‘They are the custodians of the world’s biodiversity’: UN asks to listen to indigenous peoples to avoid climate catastrophe

The UN opened its annual meetings on Monday Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues with a call to listen to these peoples and take into account their recipes for responding to the climate crisis before it is too late.

“Indigenous peoples hold many of the solutions to the climate crisis and are the custodians of the world’s biodiversity,” said the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Antonio Guterresat the opening of this event.

He changing of the climate and the health of the planet are the focus of this year’s Permanent Forum meetings, which run until 28 April in New York and are expected to host more than a thousand participants.

Guterres recalled that for thousands of years these communities have been pioneers in sustainable land management and adaptation to climate change, developing, for example, positive agriculture in the Amazon or systems to reduce erosion in the Himalayas.

“The so-called green economy is not a new concept for indigenous peoples, it is a way of life that goes back thousands of years. We have much to learn from their wisdom, knowledge, leadership, experience and example,” said the Secretary General in UN.

The opening ceremony was attended by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who also emphasized the role of indigenous peoples in the protection of nature and recalled that both their traditional knowledge and the most modern science came to the same conclusion: “if oil is removed from the bowels of the earth humanity will perish.”

Petro has advocated phasing out fossil fuels and accused “big business” of using the war to avoid taking necessary action in the face of the climate crisis.

“The transition no longer waits. The market does not. Big business is so ignorant of the options that life has on the planet that it resorts to wars to cover the need for system change that is necessary if we want to live on this planet,” he stressed.

Attacks and marginalization

On the other hand, the United Nations once again condemned the attacks that many indigenous communities were subjected to, often for trying to protect their ancestral homes.

Colombian Dario Mejia Montalvo, Chairman of the Permanent Forum, drew attention to this and called for an end to the persecution. natives “to protect their human rights and the rights of nature.”

According to Guterres, despite their great geographic and cultural diversity, indigenous peoples today face common challenges: “marginalization and exclusion, denial of human rights, illegal exploitation of resource rich territories, dispossession and displacement of ancestral lands, and even physical attacks and violence. “. “.

“All over the world, millions of indigenous people are losing their lands, their rights and their resources,” he insisted.

The discrimination and marginalization that these peoples face is reflected in UN in one piece of information: Indigenous people make up 5% of the world’s population, but they represent the 15% of the world’s poorest.

The issue was primarily addressed by US Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to reach a ministerial position in the country.

Haaland assured that the Joe Biden administration has taken numerous initiatives to protect indigenous communities inside and outside the country and provide them with additional opportunities, for example, through significant investments in education, economic development, cultural preservation and the environment.

(As reported by EFE)