Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners, a 2024 Equator Prize winner, fosters sustainable livelihoods and climate resilience in Kenya's Maasai pastoral community through programmes such as tree nurseries, beekeeping, and hay production, all while integrating Indigenous knowledge. Credit: UNDP Equator Initiative/Francisco Galeazzi

By Jamison Ervin and Anna Giulia Medri
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2024 (IPS)

This year’s Equator Prize winners are the antidote we need in a world of crisis. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum released its annual Risk Report. The key findings highlighted the inescapable trend over the past decade that we are facing a global polycrisis, in which problems of biodiversity loss, climate change, inequality, water scarcity and conflict are increasingly indivisible, simultaneous, and systemic.

The term polycrisis is increasingly starting to show up in global discourse. The Financial Times cited “polycrisis” as the ‘year in a word’ for 2023.

The linkages between nature and climate are particularly intertwined. If protected, restored and well-managed, nature can provide more than a third of our climate mitigation needs, and is essential to be able to adapt to climate impacts.

On the other hand, current practices of forestry, land conversion and conventional agriculture are responsible for up to a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. Simply put, there is no chance of achieving a 1.5C degree future without a reset in how we think about, value, and manage nature.

To tackle our nature and climate crisis, we need integrated, multi-faceted solutions that restore our planet, tackle climate change, and help people thrive. We need signposts — practical examples — to show how we can implement integrated solutions that protect and restore nature, keep carbon in the ground, buffer communities, and sustain livelihoods, water security and wellbeing.

Integrated solutions for nature and climate are especially critical for the more than three billion people who depend on nature directly for their livelihoods and daily needs, who are at the frontlines facing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss, and who are best positioned to effect local solutions.

The theme of this year’s Equator Prize was “Nature for Climate Action.” The 11 winners, selected from more than 600 nominations, exemplify the transformative potential of Indigenous and locally-led nature-based solutions in combating the climate crisis.

Hailing from Brazil, Bangladesh, Colombia, Iran, Kenya, Morocco, Senegal, and Zambia, they champion initiatives that not only protect, conserve, and restore ecosystems but also integrate nature into planning frameworks, enhance resilience to the impacts of climate change, and promote a fair, inclusive, and circular green economy.

In Brazil, the União dos Povos Indígenas do Vale do Javari, an Indigenous-led non-profit organization representing Brazil’s second largest Indigenous territory in the 8.5-million-hectare Javari Valley, is working to defend constitutional rights, preserve traditional knowledge, and safeguard their shared territory.

In Colombia, the Federación Mesa Nacional del Café (FEMNCAFÉ) comprises 28 coffee associations, championing the economic, social, and community reintegration of signatories of the Colombian peace agreement alongside local communities.

By reducing inequality among coffee farmers, democratizing technical knowledge, and promoting climate-resilient agriculture, they tackle agrarian disparity, stimulating rural economies, and confronting the challenges of climate change head-on.

In Kenya, the Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners (ILEPA) focuses on environmental conservation and sustainable development for the Maasai community, expanding land rights advocacy, addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, and promoting nature-based livelihoods.

And in Bangladesh, the Sundarbans Eco Village in Bangladesh, is restoring mangrove forests, securing fisheries livelihoods, expanding ecotourism and strengthening climate resilience.

The Equator Prize winners show the world how to implement integrated solutions that deliver on nature protection, restoration, and management, tackle our climate crisis, and attain local sustainable development goals. But we also have an unprecedented global opportunity to follow their lead.

Over the next 18 months, nearly every country will be refining both their national biodiversity plans and their national climate plans, with the opportunity to align these plans and make bold advances in both nature and climate.

If the ‘word in a year’ for 2023 was polycrisis, let’s hope that the ‘word in a year’ for 2025 is “polysolutions,” where at every level, from local to national to global, the world recognizes, champions and implements solutions, plans, commitments and actions that are integrated, multi-faceted and aligned, delivering on nature, climate and people.

This year’s Equator Prize winners are already showing us the way forward!

Jamison Ervin is Manager, Global Programme on Nature for Development, UNDP; Anna Giulia Medri is Senior Programme Officer, Equator Initiative, UNDP.

Source: UNDP

IPS UN Bureau

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Women with tree seedlings. Sunka Shea Women’s Cooperative is a women-led cooperative that is setting an example for sustainable commodity production through their shea butter production cooperative. © A Rocha International. The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is commemorated annually on August 9. Credit: Sunkpa Shea Women's Cooperative

By Jamison Ervin
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 8 2022 (IPS)

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, commemorated annually on August 9, is a day to celebrate the many contributions of the 476 million Indigenous peoples worldwide.

As the world grapples with a planetary crisis of both biodiversity loss and climate change, scientists and policy makers are racing to find viable solutions. Increasingly, they are recognizing that the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples could well provide cost-effective nature-based solutions.

For example, the authors of a recent national environmental assessment in Australia have for the first time recognized the importance of Indigenous knowledge in avoiding catastrophic fires; a new federal program in Canada provides funding for Indigenous coastal guardians, in recognition of their unique knowledge; and Indigenous knowledge of tiger behavior is helping avoid human-wildlife conflicts in Nepal.

This is a radical departure from the past, when the knowledge and efforts of Indigenous peoples has traditionally been marginalized or discredited.

The emerging recognition of the importance of Indigenous knowledge of the natural world is part of a broader dawning awareness that there are cracks in our global capitalist system – cracks that if allowed to continue to grow, pose an existential threat to humanity.

The front page headline from the Financial Times in 2019, “Capitalism. Time for a Reset,” summarizes what is needed – a profound transformation in the global status quo on how we protect, restore and manage natural resources, and a reset on our relationship with Indigenous peoples, especially women and youth.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Equator Prize, a UNDP-led partner initiative that recognizes Indigenous peoples and local communities from around the world who use sustainable nature-based solutions to achieve their local development needs.

Joining 264 winners from the past, among this year’s ten winners, selected from a pool of over 500 nominations from 109 countries, are several examples that illustrate the social and economic transformations needed to put Indigenous knowledge, and Indigenous women, at the forefront of a new pact with nature.

At the forefront of restoration knowledge

The Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu from Brazil brings together women from 25 Indigenous and agricultural communities to collect and commercialize over 220 different species of native seeds for large-scale ecological reforestation of the Amazon and the Cerrado.

In doing so, they have generated more than $700,000 in local incomes, financially empowering Indigenous women throughout the region. The organization also partners with local research institutions to exchange and blend local and technical knowledge, practices, and research to combat industrial agriculture and mass deforestation, seed by seed.

Restoration is a social and ecological imperative; the latest Global Land Outlook found that as much as 40% of the world’s lands are degraded. And while the global community has pledged to restore a billion hectares of degraded land by 2030, it is through the knowledge and action of community members such as those from the Associação Rede de Sementes do Xingu that can help make these pledges a reality.

The Organización de Mujeres Indígenas Unidas por la Biodiversidad de Panamá is an Indigenous, women-led organization in Panama uses Indigenous knowledge of conservation techniques to protect jaguars, while preserving both their territory and their culture.

The recent Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by the International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystems found that more than a million species are at risk of extinction, and large predators such as jaguars are especially vulnerable to disruptions in habitat connectivity, particularly in a place such as Panama, which serves as a narrow connectivity corridor between continents.

The Indigenous knowledge and actions of OMIUBP play an essential and outsized role in safeguarding the future of jaguars in the Americas.

At the forefront of sustainable supply chains

The Sunkpa Shea Women’s Cooperative of Ghana, an Indigenous, women-led cooperative, is setting an example for sustainable commodity production through their shea butter production cooperative. The cooperative has redefined production practices in the region by developing a Community Resource Management Area that includes zones of for production areas, no-take zones and limited-use areas.

Their management plan also includes ecosystem restoration with Indigenous food forests, as well as traditional fire management practices that mitigate wildfire risk in this drought-prone region of Ghana. By integrating their organic production into international supply chains, they are improving the lives of 800 women, while safeguarding biodiversity and eliminating deforestation.

While hundreds of companies have pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains, few have achieved this goal. It is through progressive groups such as the Sunkpa Shea Women’s Cooperative of Ghana that we see true progress.

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, commemorated annually on August 9, with the theme of the role of Indigenous women in the preservation of traditional knowledge, is a timely reminder of the profound transformations we need now, and the need to foster the vital role of women in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge at the core of Indigenous identity, culture, and heritage.

This year’s Equator Prize winners are an inspiration that these transformations are already underway, and that effective women-led solutions to our planetary crises are at hand.

Learn more about the winners on the Equator Initiative’s website, and join us for a celebration on November 30 at the virtual Nature for Life Hub.

IPS UN Bureau

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Waorani women from Alianza Ceibo march for the protection of their forest in Ecuador’s capital Quito. Credit: Mateo Barriga, Amazon Frontlines.

By Jamison Ervin
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 2020 (IPS)

A spate of reports on biodiversity – the Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystems, the Living Planet Report, the Global Forest Resources Assessment Report and the Global Biodiversity Outlook– paint a stark picture for the world’s biodiversity.

All point in the same direction: we are on track to lose more than a million species by mid-century, we lost 68% of all wildlife populations since 1970, we lost more than 11 million hectares of primary forest last year, and we have failed to meet almost all of the conservation targets in the decade-long Strategic Plan for Biodiversity.

Failure to halt the loss of biodiversity, let alone reverse historic trends, has grave consequences for all of humanity. The livelihoods, food, water security and safety of billions of people are at risk.

The stability of our climate is at risk. Half of global GDP is at risk. Buffers against the next pandemic are at risk. Indeed, the very future of humanity is at risk. Halting biodiversity loss and restoring the health of the planet requires several profound and systemic transformations.

We must place nature at the heart of sustainable development. Because nature plays such as fundamental role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, all nations must take a closer look at how to integrate the protection, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems into their national climate, health, water, security and development plans.

We must tackle the root causes of biodiversity loss – the unchecked economic and market forces that fail to account for nature’s values. Our current economic system favors short-term gain over long-term stewardship of nature.

Governments must find ways to ensure that their national expenditures align, and do not countermand, their national development goals, especially those goals that depend on healthy ecosystems.

At the same time, we must ensure that corporations and finance institutions place nature at the center of financial decision-making by holding them accountable to the impacts of their decisions on the health of biodiversity and ecosystems.

We must invest in nature protection and recovery. While the cost of inaction on nature is profound, the economic cost of investing in nature is not. We currently spend less than $100 billion a year on nature — about what we spend on pet food globally.

We only need an additional $700 billion annually to achieve ambitious biodiversity goals for 2030 – that’s less than 1% of global GDP, and only a fraction of the $5.2 trillion that we spend on fossil fuel subsidies every year.

We must increase our global ambition for immediate action on nature. We are facing a complex and interacting planetary emergency – a nature crisis, a biodiversity crisis, a health crisis and an inequality crisis all at once.

To fully respond to this emergency, we need bold ambition, commitment and action at all levels, from local to global. We must commit to creating a nature-based planetary safety net, in response to our planetary emergency.

One way to do that is through greening Covid-19 economic recovery and stimulus packages a step many countries have yet to take.

We must transform global production and consumption. For example, global appetites for beef are responsible for as much as half of forest cover loss worldwide, while unsustainable agricultural practices are responsible for nearly a quarter of our global greenhouse gas emissions.

We must increase global commitment and accountability for deforestation-free commodities, though initiatives such as the New York Declaration on Forests.

We must promote, celebrate and accelerate local action on nature if we are to tackle our planetary emergency – we need an all-of-society approach. Examples such as UNDP’s Equator Initiative showcase how the world is witnessing action on nature by youth, Indigenous peoples and local communities in every country and in thousands of communities.

By protecting, restoring and sustainably managing biodiversity, local actors can realize direct and tangible development dividends. To support local efforts, we must also strengthen governance and rule of law, especially for the 90 percent of Indigenous peoples who lack title for their lands, and who face murder, persecution and intimidation, often by multi-national corporations.

We must raise awareness of all levels of society of the value of nature, and of the risks inherent in biodiversity loss. In September, a campaign to promote the hashtag #NatureForLife has already garnered more than 50 million views.

But we must do more to raise global awareness. On the margins of the UN General Assembly, marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, UNDP is convening more than 40 partners to create a virtual “Nature for Life Hub,” involving more than 300 speakers from every walk of life.

Join us, either during or after the event, and help us strengthen global resolve to bend the curve on biodiversity loss – for nature, and for life.

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Community members restoring mangroves at Mikoko Pamoja in Kenya, winners of the Equator Prize in 2017. Credit: UNDP Equator Initiative

By Jamison Ervin
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 11 2019 (IPS)

There is a Quechan fable about a hummingbird named Dukdukdiya. During a fierce forest fire, while all other animals stood in stunned fear, Dukdukdiya alone took action by repeatedly carrying a single drop of water in her beak to the flames. When asked why she bothered with such paltry efforts, she replied that she was simply doing everything in her power to stop the fire.

Over the past several months, the release of three global reports, each tied to one of the three Rio Conventions, has made many of us feel like DukDukDiya, battling the dual challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change with one drop of water at a time.

The Living Planet Report, released in November, put a point on negotiations at the biennial UN Biodiversity Conference by painting a stark picture of biodiversity loss, showing an overall decline of 60 percent in population sizes of more than 4,000 species since 1970.

A new atlas on global desertification, linked to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, portrays a world struggling to cope with growing water scarcity, land degradation and desertification. And just prior to the annual UN Climate Conference, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special climate report that sent shock waves around the world – stating unequivocally that we have just 12 years to tackle climate change before largely irreversible and profound changes shape our world.

These reports, along with droves of supporting evidence and research, have resulted in apocalyptic news stories, with headlines claiming, for example, that 2019 and 2020 are “humanity’s two most crucial years” that will determine “to what extent Earth remains habitable.“ Despite these headlines, and the global media attention to biodiversity loss and climate change, the world seems almost paralyzed to take action. 2018, for example, will be the worst year in a decade for tropical forest loss, and greenhouse gas emissions increased by 2.7 percent in 2018.

What is required is nothing less than a system transformation of three basic elements of society: how we provide enough food, water, energy and consumer goods for 7.7 billion of us; how we invest our more than $100 trillion in investable wealth and how we spend our roughly $75 trillion in annual global GDP; and how we protect, manage and restore our world’s single most important asset, worth more than $125 trillion annually in goods and services: nature.

We know that stemming the loss of biodiversity and tackling our climate crisis will require all members of society, doing all that they can, starting now. Already there are signs of change. Commodity traders such as Wilmar, which supplies 40 percent of the world’s palm oil, recently published a plan to completely eliminate deforestation from its supply chain, as part of its commitment as an endorser of the New York Declaration on Forests.

El Salvador is leading the world toward a global decade of ecosystem restoration. Recently, 415 investors worth $32 trillion in assets sent an open letter to governments at the climate conference, urging them to take climate action.

Societal transformation takes bold leadership, not only from companies, governments and investors, but from everyone. One of boldest, most memorable leaders during the climate conference this month was Greta Thunberg, a slight 15-year-old Swedish girl with Asperger’s Syndrome. Her poignant speech to UN delegates begins with a simple statement: “I’ve learned that you’re never too small to make a difference.” Her message, that system change is necessary and is upon us, has been shared on YouTube more than 250,000 times, and she’s amassed a Twitter following of nearly 70,000 since she joined in June.

Not all of us can easily transform whole businesses, government policy or large asset investments. But we can transform our own lives, and we can have transformative conversations with others. For example, we can ask ourselves, our employers and our religious institutions whether our retirement savings are invested in businesses linked to deforestation, or to fossil fuels, and whether or not they are climate proof – most aren’t.

We can ensure that events we host professionally offer vegetarian options and avoid food waste – two of the most potent ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we can talk to others about these choices. There are so many actions we can take and so many conversations we can have in our personal and professional lives that can transform our world. Even if our beaks are very small, and we can only carry one drop of water at a time, what matters most is that we do everything in our power that we can.

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Photo - UNDP/ PNG-Bougainville People celebration

By Jamison Ervin
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 9 2018 (IPS)

Indigenous peoples, who comprise less than five percent of the world’s population, have the world’s smallest carbon footprint, and are the least responsible for our climate crisis. Yet because their livelihoods and wellbeing are intimately bound with intact ecosystems, indigenous peoples disproportionately face the brunt of climate change, which is fast becoming a leading driver of human displacement.

In Papua New Guinea, for example, residents of the Carteret Islands – one of the most densely populated islands in the country – have felt the effects of climate change intensify over recent years. With a high point on their islands of just 1.2 meters above sea level, every community member is now at risk from sea level rise and storm surges.

Moreover, the community depends almost entirely on fishing for their food and livelihoods, but the health of sea grass beds and coral reefs has gradually deteriorated from warming waters and coral bleaching.

The residents of these islands faced a stark choice – to be passive victims of an uncertain government resettlement program, or to take matters into their own hands. They chose the latter. In 2005, elders formed a community-led non-profit, called Tulele Peisa, to chart their own climate course. In the Halia language, the name means “Sailing the Waves on our Own,” an apt metaphor for how the community is navigating rising sea levels.

In 2014, the initiative won the prestigious, UNDP-led Equator Prize, in recognition for their ingenuity, foresight and proactive approach in facing the challenges of climate change, while keeping their cultural traditions intact.

Earlier this month, Jeffrey Sachs published an article entitled “We Are All Climate Refugees Now,” in which he attributed the main cause of climate inaction to the willful ignorance of political institutions and corporations toward the grave dangers of climate change, imperiling future life on Earth. 2018 will likely be recorded as among the hottest year humanity has ever recorded.

Yet a slew of recent articles highlight that we are not on track to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. We have not shown the collective leadership required to tackle this existential crisis.

Carteret Islanders have been broadly recognized as the world’s first climate refugees, but they are not alone. Arctic indigenous communities are already facing the same plight, as are their regional neighbors from the island nation of Kiribati.

According to the World Bank, their plight will likely be replicated around the world, with as many as 140 million people worldwide being displaced by climate change within the next 30 years or so.

But the Carteret Island leaders are more than just climate refugees. They have done something precious few political leaders have done to date – they recognized the warning signs of climate change as real and inevitable, they took stock of their options, and they charted a proactive, realistic course for their own future that promised the most good for the most people. Therefore, they could also be called the world’s first true climate leaders.

Let’s hope that our world’s politicians and CEOs have the wisdom, foresight and fortitude of the elders of Carteret Islanders. Because like it or not, we will all be sailing the climate waves on our own, with or without a rudder and a plan.

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