Combatting Global Deforestation

Climate change is closely connected to global deforestation. While preventing deforestation has an immediate effect in reducing C02 emissions, reforestation programs often take over twenty-five years to have an impact. In turn, a combination of strategic partnerships across countries and between organizations and Indigenous forest stewards is needed to combat global deforestation.

The world’s forests are carbon sinks, absorbing “a net 7.6 billion metric tonnes of CO2 per year.” Deforestation raises greenhouse gas emissions levels and is detrimental to biodiversity. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Global Forest and Resources Assessment 2020 reports that approximately, “420 million hectares of forest were lost due to deforestation between 1990 and 2020.” Furthermore a reforestation report released by McKinsey notes that roughly ten million hectares of land are deforested on an annual basis, for commercial and agricultural purposes. Stopping deforestation has an immediate impact of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

On June 29, 2023, the European Union (EU) Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was passed. The new law comes into full effect in December 30, 2024. Under the EUDR, “goods exported or placed on the EU market must… no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation in the EU and elsewhere in the world.” These goods include a wide range of pulp and paper products (including books), meat and leather products, chocolate, soybean and soybean products, palm nuts, palm oil and derivative products, wood, and lumber, just to name a few. The impact the EUDR will have on commercial industry is yet to be fully documented; however, a key challenge for governments will be to ensure corporations follow EUDR’s standards for corporate due diligence.

Reforestation and sustainable wildlife management are vital components to combatting global deforestation and protecting the livelihoods and cultures of Indigenous peoples worldwide. For example, the Mbuti Indigenous People who live in the rainforests of the Congo Basin have witnessed both rapid deforestation and the depletion of their Indigenous food supply due to the increase in the commercial hunting and trade of wild meat. The Sustainable Wildlife Management Program, a joint initiative of African, Caribbean and Pacific states, funded by the Democratic Republic of Congo, the European Union and co-financed by several countries, and international organizations, is intended to protect the ecosystems and food security of the Mbuti.

Indigenous Peoples are considered the world’s best forest guardians. For example, in the Amazon, the deforestation of lands under Indigenous tenure is “two to three times lower than outside these areas.” In another example, as stewards and guardians of forests, the McLeod Lake Indian Band in South Mackenzie, British Columbia, planted over six million trees in 2021 and 2022, in partnership with Tree Canada, to reforest areas that were decimated by spruce beetle. According to Tree Canada, this tree planting project – part of their Green Program – “advances natural reforestation by thirty years.” Natural reforestation involves trees renewing through self-seeding or through other methods.

Combatting global deforestation requires multiple approaches, partnerships across countries, and sustained support for Indigenous forest guardianship.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Annie Spratt, Unsplash)

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The Impact of Europe’s Green Transition on the Sámi

Efforts by European government and industry to reduce carbon emissions and promote a “shift toward economically sustainable growth” and a fossil-free economy are referred to as “the green transition.” However, Europe’s approach to achieving a future that involves clean energy is adversely affecting the Indigenous Peoples of Scandinavia – the Sámi.

Europe is on a fast pace to achieve its goal to become “the world’s first net-zero emissions continent by 2050”; their efforts include building large-scale wind and solar farms, mining materials and metals for electric vehicles, and harvesting wood and other natural materials for constructing buildings.

The green transition (on top of climate effects and colonization) is affecting the Sámi’s way of life and their symbiotic relationship with reindeer. The Sámi have inhabited northern Scandinavia (i.e., Norway, Sweden, and Finland) for thousands of years. Rising Arctic temperatures have led to changes in reindeer behaviour and food availability. When the snow melts and then refreezes quickly, the reindeer cannot freely graze and get to the lichen, their food. Furthermore, wind turbines farms, aimed to harness the wind as an alternative energy resource are being built on reindeer calving and grazing lands, thus disturbing the behaviours and severely limiting the regeneration of reindeer herds.

While the green transition is touted as a necessary path for Europe to achieve net zero, industrial and government efforts must address the principle of “do no significant harm” to prevent negative outcomes for the Sámi.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Nikola Johnny, Unsplash)

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Indigenous Youth: Leaders and Collaborators in the Fight Against Climate Change

Indigenous youth are fighting against climate change and advocating for Mother Earth through collaborative projects across the globe. Their leadership and collective engagement inform a resurgence of Indigenous traditions and an incorporation of new technologies to address persistent problems caused by climate change.

For example, In the Tata Province of Morocco, the hot summers and cold winters, and threatening extremes in rainfall have led young people to restore and maintain the khettara system, an ancient system of water irrigation – “a network of wells and sloped underground canals that delivers drinking and irrigation water from aquifers to fields, relying only on gravity.” And while the “over-extraction of groundwater” continues to be an issue, especially during severe drought and heatwaves, the presence of solar-powered pumps has enabled collective access to water. The khettara system had fallen into disrepair and neglect, and youth are calling for a return to a collective community-based approach to maintaining the khettara system, including the removal of detritus after floods.

Rapid changes in climate have an impact on hunting in the Canadian Arctic. The Igliniit Project involves a collaboration between Inuit hunters in Canada and geomatic engineering students. Together, they use digital technologies, including GPS, to collect and map data about climate change (including weather conditions and changes in sea ice) and the movements of animals. The project started in 2006 and it continues in 2023. Igliniit is an Inuktitut word for “trails routinely travelled.”

In the Yukon, Indigenous youth have been recruited to assist in implementing a vision to address climate change and uphold the self-determination of First Nations. Over a two-year period, the Council of Yukon First Nations partnered with the Assembly of First Nations Yukon Region and called upon people under thirty years old to determine, for all 14 Yukon First Nations, how to take climate action over the long term. The resulting youth-driven climate plan called Reconnection Vision, was released on June 30, 2023.  The Reconnection Vision is not a rigid document, rather it draws in readers and implicates them to consider their “role and responsibility to the children, land, and life of tomorrow.” The Reconnection Vision draws from the intentions that were planted in the “Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow” document from 1973 that led “the federal government to begin a negotiation process a modern-day treaty, the first in Canada.”

To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, on August 9th, Indigenous youth shared their experiences and initiatives online at the Global Indigenous Youth Summit on Climate Change. The event was designed by youth for youth, to offer them a virtual platform over a twenty-four-hour period, to hold space for one another, and discuss their climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

As stewards of Mother Earth, Indigenous youth are leading the way, inviting collaboration with Indigenous governments and diverse knowledge keepers, to tackle the impact of climate change on the livelihood, culture, and well-being of their communities.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Kalen Emsley, Unsplash)

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The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples 2023: Highlighting Youth and Climate Change

The 9th day of August commemorates the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, as adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in December 1994. This date also reflects when the first meeting of the UN Working Group of Indigenous Populations of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights was held in 1982.

The theme for this year’s commemoration is “Indigenous Youth as Agents of Change for Self-Determination.” Self-determination is foundational to Articles 1 and 2 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and works with the right to self-govern. Many Indigenous Youth are engaging in land stewardship practices and social, cultural, and economic matters in their own communities and schools or are learning how to do so. Some are already leaders engaging in climate action on the global stage.

As part of this year’s commemoration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, The United Nations has identified three areas informing the right to self-determination of Indigenous Youth; these are:

  • Climate action and the green transition.
  • Mobilizing for justice
  • Intergenerational connections

While these three themes are interrelated, the theme of climate change and the green transition aims to recognize the different roles that Indigenous Youth play in contributing to their own families and to sustaining their communities, and how youth are integral to facilitating a transition to alternative energy solutions. Look for the commemorations online on August 9th.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Li An Lim, Unsplash)

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How State-Driven Protectionist Conservation Efforts Have Violated the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The Indigenous World 2023 Report (herein, The Report), developed by The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), reveals how, globally, many state-driven conservation efforts are not protecting the rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, or practicing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). The Report shows how governments, while supporting international policies on the conservation of biodiversity, continue to engage in protectionist conservation practices at the expense of the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Indigenous World 2023 Report consolidates reports from regions and countries all over the word, and provides updates from international processes and initiatives, including those driven by the United Nations. The Report provides numerous examples and critiques of state-driven fortress conservation or protectionist conservation practices, that have resulted in violence against, and a refusal of, the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

For example, The Report notes how the government of Tanzania is furthering its efforts to protect and conserve lands, including expanding the Ruaha National Park and the Pololeti Game Reserve; however, in doing so, the government further encroaches into Maasai ancestral lands, demolishing Maasai homesteads, and forcibly displacing Indigenous villagers. The Report also explains how the government did not seek the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Maasai villagers in the expansion of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in 2022.  The Tanzania Times reports that over 2,000 villagers from Loliondo, located at the border of Tanzania and Kenya, have been displaced due to the expansion of the conservation area. The Maasai took the Government of Tanzania to court to contest the eviction of their villages but lost, “send[ing] a dangerous message that Indigenous [P]eoples can be evicted from their land in the name of conservation.”

The Report also highlights the significance of The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) (December 2022) which “acknowledges the important roles and contri­butions of Indigenous peoples and local communities as cus­todians of biodiversity and partners in conservation, restora­tion and sustainable use.” The KMGBF is a strategy for nations “to protect and restore biodiversity by 2050.” The Report acknowledges the contradictions between the intentions of the KMGBF and the actions of many countries in protecting Indigenous rights and knowledge, and how there is more work to be done to fulfil the intentions of the strategy. For example, as noted in The Report, the KMGBF was adopted at the COP 15 meeting, chaired by China. However, despite China’s global leadership on biodiversity, domestically, the Chinese government has not acknowledged “the existence and relevance of Indigenous Peoples in the country.” To align with the KMGBF, China’s intentions to establish a national park system would need to recognize the rights and the contributions of Indigenous Peoples to the governance and protection of biodiversity.

While The Indigenous World 2023 Report commends the KMGBF and the efforts of the International In­digenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB), it also offers example after example of how state-driven conservation efforts are violating the rights and lives of Indigenous Peoples worldwide.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Mariola Grobelska, Unsplash)

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First Nations Fire Protection Strategy 2023-2028

With wildfires occurring earlier in the Spring and Summer months due to climate change, First Nations in Canada, especially those located in remote locations, face challenges due to limited access to fire prevention and safety services. The First Nations Fire Protection Strategy 2023-2028 provides long-term and short-term actions to “set out a path to improve fire outcomes for First Nations.”

The First Nations Fire Protection Strategy 2023-2028 (herein referred to as “Strategy”) was co-developed by the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and Indigenous Services Canada. The aim of the Strategy is to establish concrete actions for First Nations’ fire protection and fire prevention. The Strategy also integrates these actions with emergency management measures as per the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction Sendai Framework.

The Strategy is reinforced by six pillars, each with a set of goals, and ends with an appendix that outlines guidelines for “municipal type service agreements.” The strategic pillars are:

  1. Partnership for First Nations fire protection
  2. Fire prevention education
  3. Community standards
  4. Fire service operational standards
  5. Climate change
  6. Critical infrastructure

Wildfires in Canada are at an all-time high in 2023 and are attributed to especially warm and dry conditions. Climate change, as the fifth pillar of the First Nation Fire Protection Strategy 2023-2028, calls for investing in the capacity of First Nations’ fire departments to better respond to fire events and to increasing efforts that reduce the risk of wildfire emergencies in Indigenous communities.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: John Towner, Unsplash)

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The Three Sisters as Indigenous Sustainable Agricultural Practice

The Three Sisters—corn, beans, and squash—is a form of Indigenous sustainable agriculture that involves the practice of intercropping or companion planting, where plants are grown next to each other for mutual benefit. This Indigenous sustainable agricultural practice invites environmental stewardship, increases the quality of life of Indigenous Peoples, and helps communities to achieve food sovereignty.

Environmental stewardship is a key component to Indigenous sustainable agriculture; it involves the “responsible use and protection of the environment,” which includes “ limiting the harvest of natural resources.” The Three Sisters is a form of environmental stewardship because they “support growth without requiring fertilizers, pesticides, equipment or intense irrigation.” The plants support each other in unique ways. The corn stalks provide support to the beans, and the plants exchange nitrogen with the soil to facilitate growth. The squash, planted between the beans and corn, and their leaves, cover and protect the soil, to stop weeds from propagating. It is reported that the Three Sisters thrive better together than if each of the corn, beans, and squash were planted on their own. Together, they also deter pests. EcoWatch provides instructions for how to grow a Three Sisters Garden.

The quality of life of Indigenous Peoples is improved through the Three Sisters. Once used heavily by Indigenous Peoples in the Great Lakes region of North America, the Three Sisters, as a model of sustainable agriculture, holds the potential to offer business opportunities and a sustainable food source for Indigenous communities in ways that connect these communities to their own cultural traditions. In addition, the Three Sisters are rich in minerals and vitamins to “support community health and quality of life.” Currently, Indigenous communities are working with researchers from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) to explore how and why the Three Sisters’ model is especially successful.

Promoting local food production is crucial to Indigenous food sovereignty and long-term food security. As a traditional form of intercropping, the Three Sisters also produces a high agricultural food yield (i.e., average energy measured in kCal and grams of protein per unit of farmland per year). According to research conducted by Dr. Jane Mt. Pleasant (Cornell University, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences), “The Three Sisters yields more energy (12.25 x 106 kcal/ha) and more protein (349 kg/ha) than any of the crop monocultures or mixtures of monocultures planted to the same area.”

Indigenous farmers could benefit from a network of peers who engage in indigenous sustainable farming and gardening year-round, through large-and-small-scale farms, community gardens, and greenhouses. The potential for such a network to facilitate information exchange, knowledge sharing, and advocacy to promote Indigenous agricultural practices is one that is worth exploring. The Three Sisters is just one example of Indigenous sustainable agriculture, rooted in regional knowledge, Indigenous traditions, and cultural experiences. Other examples of Indigenous sustainable agricultural practices across Turtle Island could be explored to build a stronger shared understanding of Indigenous approaches to sustainability.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

Photo Credit: Meritt Thomas, Unsplash

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Upholding Indigenous Data Sovereignty in Research

Indigenous data sovereignty addresses the misuse, cooptation and stealing of Indigenous traditional knowledge and cultural heritage. Indigenous data sovereignty is defined as “the ability for Indigenous Peoples, communities and Nations to participate, steward and control data that is created with or about themselves.” The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which upholds the inherent and inalienable rights of Indigenous Peoples, is foundational to recognizing the rights of Indigenous Peoples worldwide, and is crucial to Indigenous data sovereignty in research.

At the core of Indigenous data sovereignty, are the rights of Indigenous Peoples to collect, own, store, and use the data collected about and with Indigenous Peoples, including information about Indigenous cultures, ways of life, and territories. The disaggregation of population data and other statistics regarding Indigenous Peoples remains controversial, because it also informs the politics of recognition, the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the protection of Indigenous lands.

Several resources can guide researchers  to uphold Indigenous data sovereignty.  FAIR principles (i.e., Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) promote open access to data, while “CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance” (i.e., Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) centre on how data collection and research objectives should directly benefit Indigenous Peoples. Furthermore, the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) promotes First Nations principles of OCAP®  (i.e., ownership, control, access, and possession) and training, to outline how First Nations’ information and data “will be collected, protected, used, or shared.”

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Andrew George, Unsplash)

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Indigenous-led Conservation of Caribou

Indigenous-led efforts to conserve caribou, highlight efforts to sustain cultural and ecological connections among First Nations and endangered species. According to a 2013 report by the Assembly of First Nations and the David Suzuki Institute, in Canada, “boreal woodland caribou herds share the land with approximately 300 First Nation communities.” Both boreal caribou and Southern Mountain caribou, in British Columbia, Canada, are listed as “threatened” under the Species at Risk Act (SARA).

Caribou contribute to the lives and cultures of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island (the continent of North America). For example, caribou is a traditional food among the Inuit and the parts of the caribou that are not eaten, such as the skin and fur, are transformed into material for tents, clothing, and bedding. The hunting and harvest of caribou play social and spiritual roles in maintaining kinship and community relationships.

Indigenous led-conservations efforts are saving caribou from local extinction (also referred to as extirpation), thus contributing to the protection of Indigenous self-determination. For example, the size of the Klinse-Za caribou herds (one of 54 subpopulations of caribou in British Columbia) on the traditional territories of the West Moberly First Nations and the Salteau First Nations, have declined from approximately “250 in the 1990s to only 38 in 2013.” However, about nine years of conservation efforts by these First Nations have increased the size of the herd to 101 caribou in 2021, and more recently, to 114 caribou . The increase in the numbers of caribou, is attributed to the leadership and conservation actions undertaken through a conservation partnership agreement between West Moberly First Nation and the Salteau First Nation. The partnership agreement provides habitat protection for the Klinse-Za and for other caribou subpopulations in neighbouring areas. In addition, the agreement aims to “stabilize and expeditiously grow the population” to self-sustaining levels and to maintain consistency between traditional caribou hunting practices and harvesting practices and Aboriginal and Treaty rights. The conservation agreement also invites the reinstatement of cultural traditions of caribou hunting.

The degradation of caribou habitats has contributed to the steep decline of caribou in British Columbia as well as in other parts of Canada. For example, in Northern Québec and Labrador, the George River caribou herd has declined by 98% since 2001. Although the numbers of caribou in the herd went up slightly in 2020, they went down again in 2022, and while non-Indigenous people are banned from hunting the caribou, the Innu and Cree Nations are also taking measures to curb hunting. On January 24, 2022, the Cree Nation of Eeyou Istchee and Innu Nation of Québec jointly signed the Maamuu nisituhtimuwin/ Matinueu-mashinaikan atik u e uauinakanit or mutual understanding, that “establishes mutually agreed upon terms by which Innu communities in Québec will be able to access caribou within the Cree traditional territory of Chisasibi, Eeyou Istchee.”

Indigenous-led caribou conservation protects not only the caribou, but also Indigenous ways of living with the land, and “maintaining balance” between Indigenous cultures and biodiverse ecosystems.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Image Credit: Orna Wachman, Pixabay)

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Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC)

Recently, the United Nations (UN) chastised the governments of Denmark and Greenland for undertaking mining without having first consulted with the Inuit who make up the majority of Greenland’s inhabitants. The UN highlighted colonialism as a root cause for these countries’ errors in not seeking the free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples. Consultation, however, should not be conflated with or considered a replacement for FPIC.

Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is embedded within fundamental human rights to self-determination. The framework by which FPIC is legally implemented internationally, includes the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), as well as the International Labour Organization’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Convention (ILO 169), and the Convention of Biological Diversity. The FPIC process is not just a means to consult Indigenous Peoples and seek consent about a project; rather, “it is also a process in itself, one by which Indigenous peoples are able to conduct their own independent and collective discussions and decision-making” at their own pace and using culturally appropriate approaches on any matters that concern them.

Engaging in an FPIC process may involve participatory processes and does not guarantee consent by Indigenous communities. Outcomes of an FPIC process include obtaining consent of an Indigenous community about undertaking a project, making changes to the conditions under which a project is intended to happen, or withholding consent to a project or activity and doing so at any time.

 

By Leela Viswanathan

 

(Photo Credit: Johannes Plenio, Unsplash)

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