Making the case for indigenous peoples to be part of climate change solutions

MRG’s Media Officer, Farah Mihlar, gets to grips with how climate change is affecting indigenous communities at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Co-incidentally the focus of the morning TV news in New York was also on the environment. It was amazing how the debate on television news in a capital city (on the east coast) was simplified into entertaining little quizzes on whether you should do your dishes by machine or hand?! I would have thought that the world’s biggest polluter had moved beyond this level of discussion – there were no experts, there was no analysis, there weren’t even statistics - so a comfortable avoidance of where US households stand with their carbon foot print.

But inside the UN the debate was very different. At the Indigenous Peoples Forum I was attending, the communities contributing the least to pollution were explaining how they were suffering the most.

The Inuit and Sami communities who live in the Arctic across Alaska and Greenland and Scandinavia are severely affected by melting ice caps. Patricia Cochran of the Inuit Circumpolar Council explains to me that there have been cases where peoples and villages have simply vanished as a resulting of the melting snow. Sami reindeer herders speak of how their everyday lives are affected as warmer winters prevent the reindeer climbing to the top of the mountains to find their food.

Indigenous activist from Siberia (left) talking to
pastoralists from Kenya

Further down in Ethiopia and Kenya pastoralist communities are finding the desserts hotter as a result of longer and more persistent droughts (I have pledged to stop complaining about the hot summers in Europe). They are dependent on their livestock, much of which is being lost to the drought together with people who die of the heat and starvation. The consequences are far reaching because in some cases men and specially women face exploitation as they migrate to cities and struggle to make a living.

In the pacific indigenous communities explain how the underwater sea life is for them similar to the forests that the South American Amazon dwellers are fighting to protect. For pacific tribes they are dependent on the fish and other sea-creatures who are affected by the rising water temperature that in turn is affecting the entire eco-system.

Every community represented at the UN from all regions of the world had their own unique story of how climate change was affecting them. Climate change for many years has been seen as a strictly environmental issue though later accepted as also a developmental issue. It is only now being recognized as a human rights issue but looking at it under a human rights lens is fairly new territory for many and that was clear even at the UN forum.

But for the indigenous communities it is less relevant how the debate is framed. For them the stark reality is that their communities are facing (or in some cases have already faced) a threat to life, development, self-determination, culture, etc. In some cases there is even a fear that entire communities may become extinct or at the least communities will lose fundamental aspects of their language, culture and literature that are so closely linked to nature.

This I think was the main point of emphasis at the forum – the exceptional, close relationship indigenous peoples have with the environment. Their dead live on in the soil, their Gods are in the waterfalls and the rivers, their spirits are in the wind. Their elders can interpret nature and have a way of communicating with the environment and although climate change challenges some aspects of this traditional knowledge these communities argue that their knowledgebase is diverse and they have historical experience of adaptation.

Hence the argument goes like this - because Indigenous peoples are the worst affected by climate change yet have the closest relationship to nature any solution on climate change should include them.

Getting world leaders grappling with issues of carbon footprints and CO2 emissions to also recognize this human cost is going to be tough one.

Another world inside the UN

MRG’s Media Officer Farah Mihlar is learning about indigenous communities at the UN in New York

Aaahhh New York!!

There is just something about the Big Apple that makes it impossible to resist a trip here even if it comes at the busiest of times. It’s difficult to pin down exactly what it is about New York – something to do with the buzz, the vibrancy, the colour, the anonymity, the attitude, the art, culture, knowledge on offer – all of which makes it special even to someone who does not easily appreciate western capitalist culture and symbolism!

But this is not about New York (I eventually did wake up to the fact that I was not on paid holiday). I am here to attend the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFI) focusing this year on the impact of climate change on indigenous peoples. Following the release of a recent publication on climate change and minorities, MRG is looking to expand its work on how the scourge of our times affects minority and indigenous communities. We have chosen this issue as one of our online campaigns for this year and the UN forum, which brings together UN member states, experts and indigenous community representatives, could not be missed.

My mission: keep my antennas up, put on my journalist cap (never succeeded in getting rid of that), network but most importantly understand the issues, figure out what the communities want so we at MRG can better represent them.

Based on my experiences with other UN mechanisms such as the Human Rights Council (HRC) I was ready for an element of chaos, prepared for the politics, the diplomacy, the manoeuvring that often stains the work of the UN. But I was quite pleasantly surprised.

The first taste of what was to come was at the registration queue at the entrance to the UN headquarters in New York. Men and women in crisp suits were replaced by people wearing the most unusual, colourful shirts, dresses, sarongs, feathered hats, turbans and shawls woven, as they explain, in centuries of history and tradition. They were accessorized with beaded chains, metal medallions, feathers, flowers all heavily symbolic – as a young reindeer herder from the Sami community in Finland explains the shape of the button in their belts go as far as to indicate if they are married or not.

Two young Sami reindeer herders discuss climate change

In the main conference room the usual delegate boards naming member states are replaced by scribbled boards titled Batwa, Sami, rainforest people, Elmolo… hundreds and hundreds of different indigenous peoples from across the world proudly representing their status as the original inhabiters of the world.

The uniqueness of the UNPFI was stark. This is not a forum where states dominate with diplomats at the edge of their seats waiting to attack a country or defend their own. In fact this is forum where state parties are confined to one corner of the room and a majority of the delegates pay no respect to strictly defined borders. They often represent nations unrecognized as states and their communities spread across regions and countries. This is a forum where proceedings start not with acknowledgement to the UN or to the host country but by giving thanks to the Onondaga people, native Americans who were the original inhabitants of the land the UN is situated on (sorry, no thanks to George W Bush – not even for the visas). Elders, who are revered and respected in indigenous communities bless the forum and open the session by giving thanks to mother earth, the waterfalls and rivers, the thunder that brings rain, the sun and the air.

This is an event where the superpowers have no place and the heroes are those who defy the mainstream. Bolivia’s new Indigenous President Evo Morales, got a thundering applause and long standing ovation as he took up contentious issues of historic injustice to indigenous people and recommended a shift away from capitalist developmental models. It is a forum that not just introduces one to a whole different world but to vastly different world views – many issues that make our headlines have little relevance here – these are people that subscribe to entirely different belief systems (Samuel Huntington may want to rewrite ‘Clash of civilizations’ after a day of being here). Here you can not accuse ‘Americans’ of invading Iraq. Americans they will say are confined to reserves and national parks and had no role in invading Iraq.

For me it has been one of the most humbling and exciting learning. Throughout my work in human rights, coming from a country affected by conflict myself, I have grappled with issues of ethnicity and religion in identity formation and issues of nationhood. But this is another paradigm. The usual human rights jargon of oppression and injustice take on entirely different dimension.

I feel like making a run to a book store but I realize few history books and atlases will be accurate. The story is with the people themselves.

So I am off now, equipped with voice recorder and camera.

New mission: Climate change plus, plus.

Uncomfortable truths

Emma Eastwood, MRG’s Media Officer, wraps up her work in Budapest and is left with some food for thought

Apparently there was a reassuringly strong presence from the anti-racists yesterday afternoon at the demo – even former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder showed his face, along with the Hungarian Prime Minister (who some here accuse of scoring political points from the whole affair). Maybe they feared a repeat performance from the extreme right, who went on the rampage a while back and ‘trashed the city’… I saw some photos of the riots later at a photo exhibition in the Hungarian National Museum, the Hungarian Guard, a right-wing group leading the movement, is sinister and of great concern, but frankly I must admit that I find the penchant of neo-Nazis for quasi-military uniforms and dodgy insignia both ridiculous and absurd.

Tracey, from Hungarian NGO Védegylet, paints a different picture of Slovenian society from the journalists I spoke to yesterday. She tells me that the Slovenian activists she’s met are some of the most inspiring and positive people in the region. On a different note she’s a fellow vegetarian and we have an ‘interesting’ discussion over lunch with Angela, an expert on rights and development from Brussels and Esther from the Uganda Land Alliance (who are both speakers at the event), defending the concept that animals have rights too.

Max Slimani

Max Slimani, from the Africa Centre in Slovenia, provides one of the most thought-provoking presentations of the seminar today. He provides us with examples of how in many countries in the EU stereotyping of Africans continues apace in children’s books and educational materials. Max is a commanding speaker and I can sense that he makes many of us squirm in our seats as we remember with a shudder the textbooks of our childhoods – despite the UK today having one of the most enlightened school curricula in the EU in terms of global education, Little Black Sambo and golliwogs were still around when I was a girl. MRG is well aware that these stereotypes entrench prejudice from an early age and has incorporated educational reform into its own campaign goals.

Talking of campaigning I’ve heard of some real creative and inspiring examples from many of the NGOs here. An old favourite of mine, Critical Mass, a global direct action movement of cyclists, attracted some 35, 000 people in its last incarnation in Budapest (although Tracey tells me that the crowds of cyclists aim to cause as little disruption as possible – quite the opposite of my own experience of actions in San Francisco and London). How they manage that with so many people beats me…

The seminar draws to a close this afternoon and I relish breaking out of the bubble of the last few days and the feel of the wind on my cheeks as I cross the Danube on Margaret Bridge. The truth is it’s been a privilege to meet so many people doing such diverse work in so many countries, which should certainly help when I’m churning out press releases back at my desk on Commercial Street.

Ethnic tension at home and abroad

MRG’s Media Officer, Emma Eastwood, hears tales of strife from Kenya and right below her nose in Hungary

Last night I interviewed Nyang’ori Ohenjo from the Kenyan Indigenous Fisher Peoples Network, whose analysis of the recent (and current) post-election violence in Kenya is somewhat more thorough than that portrayed by the international media. He tells me that even though many of the concerns of minority communities in Kenya were addressed in the 2001 Constitution review process, the 2002 government led by Mwai Kibaki reneged on those constitutional promises thus setting the stage for serious resentment and animosity towards the Kikuyu community loyal to him. Nyang’ori claims that come the December 2007 elections many people had simply had enough, with their backs up against the wall their only recourse was to turn to violence. For an in depth look at this issue see MRG ‘s 2005 report, Kenya: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Diversity, which Nyang’ori helped to write.

Nyang’ori Ohenjo

Talking to the journalists present at the seminar today from the new EU member states was informative but at times disheartening. The Slovenians told me of the difficulties they face getting coverage of international development issues past their editors and painted a picture of Slovenian society as increasingly inward looking following an initial euphoric period post-independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

As we sipped our coffee on the balcony admiring the view of the Danube, one of the Hungarian journalists alerted us to a neighbourhood conflict happening right under our noses. Apparently a shopkeeper in the Jewish quarter of Pest refused to sell a ticket to a skinhead for a concert by an extremist group a few days ago and her shop was firebombed. A broad coalition of anti racist activists turned up the following day to show support for the shopkeeper and this afternoon the extreme right wing has organised a counter demonstration. Am I imagining it or can I hear more sirens than usual…

I’ll encourage the journalists to let us know what happened tomorrow morning – from what I’ve been told by members of the Hungarian NGOs here it’s not an isolated incident and reflects wider tensions throughout the country.

All together, all equal

MRG’s Media Officer, Emma Eastwood, is in Budapest for an MRG Europe seminar on the rights-based approach to international development

I’ve finally escaped the MRG office in London and am holed up in the Buda hills with NGOs and journalists from the new EU member states.

The venue couldn’t have been better placed for those of us new to Hungary, Budapest spreads out as far as the eye can see below our eyrie in the Council of Europe Youth Centre. Dominating the view is the gothic National Parliament building on the banks of the Danube, resplendent in the spring sunshine.

My role at the seminar is multi-faceted – I’m here to learn more about human rights and development, the work of the NGOs present and all importantly to build relationships with journalists from the new EU member states. At the same time I’ll also be giving an online demo of the new MRG World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples and will run a workshop on harnessing the power of the media for advocacy.

My covert mission however is to seek stories that bring the work of MRG to life and my eyes and ears are open for news ‘angles’. Tales of discrimination against Roma in this part of Europe abound… We’re meant to be looking at development in the South, yet many of the NGOs from this region are rightly focusing on their own neighbours - a 2003 report by UNDP found that Roma living conditions in central and eastern Europe were comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. Viera from the Slovakian NGO Center for the Support and Development of Human Potential illustrates the point when she tells me about over-crowding and lack of even the most basic amenities in what is effectively a Roma ghetto in the town of Kosice. Apparently the neighbourhood, called Lumik IX, appears in a gritty film about migration in central Europe called ‘Import Export’ by Austrian director Ulrich Seidl if anyone wants to check it out.

I’ve come well armed for the job of documenting the proceedings – laptop, MP3 recorder, mic, headphones, camera, mobile phone. I battle with a bona fide spaghetti junction of cables in my room… My hope is to interview MRG partners from Kenya and Uganda who’ve come to the seminar to contextualise the theory with case studies from the front line of EU development projects.

We begin by delving deeper into the definitions of poverty and human rights and examine the motivations behind overseas development assistance (we’re a cynical lot I’m afraid, I won’t depress you with our answers). I look around and realise that the gender balance of the seminar is shockingly awry – out of 30 NGO participants and speakers only four are men – interestingly it’s a trend similarly reflected back at the MRG office in London. This is gender mainstreaming gone mad, what about the introduction of quotas I say…

MRG’s SE Europe Programme Coordinator Snjezana Bokulic enlightening us all on UN mechanisms – I can’t help wishing that we could steal the Council of Europe’s slogan ‘all different, all equal’ – it embodies the protection of minority rights in just a few words compared to our tongue-twister of a mission statement (and maybe that way journalists would stop thinking I was calling them about a shareholders’ story).