INDIGENOUS peoples and Afro-descendants’ knowledge, innovations and resilience capacities are essential for the transformation to a more sustainable and climate-friendly world and should be included in the policy-making processes, agreed a recent the High-Level Seminar convened by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the governments of Costa Rica, Spain and the Vatican. Indigenous peoples are major contributors to positive change, yet these valuable contributions are seldom reflected in mitigation strategies and adaptation policies to address climate change, said FAO Director-General, QU Dongyu, in his opening remarks.
“We should not leave those who know so much about biodiversity, food diversity and cultural diversity behind,” he added.
This High-Level Expert Seminar provided a dialogue space where representatives of governments, Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, migrants organisations, UN agencies and international organisations came together to identify solutions to address the effects of climate change on specific population groups.
“The way we treat the environment reflects the way we treat ourselves,” said Cardinal Peter Turkson, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, who grew up in rural Ghana. He called for a new “culture of care” permeating all of society and implying changes in patterns of growth, production and consumption. “It is time to embrace new opportunities,” he said.

This forum raised awareness of what’s needed to ensure the well-being of the Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants’ groups and to promote the protection of their rights while recognising their contributions to preserve biodiversity – a key response to the challenges of climate change.
A striking example of that, reported in a new and important FAO study, is that community forests in Latin America where Indigenous Peoples have secure collective land tenure are subject to deforestation rates four times slower than those of neighbouring state-protected areas.
The seminar explored how the impacts of climate change are expanding situations of vulnerability for these groups. It was held to echo and intensify reflections in Laudato Si’, the encyclical Pope Francis issued six years ago, which urged all of humanity to heed the way that Indigenous Peoples and other local peoples are for “our common home”.
Opening remarks at the seminar were also given by Epsy Campbell Barr, First Vice-President of Costa Rica and the first woman of African descent to hold that title, and Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, Deputy Prime Minister of Spain.
Anne Nuorgam, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), gave a keynote speech. “Indigenous peoples are not vulnerable – we are being placed into situations of vulnerability,” she said. “We are agents of change.”

SOME KEY FACTS
Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants occupy a vast extension of territories characterised by abundant natural wealth. There are more than 476 million Indigenous Peoples living in more than 90 countries and speaking more than 4,000 of the world’s remaining 6,700 languages.
Their territories encompass 25 per cent of the globe’s surface but – buoyed by their cosmogonies, beliefs, governance, territorial management and the circularity, solidarity and reciprocity of their socio-economic systems, their unique knowledge and food systems – account for 80 per cent of the planet’s remaining biodiversity.
The impacts of climate change are eroding their resilience and forcing them to migrate and relocate both domestically and internationally. More than 50 per cent of the Indigenous Peoples in Latin America live now in urban areas.

LEARNING BY LISTENING
Myrna Cunningham, President of the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC), emphasised the importance of the full participation of all — old and young, women and men — in discussions of key issues, listing five in particular: land tenure, territorial governance, ecosystem service payments; community forestry; and traditional knowledge and food systems. Richard Moreno Rodríguez, Coordinator for the Afro-Colombian National Peace Council, highlighted the remarkable mutual intensity of the relationship between a people and their territory for ethnic communities in his country. “We feel, suffer and live it,” he said.
Alexis Neuberg, President of the Africa-Europe Diaspora Development Platform (ADEPT), highlighted the “marginalisation of people who are in fact an asset” that afflicts many migrants, including those compelled to leave their home countries due to climate change or conflicts.
Other participants in the seminar included Beatriz Argimón, Vice-President of Uruguay; Pearnel Patroe Charles Jr., Jamaica’s Minister of Housing, Urban Renewal, Environment and Climate Change; Kluane Adamek, Yukon Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations, Canada; Bruno Oberle, Director-General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN); and Lisa Famolare, Vice-President Nature for Climate for the Americas of Conservation International.
“One issue that was made clear by Indigenous and Afro-descendant speakers is that their communities are among the first to face the consequences of climate change due to their direct dependence on and close relationship with the land and natural resources,” said Torero, adding: “It is essential to build beneficial partnerships with them, including recognising their collective tenure rights, to build collective strategies to mitigate climate change and contribute to biodiversity.” (FAO)