Indigenous Peoples' Climate Change Portal

Washington, D.C.—A new report, The Wheel of Life:  Food, Climate, Human Rights and the Economy, examines how major crises of our day—hunger, climate change, and more—are deeply interlinked.  Yet too often government and international institutions address these issues as if they are disconnected from one another.  Consequently, many policies do not fully tackle root causes and, as a result, global calamities can intensify.

The Tenth Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) Dialogue was held from Wednesday 7 to Thursday 8 September 2011 in The Hague, the Netherlands. The Dialogue was organized by RRI and Oxfam International, in collaboration with the IS Academy on Land Governance (LANDac) and EcoAgriculture Partners.

First let me pay my respects to the traditional owners of this land where we are holding this conference. I also thank the organizers for inviting me and letting me speak on this closing day of the conference. I found this to be a very significant and highly interesting conference. We heard stories and results of researches and studies of many individuals and interest groups from different countries. Some are from those who live in and depend on forests and others who have long histories of working on forest concerns. That this conference is here in Indonesia made it even more interesting. Our field trip yesterday showed us some of the realities which should be addressed as we work towards community tenure and governance.

AWG-LCA - Intervention
5 April 2011 Bangkok, Thailand

Representatives of Indigenous Peoples from all over the world attending this climate change talks collectively note with appreciation the reference made under the AWG-LCA of the Cancun Agreement on indigenous peoples. These are our long standing demands such as the respect for our rights including those contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the need for our full and effective participation; recognition and protection of our traditional knowledge as a basis for generating effective solutions to climate change. We also note the call under the REDD Plus Agreement that there is a need to address the drivers of deforestation land tenure issues and gender considerations.