INDIGENOUS PEOPLES X CLIMATE CHANGE
This is an information hub sharing relevant facts, figures, and news articles which demonstrate how Indigenous communities are leading our fight against climate change.
THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
By United Nations Development Programme
1. WHEREVER WE LIVE, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE OUR NEIGHBOURS
There are an estimated 370-500 million indigenous people in the world, spread across 90 countries. They live in all geographic regions and represent 5,000 different cultures.
2. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE KEY TO THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
From protecting the environment tacking inequality to ensuring peace and security, the Sustainable Development Goals won’t be achieved without indigenous people.
3. INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES LEAD ON PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT
Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of living. Nearly 70 million indigenous women and men depend on forests for their livelihoods, and many more are farmers, hunter gatherers or pastoralists.
These communities thrive by living in harmony with their surroundings. Research shows that where indigenous groups have control of the land, forests and biodiversity flourishes.
4. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES ARE FIGHTING CLIMATE CHANGE EVERY DAY
Indigenous communities’ contribution to fighting climate change are far greater than previously thought. Their forestlands store at least one quarter of all above-ground tropical forest carbon – about 55 trillion metric tonnes. This is equivalent to four times the total global carbon emissions in 2014. Given that data isn’t available for all the lands native communities manage around the world, the actual impact is far greater.
“The Inuit have been bringing forth warnings about global warming to the international community since the first Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992”
- Kuupik Kleist, former prime minister of Greenland.
TIMELINE
Indigenous peoples’ contributions and knowledge surrounding conservation have been increasingly recognized over the past two decades...
2007
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Today the Declaration is the most comprehensive international instrument on the rights of indigenous peoples. It establishes a universal framework of minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world and it elaborates on existing human rights standards and fundamental freedoms as they apply to the specific situation of indigenous peoples.
2016
American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Many of the provisions of the American Declaration use identical or nearly identical language to provisions in the UN Declaration. This further underlines the significance of these provisions. In some instances, provisions in the American Declaration provides further additional elaboration of state responsibilities in respect to rights affirmed in both instruments. There are also provisions in the American Declaration that address concerns that were not included in the UN Declaration.
2018
Indigenous Peoples Policy, Green Climate Fund
This GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy recognises that indigenous peoples often have identities and aspirations that are distinct from mainstream groups in national societies and are disadvantaged by traditional models of mitigation, adaptation and development.
The Policy will assist GCF in incorporating considerations related to indigenous peoples into its decision-making while working towards the goals of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
THE INDIGENOUS LEADERS WHO ARE PAVING THE WAY...
NEMONTE NEQUIMO
Leader of the Waorani and Activist, Ecuador
In February 2019, the Waorani filed suit against the Ecuadorian government, claiming officials failed to consult with them before offering huge swaths of the Amazon rainforest to oil companies. A decision in April of that year in the Pastaza Provincial Court was historic, protecting 500,000 acres of Waorani territory in the rainforest from exploitation.
“As indigenous people we must unite in a single objective: that we demand that they respect us,” said Nenquimo. “The Amazon is our home and it is not for sale.”
- UN Environmental Programme
YACOUBA SAWADOGO
Sahel Restoration Farmer and Zaï Specialist, Burkina Faso
Sawadogo, known locally as “the man who stopped the desert”, modified a traditional cultivation practice called Zaï, which allows crops to grow in pits that trap rainfall, even in regions beset by water shortages. His technique, now nearly four decades old, is used by farmers across a 6,000-kilometre stretch of Africa.
“People were leaving, and the animals and trees were dying,” said Sawadogo. “So, we had to look at a new way to farm because, all of the good soil was disappearing, and if we stayed here doing nothing, our life was at risk.”
- UN Environmental Programme
HINDOU OUMAROU IBRAHIM
Activist, Chad
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, from the Mbororo pastoralist community in Chad, has spent the past 10 years working to bridge the gap “between the international decisions [on climate change] with the reality on the ground,” she says. “I want to tell people what it is like in my country.”
“Each year I am seeing resources shrinking, and my people are struggling for survival,” says Ibrahim. Leading up to the historic 2015 climate-change meetings in Paris, she was a key leader among indigenous groups that successfully lobbied to have their rights recognized, and she was selected to speak at the signing ceremony of the accords. Indigenous communities are among the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, but they can also offer solutions, says Ibrahim.
- TIME
