Indigenous peoples should be leaders of climate actions and not victims of climate policies, Indian indigenous leader Archana Soreng told DTE
Archana Soreng of the Khadia tribal community, India and former Youth Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General, speaks at the side event on June 7 at Bonn Indigenous peoples’ groups from around the world, including India, have called for representation on the Transitional Committee (TC) for the establishment of a Loss and Damage Fund (LDF) among other demands during the first week of the ongoing Subsidiary Bodies 58 (SB 58) conference in Bonn, Germany.
The committee is currently composed of 24 members, 10 of whom are from developed countries and 14 are from developing countries.
They want representation so that their views on losses and damages being suffered by their communities and their knowledge on addressing the loss and damage can be taken into account by the TC in the recommendations for the full operationalisation of the LDF and their ambitions for direct access to finances from the Fund can be fulfilled.
The other ask they have is that the functioning of the LDF should reflect the communities’ connection with their ecosystems which goes beyond mere economic damages.
The views of indigenous peoples’ organisations have been expressed across multiple events and meetings at SB 58 including at the Second Glasgow Dialogue that ended on June 10.
Representatives of indigenous groups from different regions around the world highlighted the economic and non-economic losses and damages that their communities are undergoing on June 7, in a first-of-its kind side roundtable event on the perspectives of indigenous communities on loss and damage, a press conference on June 8 and another side event on June 10.
“A relocated community is a dead community,” declared Selevasio Naivala Tagivuni, Elder from the Vatukaloko tribal community from the island nation of Fiji in the Pacific Ocean at the side event on June 7.
Tagivuni told Down To Earth (DTE):
The Pacific islands covers extensive mileage of blue ocean space that unfortunately usually undermines the indigenous dwellers of these islands which are glaringly at the forefront battling the myriad ravages of climate change in all its unimaginable forms; from rising sea levels, coral bleaching, increasing toxicity of our water pH levels, king tides immersion onto our coastal communities, massive soil loss, riverbank erosions, landscape fires, seascape loss of fisheries, biodiversity loss of our endemic species and those uncontrolled corporate activities in all resource based sectors that further exacerbate the ecological damages of our islands.
“In the midst of all these, we indigenous people are left to fend for ourselves with the meagre resources that we have to eke our daily survival. The loss and damage of our resources, degradation of our traditional governance structures and the rape of our intangible values that defines our identity have continued to dilute our collective voices of being inherent hereditary owners of our tribal resources and have dethrone our values, spiritual principles and inalienable rights as knowledge and wisdom Holders of our natural blessings given to our forefathers by our Creator. These must be restored. We shall continue our battle to get our voices as indigenous inhabitants of our beloved islands and lands,” he added.
“It is crucial to have a holistic perspective of loss and damage to understand the impacts of climate crisis on indigenous peoples and local communities from different geographical areas — deserts, coasts and forests,” Archana Soreng of the Khadia tribal community, India and former Youth Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General on Climate Change told DTE.
She further elaborated that “there is a need to recognise different losses which the communities face that often are not recognised and accepted as loss and invisibilised”.
For instance, the indigenous peoples who are affected by cyclones and floods, lose their lives and homes because of the intensity of the impacts of these extreme weather events.
“In forest areas, unseasonal rains caused by climate change are harmful as they destroy forest produce and agriculture crops leading to losses of food, income and pushing communities to migrate, become debt-ridden and lose their traditional knowledge and practices. Thus, it’s critical to understand the different nuances of impacts of the climate crisis on indigenous peoples when we discuss about loss and damage. Indigenous peoples should be leaders of climate actions and not victims of climate policies,” she added.
Frode Neergard, co-chair of the executive committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) which oversees the work of the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, established at COP25 in Madrid, Spain, was part of the side event on June 7.
Neergard said the views of indigenous peoples will definitely be considered and that the WIM executive committee has already put out a technical document on non-economic losses and damages from climate change.
The WIM and the Santiago Network are responsible for assisting countries on the technical aspects of the losses and damages occurring from adverse impacts of climate change such as assessment of losses and damages, including non-economic losses such as loss of heritage and language and loss of mental health due to extreme weather events.
“Measuring non-economic loss and damage is a huge responsibility for all of us. It needs proper consultation and proper documentation. Indigenous Peoples are not homogenous. We cannot be put in one basket. We are diverse,” said Joseph ole Simel of the Mainyoito Pastoralists Integrated Development Organisation, at the side event on June 10.
On June 8, Ghazali Ohorella, a representative of the indigenous peoples’ groups at the United Nations told DTE that there is no robust participation of indigenous groups on the TC, beyond the two minutes given for speaking.
Indigenous groups currently fall under the observer constituency and are not full-fledged participants in the working of the TC. Ohorella called for a more structured participation of indigenous groups on the TC.
On June 10, at the conclusion of the Second Glasgow Dialogue on Loss and Damage, the representative of indigenous peoples’ groups called for the curbing of climate measures that perpetuate colonial practices.
They also asked for support for their knowledge systems to address loss and damage, direct access to funds and greater inclusion of their groups in the UNFCCC processes, including the Transitional committee on Loss and Damage.
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