Interview by Angela Zarro

AZ: It is suggested that a global land rush is taking place. What does it mean? Which evidences and feedbacks does the coalition receive from its members?

MT: The rush for land is not new. During the colonial period and even after colonialism people went looking for land in the south, in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In a sense it is an old process. Investments in agriculture and the creation of big plantation date back to the 1920-30s and the 1950-70s.  So large-scale land acquisitions of land in the south is not new. What you see now – that is in some ways similar but also different from previous rush for land – is the scale of the phenomenon. There are many companies that are acquiring hundred thousand and even million hectares of land. This is a very large scale.
Another difference is the level of transparency: these pieces of land have been sold or leased often without processes that are open and accountable to the public. Key people within the State – whether it is a president or a minister – are making these decisions, but it is very difficult to find a contract since in many cases contracts are not made publicly available.
In many cases governments are directly involved in these investments. While  in the past the interest behind the investment was to increase agriculture produce for local or international market, investments are now often linked to food and energy security. So Governments from countries that are not able to feed themselves like Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Japan, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, are directly acquiring the land to grow food for themselves, not for the host country in which they own that land.
This introduces a different set of political and geopolitical dynamics taking place and it highlights how the use of land is basically shifting from being a productive resource to becoming a source of food security, on a much bigger scale than it was before.

AZ: What are the reasons for this pressure? Beyond food, I see natural resources, water, oil as you said, mines, timber… is it correct?

MT: Yes, exactly. It is very important to be aware of the wider nature of demand for land, water and other natural resources. The press mostly points out food production and agrofuel production – which are both very important, but there are also other drivers of large-scale land acquisitions in the south, like minerals, timber, carbon sequestration, and tourism. Taking the example of the food sector, food consumption globally is expected to double over the next 40 years. These different factors converge in driving increasing interest in investing in land. At the same time, there is today an increased ability for free trade across countries and across regions, which facilitates such investments. Free Trade Agreements signed between developing countries and investor countries, accelerate the process by removing barriers to investment, including in the land sector.

AZ: Are there regulations to prevent social and environment dumping.

MT: There are regulations: the domestic law of these countries dictates what is appropriate and what is not. The problem is that in many cases you deal with very large and powerful corporations, getting around domestic law, for example not doing proper environmental  impact assessments before the investment takes place.
In many countries where these investments are taking place, governments are very weak, so the ability and will to enforce domestic law – even when it exists – may not be that strong. The result is that  investment agreements become the primary regulator of what is going on. I am not a specialist on this, but it is reported by some of ILC’s members that in many cases the investment agreements are strongly biased to the needs of the investor rather than those of the host country. For example, some agreements are driven by investors who want to produce food in order to export all of it to their own country. This may not be a problem when there is a food surplus locally. But  what  happens when there is a famine? The agreements often do not include clauses to safeguard the host country, dictating for instance that in case of famine investors have to keep a certain proportion of that food within the country and not export all of it.

AZ: Different definitions and interpretations of land rush (from land grab to investments) come up depending on parts and counterparts involved  (governments, civil society, donor agency, private investors,  etc). How to demystify the issue? Can you clarify such confusion?

MT: Like anything, the choice of words depends on how you want to present a situation. ‘Land grabbing’ is used often to imply that these transactions are not entirely legitimate, that there is an element of illegal  grabbing going on. In some cases this is indeed correct, although not in others. In ILC we simply refer to land transactions, and those transactions can take place legally or illegally.  In many cases the land that is being taken is not empty land. It is land that is used and has people on it. There is no good agricultural land that is simply unused: it is either important for biodiversity, for instance a protected area, or it has got people farming on it, using it for grazing livestock, etc. The problem is that in many cases, the land does not legally belong to the local people using it. Legally it belongs to the state, as it is classed as state land. When the state makes an agreement with an investor to grant such land,  it is not breaking its own laws, as it legally holds title to that land. The problem is that the customary rights and ownership or use systems of local land-users is not recognised. And this is where the change needs to take place: there needs to be a recognition that local people have a legitimate right to decide on the use and ownership of the land they live on.

I wrote a paper* last year with colleague of mine where we tried to categorise the different ways in which land is acquired: in some ways it is pure land grabbing, people going out and enclosing big areas of land for themselves. Where land grabbing is taking place, it is not only by foreign investors, but also by elites within the country: rich people take big areas of land for themselves with the hope to sell it on to investors or to go into joint ventures with them. In southern Sudan we have cases of agreements between politically well-connected individuals and American companies, which are not following really any law.

Latin America is another interesting example. Because there isn’t much unregistered or state land, land concentration is taking place through the market mechanisms. Big companies are acquiring land from small scale producers, from whom they are either leasing it or buying it. But the prices are often well below the value of the land. So the same process is occurring but through the market: a concentration of land in the hands of few and few people, with investors taking the land at the expense of poor people. Technically you can not say it is land grabbing, it is capitalism. It is about people owning land but lacking the means to fully develop the productive capacity over the land and finding themselves with no options other than sell it.

AZ: Well, we can define it a perverse form of capitalism due to asymmetries and distortions of the market.

MT: Precisely.

AZ: If land rush is not a new phenomenon in history, why is it of relevance at this point in time? what are the major concerns with respect to protection and defence of people’s rights?

MT: The rush for land is relevant at this time because we are in a changing world where economic opportunities and geopolitical relations are changing. Land is a big source of conflict in many countries in Africa and all over the world. If land concentration continues to the extent it has been, these areas will become conflict areas in the future. The key thing is that these are not empty lands: the people who lose their rights will find themselves in worse poverty than they were, and this will bring social and political discontent. You correctly identify the key issues as a question of local people’s rights: right to food, right to shelter, right to land, right to descent employment conditions. All these rights are made vulnerable in this kind of situation. If at a certain point, the right to land is recognised – and investors realize they do not only negotiate with the state, but they also need to negotiate with local people and that negotiation needs to happen in an open, fair and hopefully equitable environment – then there is a possibility for something positive to come out of it for local people as well.

There are cases in Eastern and Western Africa of local people working voluntarily together with investors. They do not acquire land, but simply reach agreements with local people about the amount to produce which will be then acquired and sold. These experiences show that there is no need to take pieces of land in order to have an investment. Local people may not have access to markets or technology or anything else they may need in order to produce on a much  bigger scale – but they do have land and as long as they have land, they have the asset and the productive means to work with investors.

AZ: Which responses can be put in place by whom? Can bilateral or multilateral regulations be envisaged? at what level? or is it an utopia perhaps?

MT: There has been lots of discussion around this and I think the general consensus is that it is not possible or feasible to put in place multilateral regulations, meaning enforceable regulations because it will take so long to come up with some form of protocol or multinational agreement.  A number of inter-governmental ILC members have proposed to set in place principles for responsible investments, as a benchmark for socially and environmentally responsible investments. This for example has been promoted by WB, FAO, IFAD – which are all ILC members – and UNCTAD which is not ILC member. At the same time, we have other members that are saying there should be different principles: the WB and its partners have already put out what they call ‘principles for responsible agricultural investments’; the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Oliver De Schutter has proposed 11 principles; and organisations like BMZ and IFPRI are proposing principles as well. On the other hand, organisations like Via Campesina are against the definition of such principles for responsible investments because from their point of view these investments are fundamentally undermining local needs and cannot be responsible.

AZ: more radical positions…

MT: yes….ILC is actually trying to promote some sort of dialogue between these different proposals. We see the danger that some organisations might rush and put in place a global set of principles without consulting  the most important stakeholders that is to say: the people who live on the land, women’s organisation, farmers organisation, indigenous communities, livestock keepers organisations. They need to be part of this debate. We have just launched a dialogue with three big regional farmers organisations from Latin America, West Africa and Asian, together with Action Aid, with the aim of finding some convergences and generating a consensus at international level.

AZ: Some African countries experiencing the land rush are every year destination of billion dollars in food aid with large portions of their population unable to access food. How to break this vicious cycle?

MT: The key thing is investing in the small farmers, supporting the local people using the land to produce more food that is affordable locally. I don’t see the big investors from outside being the only solution. They might be part of the solution, but at the end of the day they could cause more poverty or more hunger than they  actually alleviate.
So, I think that donors and governments need to invest more in small scale producers who are at the moment producing most of the world food and could be producing even more if they get the right support.

Michael Taylor is Programme Manager, Land Policy and African Region, at the International Land Coalition (ILC). ILC is a global alliance of civil society and intergovernmental organisations promoting secure and equitable access to land for poor people.

* Increasing commercial pressure on land: Building a coordianted response, by Michael Taylor and Tim Bending, ILC secretariat, July 2009

Related Articles on the SID Forum:
The great African land rush
SID Trend Monitoring Report: Drivers of regional food security

Photo Credit: SID (Naivasha, Kenya)

Reading about the land rush taking place in Africa is quite puzzling. Information are tepid and occasional. The first impression is that this process is silently underway, to some extents taken for granted, with no clear understanding of boundaries and differences among land rush, foreign direct investments and land grab. It is a mystified issue that has acquired a sort of fascination for foreign investors and some African governments, while little concern is devoted to the implications on people’s life and development.  Oxfam (via Reuters) observes that the search of land of developed nations in poor countries ‘sounds like good news for local economies’ but poses the question of ‘how can people in places like Ethiopia be sure they’re getting a fair deal’ (Alertnet-Reuters).

The need of a fair deal – although imperative – may sound a bit rhetorical since,  it is reported,  deals are done secretly and with no consultation with local dwellers. There is no clear sign of a critical understanding or awareness about the way land rush is shaping up and going to impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.

Strikingly, the expression itself of land rush sounds like a linguistic mitigation – if not a legitimisation – of  what seems to be after all a process of  wild and disproportionate assault of natural resources in developing countries.

According to the data circulated by the Economist in May 2009 ‘in the last three years foreigners had secured deals or engaged in talks on between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farm land in developing countries’ (the Economist via Reuters). As it emerges from a SID news mapping SID – see March Trend Monitoring Report – around 20 African countries are affected by a land rush of huge proportions, led by international agribusiness, investment banks hedge funds, commodity traders, foundations and individuals from industrialised countries and emerging economies (USA, Europe, Saudi Arabia, China, India and South Korea).

According to an investigation by The Guardian, this is the biggest rush since the colonial era. Key drivers are the global food and water shortage, the oil crisis and the changing climate temperatures in some of the main grain producing countries (Eastern Europe and Australia). Millions hectares of the most fertile African land – Ethiopia is a case in point – are offered to rich countries which can therefore farm and export food to respond to the increased demands of  their own markets. Governments like Kenya, Sudan and Tanzania have leased land to outsiders in exchange of promises of cash, roads, and schools, without consulting local dwellers (Bloomberg Businessweek). And too often, these deals are leading to evictions, and civil unrest and general complaints of ‘land grabbing’ (All Africa).

In such a scenario, social and economic rights of local dwellers are completely undermined. As Martin Kimani points out in the interview for the SID Forum, the idea that ‘economic development trumps human rights’ in Africa has been prevailing so far.  As a matter of fact, he says, ‘ (…) citizen(s) should not be subjected to extrajudicial violence by the State. If this is an absolute principle, what does it mean if the individual lives in an area with precious resources and is resisting moving out to allow large corporations unfettered access?’

How such a phenomenon is going to impact on food security in Africa is not clear and it is not even addressed. Tensions are rising in African countries (ex. Kenya) because people are displaced without compensation.

The paradox can occur that vulnerable people who are already suffering food insecurity, will be further negatively affected by the land rush: first by getting deprived of their access to resources; secondly by getting subject to exploitative work in plantations run by foreign investing companies or by getting forced to migrate to other places. In this way food security is neglected two times and local people are disempowered twice, in the name of the need to secure the increasing food demand of the richer nations.

It is suggested that land rush may boost the local economies. However, in the absence of adequate urban and rural development, local economies may end up languishing rather than growing. In Kenya – where services account for the 60% of the economy and  agriculture for less than 30% (WDI 2008) – one could imagine as effect of foreign investments a process of revaluation and rapid advancement of the rural sector together with a higher employment rate and a lower migration trend of young nationals and high skilled. Quite the opposite, data about unemployment and brain drain do not seem to match with such expectation yet.

The attractive factor dragging investors in Africa is that these lands are among the cheapest in the world. In Ethiopia, it is reported that 7 million acres of virgin land have been priced just 50 cents an acre per year (Alertnet/Reuters). People are complaining about water pollution and animals poisoning/sickening  (Bloomberg Businessweek). Not to mention the use of chemicals, pesticides and the effects of the shift to mono-cultural plantations (as pointed out by Vanda Nashiva in The Guardian).

Are African governments prepared to prevent or respond to economic, social and environmental dumping?

Moreover, some of the countries experiencing the land rash, are every year destination of billion dollars in food aid with large portions of their population unable to access food. The combination of foreign aid dependency, food emergency, and low-cost investments may rather lead to a further worsening of local markets performances, rising dependency and further degradation of the local capital (human, physical, social).

Different interests, actors and connections are involved in this process, to the point that it sounds quite evocative of the old stories about exploitation; on the background, the usual stories of lack of political capacity, the lack of accountability, weak states and a neutral international community.  In such a context, when African governments negotiate with foreign investors, which ‘constituency’ – among citizens, corporate firms and donors – do they feel to be more accountable to?

Related article: SID Trend Monitoring Report – Drivers of regional food security

Read more: SID Horizon Scanning and Trend Monitoring Report

Photo credit: Kicki

May 14, 2010 will be remembered in the diplomatic annals of East Africa’s countries, Egypt and Sudan as the day that set in motion a completely new course as far as the River Nile waters management is concerned. On that day, four riparian states, namely Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda, kept their word and signed the new Agreement of the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework in Entebbe, Uganda. Kenya followed suit few days later, on May 19, and Burundi is supposed to come next, the last East Africa Community member to sign the new agreement.

The treaty is meant to formalize the transformation of the Nile Basin Initiative, a partnership among the riparian states initiated in the early 1990′s, into a permanent Nile River Basin Commission. More importantly, the new agreement seeks also a more equitable utilisation of the Nile waters among all Nile basin countries. This would mean putting into question the status quo: colonial-era agreements – the first signed in 1929 between Egypt and Britain and the second concluded in 1959 between Egypt and Sudan – which give Cairo and Khartoum the nearly total control of the Nile waters. Following 1959 agreement, Egypt and Sudan are entitled to 55,5 and 18,5 billion cubic metres a year, respectively, the lion’s share of the Nile’s total flow, averagely put at 84 billion cubic metres. Moreover, Egypt retains a veto power on any upstream project which could affect its annual share of the waters. Cairo vehemently reasserted this right few days ago, after Ethiopia had announced on May 14 the inauguration of the Tana Beles dam, a hydroelectric project build on Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile.

Egypt and Sudan had tried to prevent the other Nile basin countries to sign the new deal, clearly stating their opposition to article 14 (b) of the agreement, which says “Nile Basin States agree, in a spirit of cooperation, to work together to ensure that all states achieve and sustain water security and not to significantly affect the water security of any other Nile Basin State”. The two downstream countries proposal was to re-write the last part of the article, so to read “Not to adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile Basin States”. But negotiations on this point failed to reach an agreement and during the last meeting of the Nile Council of Ministers, earlier this month in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, Cairo and Khartoum formally rejected the new deal, “unless all nine basin states reach solutions to the disputed issues”, as Sudan’s official Ahmed al-Mufti stated few days before the signature period of a year was formally open on May 14. Despite the two downstream countries’ opposition and despite EU’s invitation to the seven upstream countries to avoid a move that could “make political problems that exist worse”, the other Nile basin states went on with the scheduled signing ceremony. Tensions are thus rising. Egypt is considering how to respond to Ethiopia’s dam, while Kenyan newspapers underline the pressure the new deal is posing to already frosty trade relations between Cairo and Nairobi.

A tough confrontation between Egypt and Sudan on one side and Ethiopia and the East African countries on the other is highly foreseeable. And there are fears it could overstep the political sphere to reach the military one. For Egypt, 95% dependent on the Nile for its water needs, maintaining the 1959 quota is a question of national security and it has always influenced its politics towards East Africa and the Sudan, especially as far as the South is concerned. Cairo has always opposed the secession option, discussed severally for decades before it was recognised in the CPA. An independent South Sudan would mean another country in the Nile Basin and at the negotiating table, a country whose borders will include the greatest part of the White Nile and its main tributaries courses, that would be naturally allied to the East African countries and could want to start hydrological and hydroelectric projects on its own. It’s no surprise, then, that with less than eight months to go before South Sudan referendum on independence, Egypt goes on supporting the unity of Sudan, though promising it will respect southern Sudanese’s choice.

Sources: BBC, Reuters, East African, Business Daily, Citizen, Daily Monitor, Al-Masri al-Youm, Al-Ahram Weekly, Sudan Tribune

Related article: Interview with Sara Pantuliano

Photo credit: al-Mogran, Khartoum – The confluence of the Blue and the White Nile. by Irene Panozzo

Despite the many expectations from all sides of the negotiation platform, Copenhagen failed to produce a legally binding agreement. From a southern based perspective the result is a very weak accord that does not meet the African countries’ demands as posited in the African common position. On the other hand, scientists urge action to limit global warming and to implement climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Although the exact nature of the changes in temperature,precipitation, and extreme events is not known, there is consensus in literature about following general trends. Global mean surface temperature is projected to increase between 1.5 and 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 resulting in flooding and salt water intrusion forcing people to abandon their land and  homes; African countries will experience hotter, drier conditions, with warming greatest over the interior of semi-arid margins of the Sahara and central southern Africa (1). In addition, under intermediate warming scenarios, parts of Equatorial East Africa will likely experience 5-20% increased rainfall from December – February and 5 – 10 % decreased rainfall from June – August 2050 (2). Changes of this magnitude will have far reaching, negative impacts on the availability of water resources, food and agricultural security, human health, tourism, coastal development and biodiversity (3).

As a matter of fact, African countries are already experiencing the impact of climate change despite their low contribution to green house gases: most of the emissions come from fossil fuels and Africa accounts for less than 4% of global emissions. Moreover, the continent heats up 1.5 times the global average thus at a higher risk compared to other parts of the world. In Copenhagen, annex one countries championed for a peak warming of 2 degrees whereas Africa insisted on 1.5. By limiting the temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius, in reality means 3 degrees warming for Africa (4).

The African political request
The African common position – although  recognizing African responsibility in relation to deforestation and environmental degradation as a result of poverty and other socio-political challenges – clearly demanded for a greater responsibility of industrialized nations – responsible for 55% of the global emissions – to support developing nations to cope with the effect of climate change.
Essentially the document underscored the need for: a legally binding agreement to be built on the Kyoto protocol; a major financial support for adaptation and mitigation programme in developing countries; and a reduction of global emissions by at least 40 % below the 1990 levels by 2020. Such reduction – that would limit peak global warming to around 1.5 degrees – was at odds with the industrialized countries’ demand of a threshold of 2 degrees that would allow them to postpone drastic reduction and in the meantime continue with current emissions.

African countries’ political commitments
Between the Bali and the Copenhagen summit, members of parliament across Africa held two summits to drum up support for a common African position. The second summit held under the theme “one, Africa, one voice, one position” produced a declaration – “Declaration of the Pan African Conference on Climate Change” (Nairobi, 12-15 October 2009) (5) that strengthened the African common position. The document stated the need for African countries commitment to: formulate and enact national policies and legislation that ensure sustainable development; support/pursue climate protection through support of reduced emissions from deforestation, forest degradation and nationally appropriate mitigation actions, including agriculture and other land uses. The declaration also acknowledged the lack of capacity of African countries to undertake climate action and thus asked industrialized countries for more support in terms of technology transfers and institutional capacity building.

The outcome
The Copenhagen summit failed to deliver a legal agreement but produced a very weak accord (6). The funding proposed in the accord for climate mitigation and adaptation is largely not new money but part of the existing Official Development Assistance (ODA). Developing countries’ request for additional funds managed by an independent agency within the UNFCCC (rather than by multi-lateral agencies like the World Bank) was not addressed.

Copenhagen also failed to decide on the future of the Kyoto protocol. The developing countries bloc wanted an agreement that legally obliged developed nations to undertake a second round of emission reductions through an amended Kyoto protocol. Developed nations on the other hand were not keen on amending the KP thus abdicating their responsibility in combating global warming.

From an African perspective, one may argue that the manner in which the Copenhagen Accord  was prepared and presented left the least developed nations, Africa, and small island states with a feeling of ‘being shut out of the deal’ and hence unwillingness to adopt a Conference of Parties decision (7). The ambitious targets of the African common position were not completely addressed. However, African countries have their own responsibilities too.
So what happened? Why an agreement was not reached?

What went wrong?
In a sense, the African common position remained a key obstacle to the negotiations since the African group had opposed any compromise and this was particularly good for the continent. However, this common position was at some point shaken after the Ethiopian prime minister made unilateral declarations in the plenary in the name of the African countries group. In particular, it was purported that the African delegation was willing to compromise on emissions and that was ready to accept USD $ 100 billion in financing). The Ethiopian position – although contested and disowned by the African delegations – breached significantly and unexpectedly with the African position and more in general the entire G77 and China bloc. What is not clear is why Ethiopia took that direction despite the presence of a common African position.

What next for Africa?
It is difficult to say what direction Africa will take on the Climate Change negotiations. However, there are options for G77 countries and Africa in charting a clear direction on future talks. In order to do so, it is fundamental for African countries to strengthen their own voice as one single block. This will also imply the challenge of reviewing their engagement with the Republic of South Africa: on one side a possible coordinator of the African countries in the climate negotiations; on the other side, more likely to align itself with the Annex I bloc (rather than the G77 block) because of its national interests and economic power.

—

(1) Nkomo, J.,  Nyong, A.,  Kulindwa, K., 2006, ‘The Impacts of Climate Change in Africa’,  in The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, p. 4
(2) Wild Wide Fund, 2006, Climate Change Impacts on East Africa: A Review of the Scientific Literature, pp. 4–8.
(3) Ibid.,p.4-8.
(4) IPCC, 2007, ‘Summary for Policy Makers’, in Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  Cambridge University Press. P. 867.
See also http://www.fanrpan.org/documents/d00815/
(5) See: http://www.africaclimatesolution.org/features/Declaration_2nd_PAPNCC_summit.pdf; and www.africa-eu-partnership.org/pdf/nairobi_decalaration_en.pdf
(6) Alabaster, R., 2010,  COP15/CMP5: Analysis of the Process, Outcomes and Implication.

About the authors:

Stephen Mutiso is a Disaster Risk Reduction and Livelihoods expert in the Horn and East Africa Region. He was part of the Civil Society Movement – Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PAJA) – during the COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Lawrence Wesley Mwagwabi holds an advanced degree in development studies and he is currently undertaking a post graduate course in diplomacy at the University of Nairobi. This article is the result of a joint interest on climate change and environmental diplomacy. Stephen and Lawrence work together with a development agency based in East Africa.

Photo credit: Kevin Dooley

Yesterday was the opening session of the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth here in Cochabamba. We arrived Monday night and Tuesday morning we went directly to the place for registration and we found a very long queue. The fact is that the number of participants is much higher than expected. They are talking about 20,000 participants from all over the world, though of course the majority of participants are from Bolivia and Latin America. We arrived at the stadium just on time for Evo Morales’ speech during the opening ceremony, in a packed and very colourful stadium.

The self organized activities and the panel started in the afternoon. There are many activities and all of them registered a high number of participants. Besides that, there is the work of the 17 working groups that started working online several weeks ago and met face to face these days. Today the conclusions of all these groups will be presented. There is an 18th group, outside the programme, formed to look at the environmental problems in Bolivia itself. There have been some difficulties with this group as it has not been allowed to operate as one of the groups of the conference.

Let me tell you now about our activities, which went very well and were also very well attended. As GCAP, yesterday we presented two activities. The first one was our activity as Feminist Task Force (FTF) called ‘Women’s Tribunals on Climate Change’. The activity from GCAP was called ‘Launching of the coalition of communities affected by climate change’. We started our  FTF activity with the video prepared by Rosa which summarizes the seven tribunals, and I put together a power point with the main problems identified at these seven tribunals, why they affect women in a differentiated way, and which are the solutions suggested. After that Anita Nayar from DAWN made an overall presentation of the structural causes of climate change from a feminist perspective. The last presentation was made by Gabriela Segura Cárdenas, from GCAP Mexico, who talked about the experience of the tribunal in Mexico with special emphasis on the situation of women. Fiounala Cregan, from the GCAP Secretariat, was the facilitator. A very interesting debate followed. Participants shared several testimonies which reinforce our view on the link between gender and climate change, and they also highlighted the importance of our event, especially as the issue of gender is almost absent from the conference. A Bolivian TV station interviewed me as they were very interested in the topic, precisely because it did not have much coverage in the conference. The launching of the climatic communities was also well attended and there were testimonies from Chile, Peru and Bolivia. The conference closes tomorrow and I will try to share with you the main conclusions.

Ana Agostino is a member of the Editorial Board of Development and is co-ordinating, together with the Academy of Educational Development (AED), the journal issue 53.4 ‘Education for Transformation’. Ana works for the International Council for Adult Education, a Uruguay-based global network of adult learners and educators who promote the use of adult learning as a tool for informed participation of people and sustainable development.  She is also a member of the GCAP Global Council and the facilitator for the Feminist Task Force (FTF).

In the top right picture : Ana Agostino

In the bottom left picture: a workshop participant

Read the final statement of the conference (English version)

Read the final statement of the conference (Spanish version)

The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth is indeed an absolute novelty in the international arena. For the first time, representatives of civil society will be discussing with government officials on a level playing field. Furthermore, one of the aims of the conference is to generate a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth, thus elevating the rights of nature and the environment to those of human beings. This is also why the conference was scheduled to end on 22 April, which has been recognized as UN Day for Mother Earth.

The central idea behind the event is climate justice. Climate change should not only be discussed and analyzed as a technical and scientific issue, rather as a political issue connected to the global capitalistic and consumer driven system that rules our societies. 98% of the people affected by climate change live in poorer countries with fewer means to protect themselves from changed weather patterns and more frequent natural disasters. This disproportionate percentage is even more striking if we think that those same countries contribute only 1% to global CO2 emissions. What emerges then is the need to rethink the whole system of values on which our world is based.

As stressed by missionary Alex Zanotelli at a press conference held by the Italian NGO A Sud on 13 April in Rome, a cultural, human, ethical, spiritual revolution among the one billion rich people of the world is vital. Only through a global movement which demands fundamental changes in the way we live, will true ecological and social justice be achieved.

Read the final statement of the conference (in Spanish only)

For more information on COP15 see our resource pages on climate change.

photo credit: mvhargan

Communication as a key element for the protection and promotion of indigenous peoples’ culture and identity

For centuries Indigenous Peoples (IPs) has suffered a situation of injustice and marginalization, as well as limited access to fundamental rights such as health, education and participation in political and public life, including mass media, which has restricted their involvement in decision making processes at the national and international level. To make matters worse, some States still consider IPs’ rights as opposed to national economic development; as an example some States do not fully recognize IPs´right to free prior informed consent, not taking properly into account IPs’ statements regarding their territories, natural resources and others issues affecting them.

In spite of this discouraging scenario, IPs have recognized communication as a way out to promote their rights and build more democratic and equal societies. As a result, IPs all over the world have been using different types of communication medias, tools and spaces to make their voices heard and place their proposals on the local, national and international political agendas; one of their main demands has been the establishment of IPs´ communication policies that reflect their vision and enhance their participation in the definition of communication messages and contents within public spaces.

Besides, the 17th article of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples mentions the IPs’ right to establish their own medias and the use of their own languages, in addition to access without discrimination to other non-indigenous and state medias, ensuring that they reflect the cultural diversity of society. Consequently, in the last years, both indigenous organizations and development agencies, as the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues itself, have valued the role of communication in the promotion of IPs’ self determined development and have implemented Communication for Development (ComDev)(1) activities to empower vulnerable and marginalized populations, promote their access to information and knowledge, support secure livelihoods and sustainable development initiatives and consolidating spaces of dialogue and discussion that could influence the political agenda.

The IPs’ right to communication also includes the conservation of their own traditional medias, without disregarding at the same time the use of new ones. In fact, IPs have been using the radio, internet and ICTs to strengthen their identity, using their languages and transferring their traditional knowledge among indigenous communities and within the national society. In addition, indigenous communicators have asked for education and training so that they can continue develop their communications skills, formulate and disseminate messages, build alliances and networks, influence public policies and defend IPs’ right to communication and information.

On the whole, these are some of the aspects that consolidate communication as an important element for allowing those who were previously considered only message consumers to start producing them, enhancing the practice of their citizenship and the pursuit of their own development model.

In my opinion the 9th session of the UNFPII’s special theme Indigenous peoples: development with culture and identity is a good opportunity for UN agencies, civil society, IPs organizations and various stakeholders to put the issue of IPs’ communication on the international agenda, discuss its relevance, share experiences and give concrete recommendations to use it for the protection and promotion of IPs´ identity and culture. It is our responsibility as activists, professionals, academics and individuals committed to IPs’ issues, to support their initiatives, proposals and struggles towards the consolidation of a fairer society and the full recognition of their rights.

(1)According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), ComDev is a social process based on the systematic and participatory use of communication approaches, including the use of resources and tools from radio to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

*Vanessa Vertiz is a Communication Development Specialist, currently working as a consultant for FAO

Go to the  ‘Indigenous Peoples’ resource page.

photo credit: Keith Bacongco

This article is also available in Spanish.

From 19-30 April this year, the Ninth Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum in Indigenous Issues will be held in New York. This year one of the special topics will be the development of indigenous peoples and issues of culture and identity, based on Articles 3 and 23 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I would like to share some thoughts on these issues (culture and identity) based on experiences here in Colombia.

The right to cultural identity is linked to the history of peoples, with their knowledge, habits and customs and with the way the indigenous relate to land, territory and nature. It is the right of indigenous peoples to assert this cultural identity and reproduce forms, practices and values to exercise control over their people and their autonomy.

The indigenous peoples of Colombia, represented by the ONIC (National Indigenous Organization of Colombia) “claim the Respect and Promotion of cultural and collective identities, which are based on territorial rights and resources that are inherent to them.”
Identity, culture and territory go hand in hand.

Indigenous peoples have become watchdogs and protectors of the natural resources and biodiversity that abound in their territories. As evidence of the right to self-determination, as currently set forth in Article 3 of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, an indigenous Embera community in Chocó, Alto Guayabal, in the Jiguamiandó Urada reserve, filed an Action to the Constitutional Court of Colombia upon the arrival of the Muriel Mining Corporation in its territory last year. The company intended to explore the area of the Katuma Jai Hill, which abounds in gold, molybdenum and copper. This area is sacred to the indigenous; it is here that the natives perform their sacred and spiritual rituals and the environmental reserve is immense.

The Coordillera where this mountain is located has been protected by ancestral indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, and is a witness of their culture, their community and organizational processes. This sacred mountain is an essential element of their sense of identity, and is the basis for their survival as a people.

Thanks to this lawsuit filed by the indigenous leaders together with the NGO Justice and Peace, the ONIC, the Ombudsman and the Universidad de los Andes, the Court has ruled in favour of indigenous and black communities, ordering the suspension of the Mandé Norte project, and of exploration and mining in the territory.

The reasons for the suspension are varied: the mining project would alter the ecological balance and biodiversity of the area; it has not complied with the requirement of prior, free and informed consultation of all the affected communities; the arrival of the company was accompanied by the police and according to the Court’s decision ‘the exploitation of natural resources in territories traditionally inhabited by indigenous communities must be consistent with the protection that the state should afford to their social, cultural and economic integrity’. In this respect, the community does not perceive the police forces in their territory as a guarantee of safety.

Prior consultation, which should be a process of democratic participation, with adequate, open and free communication, without unwarranted interference, did not occur in this case. An inappropriate process of ‘consultation’ was conducted, and was rigged so that some leaders and organizations signed their agreement to the mining concession. Furthermore, this was done without the support of the actual community, while perks were given in exchange for the documents but were subsequently cancelled.

The community carried out an internal Peoples Consultation, in order to design a basic process according to the customs of indigenous peoples, with national and international verification, to determine the fate of their territories that are owned by the indigenous and black communities that live there.

When the Muriel Mining Corporation came to the area known as La Rica in the Embera reserve, Embera women with their children in hand were those who stood up to face the arrival of the company’s machinery, which came escorted by the army. They were there to safeguard the territory their sons and daughters will inherit.  They affirmed that they were not consulted about any kind of exploration and appropriation of property and natural resources of their land.

This process is emblematic of the moment Colombia is going through. The ILO has also published a report with recommendations to the government that this case should be taken into account. It gives several suggestions about developing the appropriate consultation process with the organizations and tribal and indigenous communities affected, in order to meet the requirements of the Convention. It also suggests that the militarization of the communities where companies want to implement projects is not appropriate and that they undertake the essential requirements of genuine consultation.

These actions on the ground and vindication of rights are yet another example of the fight for territory being carried out by indigenous peoples.

That is why we believe that the struggle for survival of indigenous peoples in their territory is the basis for life and development of their ancestral cultures. Our duty is therefore to protect the territory, and preserve the identity of indigenous peoples and the environment.

*Beatriz García del Campo is Programme Officer, Christian Aid Colombia

Go to the  ‘Indigenous Peoples’ resource page.

photo credit: Anthony Letmon

A full version of this  interview is also available in Spanish.

LFM What are the main problems faced by the Mapuches in Chile?

GQ Two important things. First: the issue of the territorial rights that were never recognized which particularly affect the communities surrounded by forestry companies or big land estates.
The second aspect that we stress as an organization (Wallmapuwen) is the issue of the recognition of the Mapuches as a people and of our political rights, those of a people pre-existent to the State. The conflict started at the end of the nineteenth century when the Chilean State militarily occupied our territories and then cancelled the territorial and political rights that we enjoyed until then.
Another important aspect for us Mapuches is the issue of the repression and persecution of leaders and communities. The state’s response to the claims of these communities has been the use of legislation which is totally anti democratic, the ‘anti-terrorist law’, which was forged during the dictatorship and applied only to the Mapuches in times of ‘democracy’. And this use of police force led to the imprisonment of hundreds of leaders and the death of three youngsters.
All this has been denounced nationally and internationally and there is a series of recommendations from 2003 onwards by the UN Committee on Human Rights, the reports of the Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, and then last year by the new Rapporteur James Anaya. All these recommendations were not taken into consideration by the recent governments and therefore we think that we have not progressed much in the recognition of our fundamental rights, be they territorial or political.

LFM What is the situation of the rights of the Mapuches on their ancestral territories, especially after Chile’s ratification of the ILO Convention 169 in 2008?

GQ The interpretation of the State is that the Convention only recognizes those territorial rights that have documents, which only means 500,000 hectares out of the five or ten million that we had until the end of the nineteenth century. Therefore, neither before nor after the ratification, have our ancestral rights been recognized. The land that is currently in the hands of forestry companies or the private sector in general amounts to more than three million hectares, which was part of what historically we had as a people. We are not necessarily planning to reclaim all the territory that we had in the nineteenth century, but the main point is that Mapuche lands have been plundered. It is necessary to recognize the territorial rights, not only in terms of surface area, but also in terms of natural resources. According to the vision of the Chilean State and the current neo-liberal model, natural resources are regulated by other legislation which is completely separated from Convention 169. Therefore there has been no improvement in the recognition of our territorial rights. On our territories, we have resources such as water, forests, the coastal areas, and all this has been given to private companies, for example the salmon industry. Most of the indigenous territories and natural resources are in the hands of private companies, of transnational corporations, companies from Spain, USA, Norway, Australia, Japan who then export mainly to Europe and the US.
The problem is that we have sectorial laws and even a Constitution that tells us that Convention 169 is not valid. In order for the Convention to come into effect, it is necessary to change the sectorial laws and the Constitution but this requires political will. However parliamentarians have economic and political interests. Even on the left, they keep considering indigenous people not as a people; instead they insist that we are all Chilean, ‘indigenous’, therefore there can’t be special rights for one people. So the main point here is that the Convention clashes with a very conservative legislation, tied to economic interests, and the political elite in power does not show any interest in wanting to recognize the rights of indigenous people.

LFM So, being displaced from their territories, the majority of the Mapuche population live in urban areas. Is that right?

GQ 60% of those that we consider Mapuches live in urban areas, mainly in Santiago. The remaining 40% lives in rural areas or small towns in what we call Wallmapu, the historic Mapuche territory, living on small-scale or subsistence agriculture and forestry. Families rely on children who emigrate to the cities. There is not a Mapuche family living in the countryside who does not have any relative in the city and vice-versa. The ties with those who migrate are strong and people in the cities mobilize and fight alongside the rural communities.
However, the State does not recognize the Mapuches as political actors. This State wants a monolithic, unicultural and unipolitical country. We as Mapuches have no representation in parliament, nor special laws as in other countries, like quotas or rights to local autonomy. We are fighting to have our own representatives in parliament. Article N. 1 of the Constitution says that Chile is a single and indivisible nation. The parliament does not recognize the word people and the rights that come with it both in the present and in the future; it doesn’t recognize collective rights, territorial rights and political rights.

LFM So the situation is very different from countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador with their new constitutions….

GQ You have Canada, Nicaragua with the Miskitos on the Atlantic coast, you have the progress in Ecudor with many difficulties. In Bolivia in both the constitution and other legal instruments the country is recognized as plurinational. Here, there has been no such progress.
There is a document which is called the Report of the Truth and New Treatment Commission. It is a document written by indigenous representatives, State’s official and civil society in 2003-2004. This document states what happened in the past and continues to happen in relation to indigenous people and the Chilean State, and contains some recommendations. However, although this document is official, it has not been presented to any State body such as municipalities, the government etc. It states what has to be done but it has not been applied. It is an example of how we advance a little in recognizing our rights but in concrete terms nothing is done.

LFM The recently published UN ‘Report on the State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples’ warns that the majority of the languages spoken by indigenous peoples are at risk of extinction. Is this a problem for the Mapuches?

GQ About 22% of the Mapuches speak the Mapuzugun, the original language. We are talking about one fifth of the indigenous population which lives in very limited geographic and social spaces. This data worries us. Our language is in danger of disappearing. On one hand we know that the response cannot come from the State only. On the other hand, it is clear that our lack of recognition makes the achievement of basic rights very difficult.
Inside the Mapuche society there have been some interesting things in the last ten, 15 years. There have been efforts: people who have revitalized the mapudungun and teach it to their children, the use of names of Mapuche origin. These are little things and they are neither systematic nor institutionalized.

LFM Apart from the indigenous national movements and the regional networks that fight for indigenous peoples’ rights, what role can the international institutions such as the UN play, in particular the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues?

GQ The existence of international bodies and institutions that have made dialogue on indigenous issues  possible has been positive. 20 or 30 years ago people were talking about indigenous people but as if they only existed in the past. Then there was progress in the sense that there was an acknowledgement that it was necessary to create instruments to protect indigenous people in the present. A more critical vision is that the UN represents the States. An example was the time that it took to approve the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. It took 20 years! This was due to several attempts by certain States to neutralize indigenous rights. Therefore the forum has been an important space, but an insufficient one. There has been a recognition, but in many parts of the world this clashes with the economic interests of large transnationals and with the political interests of the States.
We also believe that at the national level we indigenous people are making great strides, we are creating political spaces in opposition to the State, the political and economic powers, against the transnationals and the neo-liberal State, and all this despite our double or triple condition of marginalization! Certainly you have to acknowledge the progress, yet there is still a lot to do and it is essential to keep fighting in the local, national and international spaces.
As long as there is a representative from the Mapuches in the Forum- and it is certain there will be a representative in the next one- the international community will continue to be informed on what is happening to the Mapuches, both in Chile and Argentina.

Go to the  ‘Indigenous Peoples’ resource page.

photo credit: Wallmapuwen

For those of us who consider ourselves part of the climate justice movement, the spectacular failure of the Copenhagen climate talks was not only expected, but almost welcomed.

This may be a surprising reaction from movements and organisations deeply committed to ecological sustainability and social justice, yet many of us knew that the only likely “deal” in Copenhagen would be inadequate and unfair and would perpetuate the current ineffective neoliberal climate policies of offsets, carbon markets and the clean development mechanism. Thankfully, the “failure” of Copenhagen averted the worst (at least for now) and the movement will live to fight another day.

It has been clear since Bali that none of the Annex 1 countries is willing to make the deep domestic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to give us even half a chance of avoiding runaway climate change, let alone leaving any “atmospheric space” for the rest of the world. Nor were any of the Annex 1 countries willing to mobilise the money needed to deal with the current and future impacts of climate chaos on the South, or indeed agree to anything that deviated from business as usual. Clearly, the rich countries want to have their cake and eat it too and having benefitted from decades of fossil fuel-driven economic growth, they are now trying to shift the burden to the South, by blaming China, in particular, for “spoiling” the Copenhagen deal and insisting that developing countries take on the burden of emission reductions.

In the lead-up to the COP15, developing countries had shown goodwill and commitment in the negotiations and in the past year many of the concrete proposals on finance and technology were tabled by the Group of 77 and China. Yet there has been no reciprocity on the part of the rich countries. For this reason, the G77 and China have defended the two-track approach — the Kyoto Protocol track and the “long term cooperative action” track (which Jan Pronk rather confusingly calls the US track) — because they believe that the only way to maintain the legal instrument that differentiates between those who have historical responsibility for climate change and those who don’t, is the Kyoto Protocol.

From the limited perspective of the current negotiations, Jan Pronk’s desire for the two tracks to merge is problematic given that this is precisely what the US wants too. The US’ game plan is to duck out of its obligations under Kyoto by simply getting rid of Kyoto and replacing it with a voluntary and non-binding agreement. Indeed, the dubious Copenhagen Accord is just one step in this strategy.

From a climate justice perspective (or even from the banal viewpoint of effectiveness) there is a larger critique of the whole negotiations that goes beyond debates of whether we need one track or two tracks. Quite simply, the current negotiations in the UNFCCC fail to address to the root cause of climate change: the massive use of fossil fuels. Instead of going to the heart of the issue, the Kyoto Protocol relies on tried and failed neo-liberal market mechanisms, such as privatisation and financialisation of the commons (especially forests and the atmosphere) and expanding financial markets to trade “carbon” which allow polluters in rich countries to continue polluting (and profiting) as usual by buying “credits” from the South. The first phase of Kyoto has failed to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions in Annex 1 countries simply because it was designed by the polluters, for the polluters.

Merging the two tracks will not resolve the fundamental flaws in the climate negotiations, but neither will keeping the two tracks. Instead, the negotiations need to be totally reframed with the objective of fundamentally transforming the current economic system that pollutes the planet and damages people.

A just and effective response to climate change would be based on the recognition of the ecological debt owed to the South by the North. In addition to reparations, this new framework would entail: reclaiming and expanding the commons (atmosphere, water, land, forests, transport, energy, technology, etc) and ensuring that it is sustainably managed for mutual benefit rather than short term profit and accumulation; rapidly reducing overconsumption, especially in the North; setting legally enforceable targets for the transition to community-controlled renewable energy; progressively shifting agricultural production from chemical and transport intensive agro-industry to local and organic small holder production; limiting and eventually eliminating military expenditure; progressive taxes and redistribution both within and between countries; empowering workers to determine the terms of their (inevitable) transition to the low carbon future; stopping deforestation through demand-side regulation; stopping new oil and coal exploitation and progressively phasing out the use of fossil fuels; and so on, and so on.

You may say we are dreamers, but it is no more absurd to believe that we can (because we must) completely rewrite the logic of the UN negotiations, than it is to imagine, as Jan Pronk does, that a group of “wise men and women” can deliver a “well-designed single track” that will magically overcome the reality of entrenched power and take us into a sustainable future.

Read the original article by Jan Pronk and the commentary by Mikael Roman (SEI).

*Nicola Bullard is a senior associate with Focus on the Global South and coordinates the climate justice .  She is also an associate editor of the SID journal  Development. Focus is a member of the Climate Justice Now! (CJN!) network.

Photo credit: Kicki