Indigenous Peoples' Actions Towards Solving the Biodiversity Crisis

By Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UNPFII Chairperson and Tebtebba Executive Director

Thank you for inviting me to represent the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in this High Level Event. Last week, the Forum held its International Expert Meeting on Indigenous Peoples' Development with Culture and Identity in New York. This meeting discussed the global environmental crises, which includes both the biodiversity and climate change crisis, and reiterated that indigenous peoples contributed the least to these but are the ones heavily suffering from the adverse impacts. We also discussed various proposals and actions indigenous peoples are taking to contribute in solving the crises. So I will share with you today some of the points which emerged from this Expert Meeting. I will also discuss some of the experiences of Tebtebba, my own indigenous organization, in its work in ensuring that the action plans of the CBD are implemented at the national and local level.

State of the World's Indigenous Peoples Report

Click here to download full report.

 The United Nations today launched its first report on the state of the world’s indigenous people, with the Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, saying it offered a “daring and bold” description of the situation of indigenous persons in health, poverty, education and human rights, and should be fed into the upcoming review of the Millennium Development Goals.

2nd Edition of Guide on Climate Change
and Indigenous Peoples Now Released!

The popular Guide on Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples aims to enhance indigenous peoples knowledge on climate change so that indigenous peoples will be better equipped to participate more effectively in shaping relevant policies and actions taken to address this issue. It also aims to enlighten non-indigenous peoples on our own experiences and perspectives on climate change.

This Second Edition includes updates on Part III: Climate Change Mitigation Measures: Impacts on Indigenous Peoples; Part IV: Adapting to Climate Change: Indigenous Peoples Show the Way; Part V: REDD/REDD+ and Indigenous Peoples; Part VIII: The Current State of Climate Change Negotiations; and Part IX: Ways Forward: The UNDRIP, the Human Rights Based Approach and the Ecosystem Approach. Date of Publication: September 2009.

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Why we need to save the Kyoto Protocol

The plot

Some developed countries are plotting the death of the Kyoto Protocol. The stage has been set. Misinformation has been circulated to the media and public that the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. The December 2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, so the story goes, is to agree or lay the foundations of a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol – the so-called “post-Kyoto” agreement.