Indigenous peoples ignored in talks

BANGKOK: The role of the world’s more than 370 million indigenous peoples in fighting climate change had been largely ignored in national plans to curb planet-warming emissions issued before the UN climate talks, researchers and activists said yesterday.

The NGO Rights and Resources Initiative found that only a handful of governments had included indigenous land and forest management as part of their climate strategies submitted to the UN in the run-up to negotiations in Paris to thrash out a new deal to limit global warming. The organisation reviewed 47 climate pledges known as “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions”, from countries with large rural or forested areas. These commitments were designed to form the basis of a new deal.

Only five emphasised indigenous land and forest management as part of their strategies, it said, whereas 26 made no mention of it at all and 16 mentioned it in passing.

To make their voices count in the two-week talks starting at the end of the month, hundreds of indigenous leaders living on the front lines of climate change – from sinking Pacific islands to the melting Arctic and Indonesia’s burning forests – will attend the summit.

“It is going to be a tough battle in Paris,” Joan Carling, secretary-general of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact said. “We continue to be ignored at the national level, so what we’re going to bring to the talks is the reality on the ground.”

Rights and Resources Initiative analyst Ilona Coyle said the plans submitted by Brazil, Guatamala and Peru highlighted the importance of respecting indigenous peoples’ rights. – Reuters