Climate change regime meaningless without indigenous groups

United Nations: As the United Nations readies for a key climate change meeting in Poland next month, a London-based human rights group warns that any new deal on global warming would be seriously compromised if the most vulnerable groups, specifically indigenous peoples, are shut out of the negotiations.

“The entire UN process will be flawed if communities that have firsthand experience of dealing with climate change are not allowed to participate,” says Minority Rights Group (MRG).

Mark Lattimer, MRG's executive director, says “because we naturally think of climate change as affecting us all – the whole planet – there is a tendency to resist considering the effect on particular groups.”

Human rights advocates, he said, have also arrived late to a debate that has been long dominated by environmentalists.

“Yet indigenous peoples living in fragile environments are not only more likely to be affected adversely by climate change, they are already being affected, sometimes in devastating ways,” said Lattimer.

The upcoming UN meeting in Poznan, Poland – scheduled to take place from December 1-12 – is expected to agree on a programme of work in advance of a major UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Post-Kyoto

Both conferences will be working towards a comprehensive climate change regime to be established after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol, which requires developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, runs out.

Asked if the international community is to be blamed for the continued marginalisation of indigenous peoples, Lattimer said inter-governmental negotiations frequently marginalise civil society, which has taken decades to find an effective voice in UN human rights and development processes.

In the climate change negotiations, which are much more recent, they are still largely excluded, often deliberately, he added.

“Governments think of indigenous communities, who may face displacement or even the eradication of their homelands, as being part of the problem, when in reality they should be seen as part of the solution,” he added.

Maasai tribe's concerns

Speaking at a UN seminar last year, Daniel Salau Rogei of the Simba Maasai Outreach Organisation, and a member of Maasai tribe in Kenya, said his community was nomadic and largely made of farmers dependent on their traditional lands and affected by changing weather patterns.

The Maasai considered themselves to be part of nature and, indeed, more than 75% of Kenyan wildlife species were found in Maasai territory.

But the territory was under threat from climate change, as well as from encroachment and predation by logging companies and other international business concerns that were actively wiping out natural resources and biological species, he added.

The MRG study says the impact of climate change hits indigenous and minority communities the hardest because they live in ecologically diverse areas and their livelihoods are dependent on the environment.

More affected

There are two reasons why minority and indigenous communities are more affected than others as the world's climate changes.

Firstly, because they have a close and unique relationship with nature and often the entire community's livelihood depends on the environment, the study said.

Secondly, because these communities are already living in poor, marginalised areas, and in some countries are already victims of state discrimination.

The livelihoods of indigenous and minority communities, including Sami reindeer herders in Norway, Sweden and Finland and Khmer Krom rice farmers in the Mekong Delta in south Vietnam, depend heavily on the environment.

Indigenous communities in particular live in fragile ecosystems, ranging from small islands in the Pacific to mountainous regions, arid lands in Africa and the ice-covered Arctic.

Affecting traditional way of life

The report also points out that melting ice caps and desertification occurring as a result of climate change prevent animals accessing food and hinders herding and livestock rearing.

“This leads to loss of livestock, which in turn curtails incomes and leads to poverty, hunger and food shortages,” it says.

The eventual long-term impacts include death or migration to cities, often condemning generations to poverty, and a shift from traditional ways of life.

Asked if future climate change negotiations, including the plight of minorities, will undergo a radical change when the new administration of US President Barack Obama takes office in January next year, Lattimer said that Obama has indicated that under his presidency, the US will become both more environmentally responsible and take a more multilateralist approach to international affairs.

Bringing US on board

“This is welcome, but the US has traditionally been sceptical of indigenous peoples' rights,” he noted.

He said the US was one of only four countries that voted against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, agreed by the General Assembly last year.

“Indigenous groups are hoping for a change of approach, but they are likely to be disappointed,” he warned.