Food security and a balanced diet for all must be combined with the knowledge of indigenous peoples’ food systems and livelihoods as a contribution to sustainable development. Credit: IFAD

By Valentina Gasbarri
ROME, Feb 23 2015 (IPS)

Overcoming hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century no longer means simply increasing the quantity of available food but also the quality.

Despite numerous achievements in the world’s food systems, approximately 805 million people suffer from chronic hunger and roughly two billion peoples suffer from one or more micronutrient deficiencies while, at the same time, over 2.8 billion people are obese.

Unfortunately, the debate over how to address this challenge has polarised, pitting agriculture and global commerce against local food systems and traditional ecological knowledge, land-based ways of life and a holistic, interdependent relationship between people and the Earth.“Arrogantly and insolently, humanity has cultivated the idea of development and progress based on the belief that the planet’s resources are infinite and that human domination of nature is limitless” – Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement

Organised to reflect on this, among other issues, the second Global Meeting of the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum, held at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) from Feb. 12-13 in Rome, discussed solutions that combine the need to ensure food security and a balanced diet for all with the knowledge of indigenous peoples’ food systems and livelihoods as a contribution to sustainable development.

According to IFAD President Kanayo F. Nwanze, “indigenous peoples’ lands are some of the most biologically and ecologically diverse places on earth … It is only now, in the 21st century, that the rest of the world is starting to value the biodiversity that is a core value of indigenous societies.” Occupying nearly 20 percent of the Earth’s land area, indigenous groups act as custodians of biodiversity.

Participants at the Forum debated the potential of indigenous livelihood systems and practices – thanks to an age-old tradition of inter-generational knowledge transmission – to contribute to and inspire new transformative approaches of sustainable development, synthesising culture and identity, firmly anchored in respect for individual and collective rights.

However, the Forum described how many indigenous communities and ecosystems are at risk due to the lack of recognition of their rights and fair treatment by governments and corporations, population growth, climate change, migration and conflict. According to participants, the on-going exclusion of indigenous people devalues not only the importance of their communities but also the traditional ecological and agricultural knowledge they possess.

“Arrogantly and insolently, humanity has cultivated the idea of development and progress based on the belief that the planet’s resources are infinite and that human domination of nature is limitless,” Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement, said at a Forum side event focused on the interconnections among nutrition, food security and sustainable development.

“The march towards this idea of progress has left women, youth and elderly people and indigenous populations at the end of the line with no one left to give a voice to them,” he continued. “All the drama of modern reality is now revealing itself: the ‘glorious march’ of progress is now on the edge of a precipice, the present crisis the fruit of greed and ignorance.”

Largely addressing the so-called developed world, the Forum described how many of the good practices and traditional empirical wisdom of indigenous peoples deserve to be studied with care and attention. For example, boosting local economies and agriculture, along with respect for small communities, are ways of reconciling man with the earth and nature.

At the same time, many indigenous communities have certain foods – including corn, taro and wild rice – that are considered sacred and are cultivated through sustainable land and water practices.  This contrasts with the global production, distribution and consumption of food which pays little attention to loss of water and soil fertility, genetic plant and animal erosion and unprecedented food waste.

The Forum also heard how issues related to the paramount role of indigenous peoples’ food systems are central to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects managed by the Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) at Montreal’s McGill University in Canada.

“Years of work have documented the traditional food systems of indigenous peoples and their dietary habits to understand matriarchy and the role of women in food security and community peace in Canada,” said Harriet V. Kuhnlein, Professor Emerita of Human Nutrition and founding Director of CINE.

Kuhnlein described one of CINE’s projects, the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project, a three-year community-based project focused on a primary prevention programme for non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in a Mohawk community near Montreal.

Among others, the project organised community-based activities promoting healthy lifestyles and demonstrated that “a native community-based diabetes prevention programme is feasible through participatory research that incorporates native culture and local expertise,” said Kuhnlein.

According to Forum participants, the reintroduction of local food products is essential for feeding the planet – “here we see real democracy in action,” said one speaker – and a major effort is needed to avoid practices that exacerbate the negative impacts of food production and consumption on climate, water and ecosystems.

There was also a call for the post-Millennium Development Goal (MDG) agenda to ensure a healthy environment as an internationally guaranteed human right, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will replace the MDGS at the end of 2015, encouraging governments to work towards agricultural policies that are compatible with environmental sustainability and trade rules that are consistent with food security.

It was agreed that none of this will be easy to implement and will require both a strong accountability framework and the will to enforce it, including through recognition of corporate responsibility in the private sector.

As the world prepares for the post-2015 scenario, the Indigenous Peoples’ Forum in Rome said that it was crucial to incorporate food security, environmental issues, poverty reduction and indigenous peoples’ rights into discussions around the new goals of sustainable development involving citizens, governments, academic institutions, private corporations and international organisations worldwide.

Edited by Phil Harris

By Mandeep S.Tiwana
JOHANNESBURG, Sep 2 2014 (IPS)

The killings of hundreds of civilians, including scores of children, in Gaza – whose only fault was to have been born on the wrong side of the wall – was a major point of contention at the United Nations Human Rights Council at the end of July.

The high death toll caused by indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas by the Israeli military has resulted in what may very likely be war crimes. The United Nations has said that 70 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians.

Mandeep Tiwana

Yet Western democracies, normally proactive on human rights issues at the Council, chose to withhold their vote when a resolution urging immediate cessation of Israeli military assaults throughout the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, and an end to attacks against all civilians, including Israeli civilians, was brought forward.

Notably, the resolution sought to create an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the context of military operations conducted since June 13, 2014.

When asked to vote on the above, Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom chose to abstain. The United States, whose foreign policy mission is to “shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere,” was ironically the only country in the 47 member U.N. Human Rights Council to have voted against the resolution.“Institutions of global governance should be able to offer a source of protection and support for people who are being repressed, marginalised or excluded at the national level. Yet, too often, they are captured by state interests which override genuine human rights concerns.”

Essentially, each country standing for election to the Human Rights Council is required to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” By any yardstick, looking at the wanton death and destruction that has rained down on the people of Gaza, destroying the homes and livelihoods of tens of thousands as well as vital public infrastructure, is a blatant abdication of responsibility.

In 2006, when the Human Rights Council was created, then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan poignantly remarked that the true test of its ability would be the use that member states make of it. Eight years down the line, sadly the Council remains a house divided on the great human rights matters of the day.

Earlier this year in March, when the Human Rights Council passed a resolution aimed at addressing impunity for the widespread violations of international law committed during and after the Sri Lankan civil war, many of the countries strongly in favour of accountability for crimes committed in the Gaza conflict – such as Algeria, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Viet Nam – voted against the Sri Lanka resolution. Conversely, Western democracies that abstained on the Gaza vote robustly supported action to tackle impunity in Sri Lanka.

This double standard represents perhaps the greatest challenge to the world’s premier human rights body.

Notably, the Human Rights Council was established in response to well-founded criticism of rampant politicisation of human rights issues by its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights.  At the Human Rights Council too, geopolitical interests of the more powerful states are driving selective blocking and support for human rights causes by elected member states, weakening respect for international standards. 

Notably, the formation of blocs presents a grave threat to the Council’s work. Its members have unfortunately slotted themselves into various informal groups such as the Western European and Others Group (WEOG),  African Group, Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) countries, and even a motley ‘Like-Minded Group’ that shares little in political culture and world view except that it largely opposes whatever the Western group comes up with.

These unfortunate political dynamics have weakened the ability of the Council to be a beacon for the advancement of human rights discourse. Tellingly, the issue of discrimination against and violations of the personal freedoms of sexual minorities including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) individuals remains another hotly contested area.

A regressively worded June 2014 resolution on the ‘protection of the family’ – which excludes LGBT individuals from the ambit of the family – witnessed en-masse voting in favour by the African, OIC and ‘Like-Minded Group’.

Worryingly, far too many countries are caught up in the herd mentality of en-masse voting coupled with advancement of strategic interests at the Human Rights Council. Too often, principle is being abandoned at the altar of politics. Every time this happens, the legitimacy of the global governance institution suffers, further exacerbating conflict.

A report by the global civil society alliance, CIVICUS, points out that in an ever more complex governance environment, where large problems are acknowledged to cross national borders, international level decision-making is starting to matter more.

Institutions of global governance should be able to offer a source of protection and support for people who are being repressed, marginalised or excluded at the national level. Yet, too often, they are captured by state interests which override genuine human rights concerns.

Civil society and the media have their work cut out to expose the hypocrisy and inconsistency that mars action on gross human rights violations in international forums like the Human Rights Council. States need to be held accountable and practice what they preach – on principle, and not only when it suits them. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

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