As Paris climate agreement comes into force, inhabitants of Amazon rainforest demand recognition of key role their communities play in conservation

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The land rights of indigenous people in the Amazon must be recognised if their countries’ commitments on reducing deforestation and lowering or capping carbon emissions are to be realised, according to native leaders from the nine South American countries across which the rainforest spreads.

Nearly 300 representatives of the forest’s several million inhabitants gathered in Lima last week to demand that their governments heed evidence of their ability to conserve the forest and thus protect their way of life.

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“We are the ones who are protecting the forest from being destroyed, so if the government doesn’t respect our rights we’re going to see huge levels of deforestation,” said Maximiliano Correa, from the Coordination of the Indigenous Organisations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB).

At the gathering, which was held a week before the Paris climate agreement came into force on Friday, indigenous leaders from Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela said their governments were ignoring their land rights, which are legally enshrined in the Consultation with Indigenous Peoples Law (guaranteed in the International Labour Organisation’s Convention 169).

Correa, an indigenous Tucano from Brazil’s northern Amazonas state, said: “The irony for us is that the [Michel] Temer government, which has just ratified the Paris agreement, is entirely against recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples to their lands.”

He added that congressional amendments in Brazil were reversing 20 years of progress on indigenous rights.

Of the nine countries that are home to part of the Amazon rainforest, five have ratified the Paris climate change agreement. Colombia, Ecuador, Suriname and Venezuela have not.

Tuntiak Katan, of the confederation of indigenous nationalities of Ecuador (Confeniae), said the state “legally steals and usurps our territory declaring resource extraction a national priority”.

In 2008, Ecuador became the first country in the world to legally recognise the rights of nature. Yet it has just begun drilling in Yasuní national park, a UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation biosphere reserve that houses two semi-nomadic groups of Waorani indigenous people.

In Venezuela, indigenous people make up 2% of the population, said José Díaz Mirabal of the Organización Regional de Pueblos Indígenas de Amazonas. He said land titling was “paralysed” due to state interest in mineral deposits in their territory. Unchecked alluvial gold mining was also destroying parts of their ancestral land he added.

A report by the World Resources Institute (pdf) provides evidence that investing in secure land rights for indigenous peoples in the Amazon is one of the most cost-effective ways of tackling climate change.

Helen Ding, an environmental economist and lead author of the report, said: “Securing land rights for indigenous communities in the Amazon truly would have a global impact.

“In terms of global carbon mitigation, there are billions of dollars to be gained from slowing deforestation and sequestering carbon in indigenous forests.”

Analysing Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia between 2000 and 2012, the report found average deforestation rates inside tenured indigenous forest were two to three times lower than outside. Yet globally indigenous communities only have secure tenure for 10% of their lands.

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Despite this evidence, the report points out only 21 of 197 national emissions reduction commitments included indigenous rights and community-based land tenure. Of those countries, just one – Bolivia – belongs to the nine-strong Amazon group.

“There’s a missed opportunity. By protecting existing indigenous lands [countries] are actually contributing to those commitments,” said Ding.

During the drafting of the Paris accord, recognition of indigenous rights was relegated from the text – where it would have been legally binding and enforceable – to a non-binding preamble that was merely aspirational.

As negotiations took place in December, native groups from across the world staged a paddle down the Seine to highlight their call for indigenous rights to be included in the UN climate pact.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN special rapporteur for indigenous peoples, called for the text to be changed.

“What indigenous peoples want from this agreement is to be included in efforts to combat climate change,” she said. “To many indigenous peoples, the forests are the basis for their subsistence, culture, and livelihoods.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Indigenous representatives from around the world engage in a joint prayer session on board a boat in Paris during last December’s COP 21 climate conference. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

“As they implement the Paris agreement, countries should consider and respect our contributions to protecting the planet, rather than use it as yet another excuse to trample over our rights.”

Despite the shortfalls in the Paris accord, most indigenous leaders back its ratification. Roberto Espinoza, a lawyer for Aidesep, Peru’s inter-ethnic association for the development of the Peruvian Rainforest, believes it has raised the international profile of native Amazonians as climate defenders.

“Until a few years ago, nobody wanted to know about land titling for indigenous peoples in Peru. Now they do. That’s because the indigenous struggle has been linked to the climate issue,” he said.

Peru, home to the second largest area of Amazon rainforest after Brazil, pledged to reduce its deforestation to zero by 2021 prior to the COP 20, which was hosted in Lima in 2014.

That international commitment put pressure on the Peruvian state to title indigenous land, Espinoza said. About 2,000 indigenous communities now have land titles, with a further 1,377 awaiting formal recognition, he added.