofuels and export crops could soon become carbon offset projects as well.[47] Experts are warning that three-quarters of Africa’s population and two-thirds of its land are at risk[48] and that REDD+ may create “generations of landless people.”[49] In Africa, REDD+ is emerging as a new form of colonialism,[50] economic subjugation and a driver of land grabs[51] so massive that they may constitute a continent grab.

Meanwhile, inaction on climate change, masked by false solutions like REDD, is allowing the Earth’s temperature to rise 2 degrees or more, which effectively melts the Artic, incinerates Africa and drowns the Pacific.[52] Nine countries are disappearing under the waves as the sea level rises in the Pacific where 90% of the population is indigenous.[53] This constitutes climate racism and cultural genocide[54] on an unprecedented scale.

Unfortunately, REDD+ affects all regions of the world and all social sectors. For peasant farmers, REDD+ constitutes a worldwide counter-agrarian reform and perverts the task of growing food into “farming carbon.”[55] “Climate Smart Agriculture” is not smart, it is dumb.[56] Moreover, “climate-ready” seeds and other supposed GMO climate fixes are just more attempts of Monsanto, the biotech industry and agribusiness to deform, patent and control our seeds, grab our fields and turn us into landless, indentured peons.[57]

Applying a gender analysis to REDD+, it is clear that REDD+ also constitutes a new form of violence against women because it limits or prohibits women’s access to the land where we farm, gather food and draw water to feed and quench our families.[58] Similarly, for Indigenous Peoples, REDD+ threatens our cultural survival and is potentially genocidal since REDD+ proponents want to expropriate and control the majority of the forests and 80% of the world’s biodiversity, which is found in our lands and territories.[59] For fisherfolk and coastal communities, Blue REDD, that is doing REDD+ in the oceans and the waterways, could profoundly limit our fishing, thus undermining our sustenance and way of life.[60] As for workers, we know that the jobs created by REDD+-type plantation projects tend to be fewer than promised, the wages and labor conditions poor, the right to unionize often violated and the exposure to carcinogenic pesticides high.[61]

But REDD+ is not just destructive for adults. For children, youth and future generations, REDD+ and other false solutions to climate change, like large hydroelectric dams such as Belo Monte,[62] agrofuels, “clean” coal, nuclear power, natural gas, hydraulic fracturing, nanotechnology, synthetic biology,[63] bioenergy, biomass, biochar[64] and geo-engineering, endanger the future and life as we know it.[65] Instead of helping to reduce global warming, they poison and destroy the environment and let the climate crisis spiral exponentially, which may render the planet almost uninhabitable.

We cannot allow false solutions to climate change like REDD+ and the Green Economy to destroy the Earth’s balance, assassinate the seasons, unleash severe weather havoc, privatize life and threaten the very survival of humanity. REDD+ and the Green Economy are crimes against humanity and the Earth. However, we refuse to be the damned of the Earth and let the Earth be damned.

Heeding the wisdom of our elders and the prophecies of our ancestors, we launch this call for No REDD+! in Rio+20 and invite you to join us in planting this seed in the consciousness of the peoples of the world. Mother Earth, wounded and racked by pollution-induced fevers, is imploring us to change paradigms. Only a path which:

• Rejects REDD+ and the Green Economy as Privatization of Nature;
• Decolonizes life, land and the sky;
• Defends life and liberty;
• Respects human rights;
• Guarantees Indigenous Peoples’ rights;
• Honors Mother Earth and
• Protects the Sacred,

will save the world and allow us to live well and create the “future that we want.”

---

[1] ^^ Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.[2] ^^ McAfee, Kathleen The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets. “Commodification and transnational trading of ecosystem services is the most ambitious iteration yet of the strategy of ‘selling nature to save it’. The World Bank and UN agencies contend that global carbon markets can slow climate change while generating resources for development. Consonant with ‘inclusionary’ versions of neoliberal development policy, advocates assert that international payment for ecosystem services (PES) projects, financed by carbon-offset sales and biodiversity banking, can benefit the poor. However, the World Bank also warns that a focus on poverty reduction can undermine efficiency in conservation spending. The experience of ten years of PES illustrates how, in practice, market-efficiency criteria clash directly with poverty-reduction priorities. Nevertheless, the premises of market-based PES are being extrapolated as a model for global REDD programmes financed by carbon-offset trading. This article argues that the contradiction between development and conservation observed in PES is inevitable in projects framed by the asocial logic of neoclassical economics. Application in international conservation policy of the market model, in which profit incentives depend upon differential opportunity costs, will entail a net upward redistribution of wealth from poorer to wealthier classes and from rural regions to distant centres of capital accumulation, mainly in the global North.”

[3] ^^ Newcomb, Steve. Five Hundred Years of Injustice. “In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued to King Alfonso V of Portugal the bull Romanus Pontifex, declaring war against all non-Christians throughout the world, and specifically sanctioning and promoting the conquest, colonization, and exploitation of non-Christian nations and their territories…Under various theological and legal doctrines formulated during and after the Crusades, non-Christians were considered enemies of the Catholic faith and, as such, less than human. Accordingly, in the bull of 1452, Pope Nicholas directed King Alfonso to ‘capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ,’ to ‘put them into perpetual slavery,’ and ‘to take all their possessions and property.’” Also see Davenport, Frances Gardiner, 19l7, European Treaties bearing on the History of the United States and its Dependencies to 1648, Vol. 1, Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington.

[4] ^^ Global Justice Ecology Project, Timberwatch et al, No REDD papers, volume 1, The REDD+ Trojan Horse. “If REDD-style schemes are allowed to be imposed on African forestland, fields and grasslands, it could mean the economic subjugation of the entire continent…REDD and CDM schemes will probably be no more than a form of re-colonisation, and the final drive to commodify the remaining spaces of Africa left in indigenous hands after the first round of formal colonialism.”

[5] ^^ REDD Monitor, Ten of the worst REDD-type projects affecting Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities.

[6] ^^ REDD for Communities and Forests et al, A one-step guide to making the national REDD strategy more pro-poor. “The draft National REDD strategy justifies the classification of 49 % of forests as being on general land by stating that, ‘General Land as used here means all public land which is not reserved or village land including unoccupied or unused village land.’ On the same page, the strategy also states, ‘Forests in General Land are ‘open access’, characterized by unsecured land tenure, shifting cultivation, annual wild fires, harvesting of wood fuel, poles and timber, and heavy pressure for conversion to other competing land uses, such as agriculture, livestock grazing, settlements and industrial development. ’Confusingly, in these two definitions, land that communities use for agriculture, harvesting of wood products, grazing and even settlement is defined as ‘unused’.”

[7] ^^ The Ecologist, Lack of forest definition ‘major obstacle’ in fight to protect rainforests. “In the second in our series examining REDD we report how ambiguous forest definitions are putting the future success of forest protection schemes in doubt and allowing logging companies to destroy biodiverse habitats – The current lack of a working definition of what degraded forest or land is ‘plays into the hands’ of logging companies, say forest campaigners. The companies claim to responsibly develop ‘only on degraded land’, but in reality this can actually mean they are clearing forests and peatlands.”

“Over 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found within Indigenous peoples’ lands and territories Indigenous peoples represent approximately 350 million individuals in the world and make up approximately 90% of the world’s cultural diversity. We use our highly specialized, traditional knowledge to care for and conserve the interconnected web or “Circle of Life” known as “biodiversity.” Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.

Conversation International, REDD+. “Two immediate ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are to halt the destruction of remaining tropical forests and to plant trees in degraded areas.”

Redd Forests Pty ltd is a “profit for purpose” business designed to apply commercially viable methodologies to replace activities which degrade or destroy the world’s forests.

[8] ^^  Dowie, Mark, Conservation Refugees -When protecting nature means kicking people out.

[9] ^^ Friends of the Earth International, REDD Myths.

[10] ^^ “The mere prospect of deforestation credits being recognized in a new US climate bill has been enough to spark a REDD land grab in Central Africa.” Point Carbon, Firms Targets US Buyers with African REDD credits, 20 July 2009.

Rights and Resources International, African land grabs hinder sustainable development. “Of the 203 million hectares of land deals reported worldwide between 2000 and 2010, two-thirds were in Africa. The acquisitions are dispossessing millions of Africans of their land, to make way for expansive forestry and mineral projects and plantations…”“The global report shows the scale of the issue as never before: three-quarters of Africa’s population and two-thirds of the landscape are at risk,” says Andy White, who coordinates the RRI.” “[I]nternational efforts at sustainable development are also threatening these areas.”

[11] ^^ Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism www.ipcb.org. Biopiracywww.etcgroup.org.

[12] ^^  Climate and Capitalism, Behind the ‘Green Economy’ – A new drive to commodify nature. “The ideological force behind the zero draft is the 2011 UNEP report Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication that shows clearly the ultimate goal of achieving ‘green capitalism’.”

Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication.

[13] ^^ ETC Group, Who will control the Green Economy?

[14] ^^ Carbon Trade Watch, Map of Corporations and Extractive Industries promoting REDD, page 16 and 17.

[15] ^^ No REDD Reader, Cashing in on Creation: Gourmet REDD privatizes, packages, patents, sells and corrupts all that is Sacred.

[16] ^^ Lohmann, Larry Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold REDD-with-Carbon-Trading.

[17] ^^ CDM Watch, UN Under Pressure to Halt Gaming and Abuse of CDM.

[18] ^^ Carbon Trade Watch Carbon Trading in Africa: A Critical Review.

[19] ^^ Ribeiro, Silvia, REDD in the Lacandon Forest.

[20] ^^ Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, The Financialization of Nature.

[21] ^^ Harry, Debra and Kanehe, Le`a Mali, The BS in Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS): Critical Questions for Indigenous Peoples.

[22] ^^ Greenpeace, Patents on Life, “A dangerous wave of privatization of all biological diversity is presently taking place under the label of ‘intellectual property rights’, i.e. patenting of plants, animals and individual parts of DNA”.

[23] ^^ Acción Ecologica et al, Finance for biodiversity is a “new face for capitalism”.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity www.teebweb.org.

[24] ^^ The Natural Capital Declaration. “The Natural Capital Declaration is a statement by the financial sector demonstrating our commitment at the Rio+20 Earth Summit to work towards integrating Natural Capital criteria into our financial products and services for the 21st century.”

[25] ^^ Green Bonds: Fixed Returns to Fix the Planet.

World Bank Green Bonds. “World Bank Green Bonds are an opportunity to invest in climate solutions through a high quality credit fixed income product.”

[26] ^^ Species Banking

[27] ^^ Consortium for the Barcode of Life.

[28] ^^ ITTO and Indonesian Government Launch REDD Partnership.

[29] ^^ Mining Industry and IUCN The World Conservation Union Announce Partnership on Mining and Biodiversity.

International Indian Treaty Council Open Letter.

[30] ^^ IUCN-Shell collaborative partnership agreement: Overview.

[31] ^^ Shell bankrolls REDD Indigenous Peoples and environmentalists denounce.

[32] ^^ Rio Tinto, an international mining company infamous for violating human rights and causing environmental destruction, promotes REDD. Accordingly, “REDD is used as an economic tool to offset the carbon footprint of Rio Tinto.” Extractive Industries and REDD – Sinning then praying evens the score or How to legitimize pillaging and destruction.

IUCN – Rio Tinto Facilitated Workshop Summary

“Carbon Conservation signed a REDD-deal with Rio Tinto in 2007”.

The Financial Costs of REDD.

Rio Tinto: Global Compact Violador.

Rio Tinto: A Shameful history of Human and Labour Rights Abuses.

[33] ^^ No REDD Reader.

[34] ^^ Indigenous Environmental Network, REDD= Reaping profits from Evictions, land grabs, Deforestation and Destruction of Biodiversity Plus Plantations and GMO Trees.

[35] ^^  Abya Yala Nexus, Carbon Trading Violates Indigenous Peoples Rights.

“This could result in the biggest land grab of all time. It will inevitably promote privatization of forests and soils through carbon markets. This could commodify almost the entire surface of the Earth,” said Hortencia Hidalgo of the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples.

[36] ^^  Econexus, Agriculture and Soils in Carbon Trading.

[37] ^^ REDD Monitor, News from the Conference of Polluters (Durban, COP 17). Executive Secretary to the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, told delegates gathered at Forest Day on 4 December, that “The governments of the world are writing a global business plan for the planet, […] and REDD is its spiritual core.”

[38] ^^  World Rainforest Movement, Basureros de Carbono Japoneses en Australia.

Lohmann, Larry, Marketing and Making Carbon Dumps: Commodification, Calculation and Counterfactuals in Climate Change Mitigation.

[39] ^^  The Guardian (2011), “Ugandan farmer: ‘My land gave me everything. Now I’m one of the poorest’”.

Wall Street Journal (2011), “African Land Acquisitions Comes Under Scrutiny”.

New York Times (2011), “In Uganda, Losing Land to Planted Trees—Slide Show”.

New York Times, “In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out”.

[40] ^^ PBS/Frontline World, Carbon Watch, Centre for Investigative Journalism.

REDD Monitor, Injustice on the carbon frontier in Guaraqueçaba, Brazil.

Mother Jones, “GM’s Money Trees”.

National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, Fall 2011, “Conversations with the Earth”.

World Rainforest Movement, “Forest carbon project in Paraná, Brazil: Reduction of deforestation and persecution of local communities”.

[41] ^^ AIDESEP (National Organization of the Amazonian Indigenous Peoples of Peru), Declaración de Iquitos.

REDD Papers—Volume I (2011), “Colonizing territories with REDD: An Australian ‘Carbon Cowboy’ and the Matsés People in the Peruvian Amazon”.

REDD Monitor, AIDESEP and COICA condemn and reject ‘carbon cowboy’ and demand his expulsion from Peru.

REDD Monitor (2011), A ‘carbon cowboy,’ internet censorship and REDD-Monitor, and

‘Carbon cowboy’ [CENSORED] denounces indigenous chief in Peru.

NO REDD: A Reader (2010), “Enclosure of forests and peoples: REDD and the Inter-Oceanic Highway in Peru,” http://noredd.makenoise.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/REDDreaderEN.pdf

[42] ^^  International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests (2007), Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change: Vulnerabilities, Adaptation, and Responses to Mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, Makelo, S.,The DRC Case Study: The Impacts of the “Carbon Sinks of Ibi-Batéké” Project on the Indigenous Pygmies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, p.45-74, especially 62-64.

McLean, Kristy Gallowy, Advance Guard, Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, Mitigation and Indigenous Peoples, p. 45,

World Bank, DRC Ibi Bateke Carbon Sink Plantation.

World Bank documents claim no Indigenous Peoples affected on pages 4 and 8.

Four million dollar investment from World Bank Carbon Finance.

Forest Carbon Inventory Project.

Reuters: World Bank to buy carbon credit from Congo Project.

World Bank Inspection Panel, Request for Inspection from Pygmy Organization for harm caused by World Bank funding to forestry sector in DRC.

[43] ^^  Friends of the Earth International, In the REDD, Australia’s Carbon Offset Projects in Central Kalimantan.

[44] ^^  Also see Identifying Violations of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights by REDD-type Projects- A Quick Reference Guide to Indigenous Peoples Rights in UNDRIPs, in No REDD Papers, vol. 1.

[45] ^^ UN-REDD Framework Document, p. 4-5.

A Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP) Policy Brief, Based on the report “Making REDD Work for the Poor”, (Peskett et al, 2008). PEP includes UNDP, UNEP, IUCN, OCI, SIDA, ADB, DFID, WCMC.

[46] ^^  Mugo Mugo , Patrick Africa for Sale: The Land Grab Landmine. “Professor Noble, a research associate in food security and community development, blames the land rush on the increasing demand to acquire fertile land by a corporate global minority seeking bio-fuel crops and the new frontier; the need for carbon credits has now turned into a lucrative business.”

[47] ^^  “Existing large-scale plantations in Niassa and Nampula are also taking advantage of REDD+ and the Clean Development Mechanism, by seeking to certify the plantations as carbon sinks.” International Institute for Environment and Development, Nhantumbo, Isilda, REDD+ in Mozambique: new opportunity for land grabbers?

[48] ^^ Rights and Resources International, African land grabs hinder sustainable development. “Of the 203 million hectares of land deals reported worldwide between 2000 and 2010, two-thirds were in Africa. The acquisitions are dispossessing millions of Africans of their land, to make way for expansive forestry and mineral projects and plantations…”“The global report shows the scale of the issue as never before: three-quarters of Africa’s population and two-thirds of the landscape are at risk,” says Andy White, who coordinates the RRI.” “But international efforts at sustainable development are also threatening these areas. Biofuels are made from crops that are often planted on former forest or marsh land, and carbon-offset projects can result in the eviction of inhabitants of wooded areas that are bought up in exchange for carbon credits. Although the official carbon market made little progress in last year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, the voluntary carbon market is still dispossessing local custodians of their lands. For example, Green Resources, a forestry company based in Oslo, has bought up hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests in Mozambique, threatening the food security and livelihoods of local populations by denying them access to their traditional lands and food sources. The company has also expanded to Uganda, Tanzania and southern Sudan. A Dutch firm’s carbon-offset project in Uganda’s Mount Elgon National Park became unmarketable after sustained conflict with local farmers who contest the group’s right to the land.”

[49] ^^  “REDD+ is now driving a race for land in Mozambique…The map below represents areas where a company with British capital wants to ‘invest’ in REDD+ projects. The total area identified is 150 000 Km2, equivalent to 15 million ha or 19% of the country’s surface. The selection of areas for this private ‘investment’ was based on the proposed REDD+ pilots… Am I witnessing the creation of generations of landless people in Mozambique and Africa in general?” International Institute for Environment and Development, Nhantumbo, Isilda, REDD+ in Mozambique: new opportunity for land grabbers?

[50] ^^  McAfee, Kathleen, The Contradictory Logic of Global Ecosystem Services Markets. “Application in international conservation policy of the market model, in which profit incentives depend upon differential opportunity costs, will entail a net upward redistribution of wealth from poorer to wealthier classes and from rural regions to distant centres of capital accumulation, mainly in the global North.”

Bracking, Sarah, How do Investors Value Environmental Harm/Care? Private Equity Funds, Development Finance Institutions and the Partial Financialization of Nature-based Industries. “Private equity funds, mostly domiciled in secrecy jurisdictions, are dominant investors in the resource-based economies of Africa. Some of the investments that these funds make have been speculative and based on perceived high-value ‘futures’ in biodiversity, bio-fuels and land, carbon capture or strategic minerals. However, private equity funds are also heavily invested in mining, energy and infrastructure, which also generate wealth from the non-human world; ‘old’ markets alongside the ‘new’ markets for discovered nature-based commodities…[T]hese calculative devices assist in legitimizing private equity funds as institutional leaders in pre-existing power structures which exploit natural resources in Africa for the benefit of money-holders. These propositions roughly correspond to the technical, empirical and theoretical dimensions of a socio-technical arrangement applying to nature-based accumulation, which, overall, performs a political process of financialization.”

[51] ^^  “The mere prospect of deforestation credits being recognized in a new US climate bill has been enough to spark a REDD land grab in Central Africa.” Point Carbon, Firms Targets US Buyers with African REDD credits, 20 July 2009 http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.1166150

Massive carbon scam alleged in Liberia. “Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf established a commission investigate a proposed forest carbon credit deal between the West African nation’s Forest Development Authority (FDA) and UK-based Carbon Harvesting Corporation, reports Global Witness… which aimed to secure around a fifth of Liberia’s total forest area — 400,000 hectares — in a forest carbon concession. Police in London arrested Mike Foster, CEO of Carbon Harvesting Corporation, last week.”

[52] ^^ The Incineration of Africa.

[53] ^^ United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Workshop:Effects of Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples – A Pacific Presentation, Fiu Mataese Elisara, Executive Director, OLSSI, Samoa.

[54] ^^  Nersessian, David, “Rethinking Cultural Genocide under International Law”.

[55] ^^ Farming Carbon Credits: A Con for Africa, The Many Faces of Climate Smart Agriculture.

Two Pluses Don’t Make a Positive: REDD and Agriculture.

[56] ^^  Smolker, Rachel, BiofuelWatch, Climate Smart Agriculture and the World Bank: A Winning Team (for someone…).

[57] ^^  ETC Group, Gene Giants Stockpile Patents on “Climate-Ready” Crops in Bid to Become Biomassters.

[58] ^^ Brunner, Keith, UN Intersessional Report: How will the Green Economy affect women? The “green economy”… will exacerbate already growing gender violence, urban migration and loss of traditional skills and knowledge amongst women, with women in the Global South being hit the hardest.” According to Isis Alvarez of the Global Forest Coalition, “Biodiversity and the environment turned into marketable goods seems to be the current approach to conservation. And markets necessarily need privatization. But what are the consequences for women, if a resource which used to be accessible is now privatized? Women usually provide their families with key resources for their livelihoods, such as fuelwood, medicinal plants, fodder, food, nuts, they collect seeds, so biodiversity means everything to them, as they depend on the non-monetary benefits of biodiversity… [In] the majority of Payment for Ecosystem Services schemes, such as forest carbon schemes under the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation program, men often negotiate the deals, and women, due to language skills and other reasons, are left out of the process. Women cannot assume the high costs of certifying forests and other ecosystems through these schemes. [Furthermore], when forest-dependent peoples are excluded from traditional territories due to newly implemented conservation zones, it is often the women- especially single women- who must move to the cities to find work, which can mean prostitution in some areas.”

Global Forest Coalition, REDD versus people – The impact of REDD and other market mechanisms on women.

Alvarez, Isis, WOMEN’S CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON GREEN ECONOMY, “Potential Impacts on Women from the Proposed Expansion of the ‘Bioeconomy’ and the Need for Appropriate Support for Sustainable Initiatives”.

[59] ^^  Abya Yala Nexus, Carbon Trading Violates Indigenous Peoples Rights.

Sommer, Rebecca, Brazil: Munudurku Chief Clarifies REDD Contract Farse with Celestial Green Ventures.

“Over 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity is found within Indigenous peoples’ lands and territories Indigenous peoples represent approximately 350 million individuals in the world and make up approximately 90% of the world’s cultural diversity. We use our highly specialized, traditional knowledge to care for and conserve the interconnected web or ‘Circle of Life’ known as ‘biodiversity.’” Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism.

[60] ^^ UNEP, Blue Carbon.

[61] ^^ Social aspects of plantations development: the rights and welfare of plantations workers, Joint statement by the World Rainforest Movement and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Cattering, Tobaco and Allied Workers’ Association to the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests at its third session in Geneva, 9-20 September 1996.

[62] ^^  The Guardian, “Brazilian judge orders construction of Amazon dam to stop”.

[63] ^^ ETC Group, The New Biomassters – Synthetic Biology and The Next Assault on Biodiversity and Livelihoods.

[64] ^^  ETC Group, Nature Communications article shows ‘true colours’ of biochar advocates: Groups condemn implied land-grab for biochar.

[65] ^^ Huntington News, Launch of Indigenous Peoples Guide – False Solutions to Climate Change.

¡No REDD+! en RIO+20 – Una Declaración para Descolonizar la Tierra y el CieloAlianza Mundial de Pueblos Indígenas y Comunidades Locales sobre Cambio Climático en contra de REDD+

Después de más de 500 años de resistencia, nosotros, los Pueblos Indígenas, las comunidades locales y las y los campesinos y pescadores y la sociedad civil no nos dejamos engañar por la llamada Economía Verde y REDD+ porque reconocemos el colonialismo cuando lo vemos. Independientemente de los disfraces cínicos y sus mentiras vergonzosas, el colonialismo siempre resulta en la violación y el saqueo de la Madre Tierra, y en la esclavitud, la muerte, la destrucción y el genocidio de sus pueblos. La Economía Verde y REDD+ de Río+20 constituyen un despojo del planeta apenas velado, malvado y colonialista que oponemos, denunciamos y resistimos. Río+20 no es una Cumbre de la Tierra, es la OMC de la Vida.[1]

Así como históricamente la Doctrina del Descubrimiento fue utilizada para justificar la primera ola del colonialismo pretendiendo que los Pueblos Indígenas no tenían almas, y ​​que nuestros territorios fueran “terra nullius”, tierra de nadie, ahora la Economía Verde y REDD+ están inventando similares premisas deshonestas para justificar esta nueva ola de colonialismo y privatización de la naturaleza. Pueblos indígenas y campesinos están siendo asesinados, reubicados forzosamente, criminalizados y culpados de provocar el cambio climático. Nuestra tierra está siendo calificada como “no utilizada”, “degradadas” o “requiriendo de conservación” y “reforestación”, para justificar despojos masivos de tierra para REDD+, proyectos de compensación de carbono y la biopiratería.

Pero, ¿de qué se trata la Economía Verde y REDD+? La Economía Verde es nada menos que el capitalismo de la naturaleza, un esfuerzo perverso de las grandes empresas, las industrias extractivas y los gobiernos para convertir en dinero toda la Creación mediante la privatización, mercantilización, y venta de lo Sagrado y todas las formas de vida, así como el cielo, incluyendo el aire que respiramos, el agua que bebemos y todos los genes, plantas, semillas criollas, árboles, animales, peces, diversidad biológica y cultural, ecosistemas y conocimientos tradicionales que hacen posible y disfrutable la vida sobre la Tierra.

La Economía Verde es el paraguas para todo tipo de maneras para vender la naturaleza, incluyendo REDD+, el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio, el comercio de carbono, el PSA (Pago por Servicios Ambientales), la financiarización de la naturaleza, el Régimen Internacional sobre Acceso a Recursos Genéticos, patentes sobre la vida, TEEB (La Economía de los Ecosistemas y la Biodiversidad), el capital natural, los bonos verdes, los bancos de la Vida y “alianzas” de estados y empresas con pueblos indígenas. Bajo la Economía Verde, incluso la lluvia, la belleza de una cascada o el polen de una abeja se reducirán a una etiqueta con un código de barras y se venderá al mejor postor. Al mismo tiempo, la Economía Verde promueve el “desarrollo sostenible” haciendo un “lavado verde” de las industrias extractivas ambiental y socialmente devastadoras tales como la maderería, la minería, y la explotación petrolera. Nada podría estar más lejos de la verdad.

REDD+, como el comercio de carbono y el Mecanismo de Desarrollo Limpio, es una falsa solución al cambio climático promovida por las Naciones Unidas, el Banco Mundial y los criminales del clima, tales como la petrolera Shell y la minera Rio Tinto, que permite a los contaminadores continuar quemando los combustibles fósiles y no reducir sus emisiones en el lugar de origen. Oficialmente, REDD+ quiere decir Reducción de Emisiones por Deforestación y Degradación forestal. Pero, en verdad REDD+ significa Rápido Enriquecimiento con Desalojos, usurpación de tierras y Destrucción de la biodiversidad. REDD+ constituye un despojo mundial de tierras y una estafa gigantesca de compensaciones de carbono.

Al principio, REDD sólo incluía los bosques y las plantaciones, pero su alcance ha sido ampliado hasta incluir árboles transgénicos, los suelos y la agricultura. Con el tiempo, REDD+ puede tratar a incluir y expropiar toda la superficie de la Tierra, incluyendo la mayoría de los bosques, los suelos, los campos, los llanos, los desiertos, los humedales, los manglares, las algas marinas y los océanos para usarlos como esponja para la contaminación de los países industrializados. REDD+ es también el pilar de la Economía Verde y ha sido celebrado de una forma irreverente como “la parte espiritual medular” del “plan de negocios” que los gobiernos del mundo están escribiendo para el planeta. REDD+ convierte las fuentes de vida de la Tierra en basureros de carbono; convierte el vientre de Nuestra Madre Tierra en tumbas. ¡Pero no vamos a permitir que eso pase!

Tal vez la Economía Verde se llama verde porque ese es el color del dólar, y tal vez REDD+ fue bautizado así porque rojo es el color de la sangre. Pregunta a Olivia Mukamperezida, la madre de Friday, un niño de ocho años de edad, de Uganda, que, según The New York Times, murió cuando su casa fue quemada y más de 22.000 pequeños agricultores con títulos de propiedad fueron desalojados violentamente de una plantación de carbono forestal. Pregunta al campesino Antonio Alves, que fue perseguido, arrestado a punta de pistola y encarcelado durante 11 días por la Fuerza Verde, los guardias armados del proyecto REDD+ de Chevron en Brasil, por talar un árbol para reparar las goteras del techo de su mamá. Pregunta al jefe tradicional Daniel Jiménez del Pueblo Matsés de la Amazonía peruana contra quien levantaron cargos penales por defender a su pueblo de un contrato engañoso de REDD+ que estaba escrito en un idioma extranjero que daba al comerciante de carbono el control total sobre la selva y forma de vida de los Matsés, para siempre. Pregunta al Pueblo Batwa Pigmeo quienes han sufrido servidumbre en la plantación de Carbono Forestal Ibi-Batéké del Banco Mundial, en la República Democrática del Congo. Pregunta al Pueblo Ngaju Dayak de Indonesia que han denunciado el proyecto REDD+ de Kalimantan, porque genera conflictos y viola su derecho al consentimiento libre, previo e informado consagrado en la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas.

Estos ejemplos nos ayudan a no ser engañados por las mentiras vergonzosas y la propaganda burda que tratan de esconder la verdad sobre REDD+. Sabemos que REDD+ no se trata de salvar el clima, ni de proteger los bosques, ni de erradicar la pobreza, ni de la distribución de los “beneficios” ni del empoderamiento de las mujeres. Incluso las propias Naciones Unidas reconoce que REDD+ podría resultar en el “la clausura de bosques”, “pérdida de la tierra”, “conflicto por los recursos”, “nuevos riesgos para los pobres” y “marginar a los sin tierra.”

De hecho, todos los impactos negativos de REDD+ que la ONU había previsto ya están ocurriendo. Por ejemplo, en África, REDD+, los bonos de carbono, los agrocombustibles y los cultivos de exportación, están impulsando grandes despojos de tierra. Además, en vista de que REDD+ ahora incluye plantaciones y la agricultura, las plantaciones ya existentes, así como los agrocombustibles y cultivos de exportación pronto podrían convertirse también en proyectos de compensación de carbono. Los expertos están advirtiendo que tres cuartas partes de la población de África y dos terceras partes de sus tierras están en riesgo de ser despojados y que REDD+ puede crear “generaciones de personas sin tierra.” En África, REDD+ se está perfilando como una nueva forma de colonialismo, de subyugación económica y un impulsor de despojos de tierra tan masivos que podría constituir un despojo del continente.

Mientras tanto, la falta de acción sobre el cambio climático, enmascarado por las falsas soluciones como REDD+, está permitiendo que la temperatura de la Tierra aumente 2° Centígrados o más, lo que efectivamente derrite el Ártico, quema África y ahoga el Pacífico. Nueve países están desapareciendo bajo las olas por el aumento en el nivel del mar en el Pacífico, donde el 90% de la población es indígena. Esto constituye un racismo climático y genocidio cultural a una escala sin antecedentes.

Desafortunadamente, REDD+ afecta a todas las regiones del mundo y todos los sectores sociales. Para las y los campesinos de todo el mundo, REDD+ constituye una contra-reforma agraria y pervierte la tarea de cultivar alimentos a “cultivar carbono”. La llamada “Agricultura Climática Inteligente” no es inteligente, es tonta. Además, las llamadas semillas “listas para el clima” y otras supuestas soluciones climáticas transgénicas son simplemente más intentos de Monsanto, la industria de la biotecnología y el agronegocio para deformar, patentar y controlar nuestras semillas, despojándonos de nuestros campos y convirtiéndonos en peones sin tierra, obligados por contrato.

Si se aplica un análisis de género a REDD+, es claro que REDD+ también constituye una nueva forma de violencia contra las mujeres, porque limita o prohíbe el acceso de las mujeres a la tierra donde cultivamos, recolectamos alimentos y agua para alimentar y quitar la sed de nuestras familias. De igual forma, para los Pueblos Indígenas, REDD+ amenaza nuestra sobrevivencia cultural y es potencialmente genocida debido a que los impulsores de REDD+ quieren expropiar y controlar la mayoría de los bosques y el 80% de la biodiversidad del mundo, que se encuentra en nuestras tierras y territorios. Para las y los pescadores y las comunidades costeras, REDD+ Azul, es decir hacer REDD+ en los mares y aguas dulces, podría limitar profundamente nuestra pesca, así socavando nuestro sustento y forma de vida. En cuanto a los trabajadores, sabemos que los empleos generados por plantaciones tipo-REDD+ suelen ser menos que los prometidos, los salarios bajos y las condiciones laborales raquíticas, el derecho a sindicalizarse frecuentemente violado y el contacto con pesticidas altamente cancerígenos común.

Pero REDD+ no es solamente nocivo para los adultos. Para la niñez, la juventud y las futuras generaciones, REDD+ y otras falsas soluciones al cambio climático, tales como los mega-proyectos como las represas hidroeléctricas como Belo Monte, los agrocombustibles, el carbón “limpio”, la energía nuclear, el gas natural, fracturamiento hidráulico, la nanotecnología, la biología sintética, la bioenergía, la biomasa, el biochar y la geo-ingeniería, ponen en peligro el futuro y la vida tal como la conocemos. En lugar de ayudar a reducir el calentamiento global, ellos envenenan y destruyen el medio ambiente y deja que la crisis climática aumente exponencialmente, lo que puede dejar el planeta prácticamente inhabitable.

No podemos permitir que las falsas soluciones al cambio climático como REDD+ y la Economía Verde destruyan el equilibrio de la Tierra, asesinen a las estaciones, desencadenen el caos del mal tiempo, privaticen la vida y amenacen la supervivencia de la humanidad. REDD+ y la Economía Verde son crímenes de lesa común contra la humanidad y la Tierra. Sin embargo, nos negamos a ser los condenados de la Tierra y a permitir que la Tierra sea condenada.

Haciéndole caso a la sabiduría de nuestros ancianos y a las profecías de nuestros ancestros, lanzamos este llamado de ¡No REDD+! en Rio+20 y los invitamos a unirse con nosotros y sembrar esta semilla en la conciencia de los pueblos del mundo. La Madre Tierra, herida y convulsionándose por las fiebres provocadas por la contaminación, nos está suplicando cambiar de paradigmas. Solo un sendero que:
Rechaza REDD+ y la Economía Verde;

• Descoloniza la vida, la tierra y el cielo;
• Respeta los derechos humanos;
• Garantiza los derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas;
• Honra a la Madre Tierra y
• Proteja lo Sagrado,

salvará el mundo y nos permitirá lograr el Buen Vivir y crear “el futuro que queremos.”

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[1] ^^ Pies de páginas disponibles con todas las referencias en la versión de inglés.

Não ao REDD+! na RIO+20 – Uma Declaração para Descolonizar a Terra e o Céu
Aliança Global dos Povo Indigénas e Comunidades Locais sobre Mudança Climática contra o REDD+Depois de mais que 500 anos de resistência, nós, os Povos Indígenas, as comunidades locais, camponeses e pescadores, e a sociedade civil, não estamos enganados pela assim-chamada Economia Verde e o REDD+, porque reconhecemos o colonialismo quando o vemos. Não obstante seus disfarces cínicos e mentiras vergonhosas, o colonialismo sempre resulta na violação e saque da Mãe Terra, na escravidão, na morte, na destruição, e no genocídio de seus povos. A Economia Verde da Rio+20 e o REDD+ constituem uma grilagem colonialista do planeta, mal disfarçada e maligna, que opomos, denunciamos e resistimos. Rio+20 não é uma Cúpula da Terra, é o OMC da Vida.[1]

Do mesmo modo que a ‘descobrimento’ foi utilizado para justificar a primeira onda de colonialismo, alegando que os Povos Indígenas não tinham almas, e que nossos territórios eram “terra nullius”, terra de ninguém, agora a Economia Verde e o REDD+ estão inventando uma premissa, também desonesta, para justificar essa nova onda de colonização e privatização da natureza. Os povos indígenas e os camponeses estão sendo assassinados, deslocados a força, criminalizados, e culpados pela mudança climática. Nossa terra está sendo classificada como “desocupada”, “degradada”, ou precisando de “conservação” e “reflorestamento”, para justificar grilagens massivas em nome de REDD+, de projetos de compensação de carbono e da biopirataria.

Mas, o que são exatamente a Economia Verde e o REDD+? A Economia Verde nada mais é do que o capitalismo da natureza; uma tentativa perversa de empresas, indústrias extrativas e governos, para tirar lucros da Natureza através da privatização, comercialização e venda do Sagrado, do céu, e de todas as formas de vida, inclusive o ar que respiramos, a água que bebemos e todos os genes, plantas, sementes tradicionais, árvores, animais, peixes, diversidade biológica e cultural, ecossistemas e conhecimentos tradicionais que fazem a vida na Terra possível e agradável.

A Economia Verde é um projeto guarda-chuva que abrange todas as maneiras de vender a natureza, incluindo o REDD+, o Mecanismo do Desenvolvimento Limpo, o comércio de carbono, PSA (Pagamento por Serviços Ambientais), a comercialização da natureza, o Regime Internacional sobre Acesso aos Recursos Genéticos, patentes sobre o ser vivo, TEEB (A Economia dos Ecossistemas e da Biodiversidade), o Capital Natural, bonos verdes, bancos de espécies, e “parcerias“ de governos e empresas (PPPs) com povos indígenas. Na Economia Verde até a chuva, a beleza de uma cachoeira ou o pólen carregado por uma abelha seriam reduzidos a um código de barras e vendidos a quem fizer amelhor oferta. Ao mesmo tempo, a Economia Verde promove e “pinta de verde” as indústrias extrativas, como madeireiras, mineradoras, e indústrias petroleiras, que produzem efeitos ambientais e sociais devastadores em nome do “desenvolvimento sustentável”. Nada poderia estar mais longe da verdade.

Como o comércio de carbono e o Mecanismo de Desenvolvimento Limpo, o REDD+ é uma solução falsa para a mudança climática promovida pelas Nações Unidas, o Banco Mundial e os criminosos climáticos, como a Shell e a Rio Tinto. Esse comércio permite que os poluidores continuem queimando combustíveis fosseis sem reduzir suas emissões nos pontos de origem. Oficialmente, o REDD+ significa Redução de Emissões por Desmatamento e Degradação florestal. Mas, o REDD++ realmente significa Recolhendo lucros através de Expulsões, grilagem, Desmatamento e a Destruição da biodiversidade. REDD+ constitui grilagem em escala global e um gigante golpe de compensação de carbono.

Originalmente, o REDD incluía apenas florestas e plantações, mas foi expandido para incluir árvores transgênicos, solos e agricultura. Por fim, o REDD+ poderia incluir e expropriar toda a superfície da Terra, inclusive a maioria das florestas, solos, campos, savanas, desertos, pântanos, mangues, algas marinas e oceanos, visando usá-los como esponjas para a poluição dos países industrializados. REDD+ também é o pilar da Economia Verde, sendo louvado absurdamente como “o coração espiritual” do “plano de negócios” que os governos do mundo estão escrevendo para o planeta. REDD+ transforma as fontes da vida na Terra em aterros de carbono; transforma os úteros do planeta em túmulos. Mas nós não vamos deixar isso acontecer!

Talvez a Economia Verde seja chamada de verde porque esta é a cor do dólar e talvez o REDD+ [red=vermelho em inglês] foi titulado assim em antecipação das suas consequências sangrentas. Pergunte à Olivia Mukamperezida, a mãe de Friday, um menino de oito anos da Uganda que, segundo o New York Times, morreu quando sua casa foi reduzida à cinzas enquanto 22.000 pequenos agricultores com escrituras foram violentamente expulsos por uma plantação de compensação de carbono. Pergunte ao agricultor Antônio Alves, que foi perseguido, detido a ponto de arma, e preso por 11 dias pela Força Verde, os guardas armados do projeto REDD+ da Chevron no Brasil, por cortar uma árvore para consertar o teto da casa de sua mãe. Pergunte ao Cacique Daniel Jiménez do povo Matsés da Amazônia peruana que foi criminalizado por defender seu povo perante um contrato explorador,escrito em uma língua estrangeira, que deu um comerciante de carbono controle total e perpétuo sobre a floresta e os meios de vida Mastés. Pergunte ao povo Pigmeu Batwa, submetidos à servidão na Plantação de Carbono Florestal Ibi-Batéké, um projeto do Banco Mundial na República Democrata do Congo. Pergunte ao povo NgajuDayak da Indonésia que denunciou o projeto REDD+ Kalimantan por gerar conflitos e violar seus direitos ao consentimento livre, prévio e informado, uma parte consagrada da Declaração dos Direitos dos Povos Indígenas da ONU.

Esses exemplos revelam as mentiras escandalosas e a propaganda usadas para esconder as verdades sobre o REDD+. Sabemos que o REDD+ não tem nada a ver com a salvação do clima, nem com a proteção das florestas, nem com a eliminação da pobreza, nem com a distribuição dos “benefícios”, nem com a capacitação das mulheres. Até a ONU admite que o REDD+ poderia resultar no “fechamento das florestas”, “a perda das terras”, “conflitos por recursos”, “novos riscos para os pobres” e “marginalização dos sem-terras”.

Na verdade, todos os impactos negativos do REDD+ que a ONU previu já estão acontecendo. Por exemplo, na África o REDD+, os créditos de carbono, os agrocombustíveis, e o cultivo para exportação estão impulsando enormes grilagens. Além disso, considerando que o REDD+ agora inclui plantações e agricultura, as plantações existentes, os agrocombustíveis e o cultivo para exportação poderiam se transformar em projetos de compensação de carbono. Os especialistas estão avisando que na África, três quartos da população e dois terços da terra estão sob ameaça, e o REDD+ poderia criar “gerações de sem terras”. Na África, o REDD+ está emergindo como uma nova forma de colonialismo, subjugação econômica, e como condutor de grilagens tão massivas que poderiam ser considerados como a expropriação de um continente.

Enquanto isso, a falta de ação sobre a mudança climática, mascarada por soluções falsas como o REDD+, está permitindo a temperatura da Terra subir por 2 graus ou mais, que efetivamentederrete o Ártico, queima a África e inunda o Pacífico. Nove países estão desaparecendo por baixo das ondas enquanto o nível do mar sobe no Pacífico, onde 90% da população é indígena. Isso é racismo climático e genocídio cultural numa escala sem precedente.

Infelizmente, o REDD+ afeta todas as regiões do mundo e todos os setores sociais. Para os pequenos agricultores, o REDD+ constitui uma contra reforma agrária mundial, distorcendo a tarefa de cultivar alimentos em “agricultura de carbono”. “Agricultura Climática Inteligente” não é inteligente, é estúpida. Além do mais, sementes “climaticamente prontas” e outras supostas soluções climáticas transgênicas são simplesmente novas tentativas por parte da Monsanto, da indústria de biotecnologia, e do agronegócio de deformar, patentear, e controlar nossas sementes, agarrar nossos campos e transformar-nos em peões escravos sem terra.

Aplicando um análise de gênero ao REDD+, fica claro que o REDD+ também é uma nova forma de violência contra mulheres, porque limita ou proíbe o acesso das mulheres às terras onde cultivamos, colhemos comida, e tiramos agua para alimentar e saciar nossas famílias. Da mesma maneira, para os povos indígenas, o REDD+ ameaça nossa sobrevivência cultural e poderia ser considerado genocídio, porque os proponentes do REDD+ querem expropriar e controlar a maioria das florestas e 80% da biodiversidade do mundo que se encontram nas nossas terras e territórios. Para pescadores e comunidades litorâneas, o REDD+ Azul, quer dizer que projetos de REDD+ nos oceanos e águas doces, poderia limitar profundamente nossa pesca, assim subvertendo nosso sustento e meio de vida. Para os trabalhadores, sabemos que os empregos criados por projetos de plantações tipo-REDD+ tendem de ser menos que o prometido, os salários e condições de trabalho péssimos, o direito de formar sindicatos frequentemente violado, e a exposição aos pesticidas carcinogênicos alta.

Mas o REDD++ não é destrutivo apenas para adultos. Para crianças, jovens e futuras gerações, o REDD+ e outras falsas soluções à mudança climática, como grandes hidroelétricas como Belo Monte, agrocombustíveis, carvão “limpo”, energia nuclear, gás natural, nanotecnologia, biologia sintética, bioenergia, biomassa, biochar e geo-engenharia, colocam em perigo o futuro e a vida como conhecemos. Em vez de ajudar a reduzir o aquecimento global, eles envenenam e destroem o meio ambiente e permitem que a crise climática aumente descontroladamente, o que poderia deixar o planeta praticamente inabitável.

Nós não podemos permitir que as falsas soluções à mudança climática como o REDD+ e a Economia Verde acabem com o equilíbrio da Terra, assassinem as estações do ano, desencadeiem um caos climático, privatizem a vida e ameacem a verdadeira sobrevivência da humanidade. O REDD+ e a Economia Verde são crimes contra a humanidade e a Terra. Mesmo assim, nós não seremos os condenados da Terra e não permitiremos que a Terra seja condenada.

Atendendo à sabedoria dos nossos anciões e às profecias dos nossos ancestrais, lançamos esse apelo a dizer Não ao REDD+! na Rio+20 e convidamos vocês a se juntarem conosco para plantar essa semente na consciência dos povos do mundo. A Mãe Terra, ferida e atormentada por febres induzidas pela poluição, nos implora à mudar os paradigmas. Apenas um caminho que:

• Rejeita o REDD++ e a Economia Verde como privatização da natureza;
• Descoloniza a vida, a terra e o céu;
• Defende a vida e a liberdade;
• Respeita os direitos humanos y
• Garante os direitos dos Povos Indígenas;
• Honra a Mãe Terra e
• Protege o Sagrado,

poderia salvar o mundo e nos permitir a viver bem e criar o “futuro que queremos”.

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[1] ^^ Pies de páginas com todas as referencias disponibleis na versão em ingles.