By Marcos Terena
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 27 2010 (IPS)

In-mid January, the United Nations issued its first World Report on the condition of the indigenous peoples, which have made progress and won recognition internationally but not at the national and local level, where their demands remain unmet.

The report was carried out by seven indigenous women experts in the areas of health, education, the environment, human rights, and socio-economic matters, under the auspices of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Matters. It paints a grim picture and focuses on how the sovereignty of the member states and the complexity of the UN bureaucracy obstruct the international institutions and even the Forum’s recommendations to improve the conditions of the indigenous and preserve their cultures and their view of nature.

The indigenous peoples first entered the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva in the 1980s as part of a Work Group on collective human rights, economic sustainability, respect for the environment, development based on traditional knowledge, and, more recently, a natural response to climate change.

The report presents a realistic picture of the stigmas that still oppress the indigenous peoples as a consequence of colonisation and exploitation. The vast majority of this population of 370 million people, which speak 4000 languages, live in extreme poverty, are discriminated against, and have been subjected to the theft and plunder of their land and traditional habitats.

Since the institution of the International Year of Indigenous Peoples in 1993 and the Indigenous Decades (1994-2004, 2004-2014), the UN has learned to see the indigenous peoples not as a threat to national sovereignty but rather a source of valuable responses to the challenges of the new millennium. Each year in May in New York some two thousand indigenous leaders meet to harmonise their strategies through councils created for each continent and parallel dialogues with representatives from the UN, multilateral banks, and NGOs. It is a beneficial yet challenging meeting, the positive results of which pave the way for a range of commitments between western and indigenous cultures to seek a better quality of life.

It is important to stress that many indigenous, native, aboriginal, or other peoples, though recognised by the UN, do not always win the same level of respect and treatment in their own countries, or even find a balance of inter-ethnic relations where there is still tension between brother peoples, as we saw in the African Football Cup.

One of the more worrisome phenomena noted in the report -the extinction of indigenous languages in the next 100 years- is advancing in a subtle and almost imperceptible manner.

We know that the responsibility for the survival of these languages lies primarily with indigenous women, who as mothers are the link between the past and the future. But if they are the major target of discrimination, mistreatment, physical and sexual assault, prostitution, and sexually-transmitted diseases, how can they transmit their identity, culture, and language to their offspring?

Another threat of cultural extinction comes from migration and urbanisation; meanwhile, the indigenous who live isolated in the forest have no system of special protection from contact with outsiders who can expose them to viruses, like the flu, which can be devastating given their lack of antibodies.

The symptoms of climate change are felt especially intensely in indigenous communities and harm their means of subsistence. In the Amazon region, for example, previously unknown diseases are carried in the wind from the West, like malaria and oncocerosis among others, which indigenous spiritual leaders say are particularly devastating because of the physical fragility of the aboriginals and the lack of adequate treatment.

The young are losing their oral traditions and the force of the indigenous cosmovision, and there is an elevated rate of suicide attributed to the lack of perspective, the difficulty of bridging the two different cultures, and the complex psychological and spiritual contradictions that arise between them.

Among the important factors underlying the crisis, the report points to the lack of respect for the self-determination of these peoples, which results in an absence of territorial guarantees and of demarcation of communal lands. Many communities live surrounded by physical threats from large landowners, monoculture agriculture based on genetically-modified seeds, and/or the powerful impact of government development programmes, while they request and await protection from the state.

The World Report is an instrument that indigenous organisations and activists should put to use at the national and international level, given that it expresses their concerns and their proposals to move beyond their condition as social victims and heroes of survival. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Marcos Terena is a Brazilian indigenous activist and writer.

Excerpt:

Once again, ten years after the 1992 Rio Summit, the peoples and governments of the world are coming together under the auspices of the United Nations to discuss progress that has been made on the environment and the quality of life. Once again, ten years after the 1992 Rio Summit, the peoples and governments of the world are coming together under the auspices of the United Nations to discuss progress that has been made on the environment and the quality of life.

In Rio representatives of various indigenous groups convened in the replica of a traditional Brazilian habitat, the Kari-Oca village, to debate how to contribute to the defence of the earth and our common future drawing on our knowledge and experience. Present were 750 leaders from the four corners of the earth. We tried to show the white man that his form of building the world only increases the differences between people and generates distrust, insecurity, and especially the destruction of the environment.

Thus the Earth Charter was born and presented by citizens of the forest during the Rio Conference. It was a simple and profound document which allowed no interpretations regarding the environment but prescribed ways to protect and respect it. Everyone heard the indigenous message, applauded, were moved, and then went back to their usual daily routines.

Now the United Nations, concerned about the systematic environmental errors that continue to generate pollution, deforestation, social poverty, and by the lack of a commitment by leaders of the rich countries, is holding this conference to address the same problems that we discussed in 1992 in Rio.

There is no shortage of analysis on the environment; there is a shortage of concrete action. Therefore the indigenous peoples, who haven't changed their focus on the ecosystem since the beginning of time, offer the wisdom of our elders so that the white man, essentially a technologist and economist, can turn his eyes to the quality of life.

We recognise that in other areas covered by the UN we have made advances, such as with the creation of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Affairs and the Universal Declaration of Indigenous Rights, even if the exercise of these rights brought little progress to our lives, like the recognition, demarcation, and protection of our lands.

Unfortunately it is clear that in contrast to Rio, the Johannesburg Summit is unwilling to accommodate the spirit of the defence of the earth and her peoples. Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that it is giving precedence to technological arguments for material development, thus favouring economic systems that

increase poverty and promote deforestation, pollution, and biopiracy, to the detriment of ecological arguments.

What is needed is an institutional and governmental commitment. We indigenous know that it is difficult for US and European citizens to understand the values of our peoples, who see the physical and the spiritual as interconnected. However, we want our voices to be heard not merely as beautiful poetry, because our message contains many truths that can help establish a balance between modernity and tradition, economy and ecology. It should not be forgotten that the assault of modernity has reached the most distant communities under the empire of globalisation.

We affirm our right to collaborate with the white man to work out a new Earth Charter and we recommend that the Johannesburg Conference adopt an accord on the basis of the following points:

1. The preservation of life on earth requires a balance between the cultural, the physical, and the spiritual.

2. The condition of nature is dire; what is needed therefore is an individual and collective commitment within the framework of a code of ethical conduct.

3. Neither new knowledge nor traditional wisdom should be used such that certain countries can exploit others. Economic activity must be conducted with respect for the customs and sustainable practices of biodiversity. The official recognition of indigenous lands must be guaranteed.

4. To favour the conservation of the earth, the forests, and waters, investment in environmental protection must be increased and that in the development of nuclear and chemical weapons decreased, while the testing and use of these arms should be banned.

5. The recognition of the indigenous peoples' right to protect their knowledge and intellectual property to prevent biopiracy must be promoted.

Perhaps we the peoples of the forest are considered only the ''guardians of the earth''. But we have shown over many centuries that we know how to coexist with nature. Thus, ten years after the Rio Summit, we demand that the Johannesburg Conference recognise our role as participants in the construction of the common future for all humanity.