Trust our expertise or face catastrophe, Amazon peoples warn on environment
Ecosystems will
continue to collapse around the world unless humanity listens to the expertise
of indigenous communities on how to live alongside nature, a prominent Amazon
leader has warned. Tuntiak Katan of the
Ecuadorian Shuar people, who is vice-president of the pan-Amazon organisation
representing communities in the river basin, said governments were spending
millions of dollars on environmental consultants while largely ignoring the land
management skills of the planet’s indigenous people that could help combat the
climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
Speaking to the
Guardian from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Katan, who became the
first indigenous representative at a UN climate action summit last
year, said environmental “catastrophes” such as the fires that
devastated the world’s largest rainforest in 2019 would continue unless the
contributions and human rights of indigenous people were respected. Indigenous communities
support around 80% of the planet’s biodiversity despite accounting for less
than one twentieth of the human population, according
to the World Bank.
Katan’s warning came as a new study revealed
that parts of the Amazon rainforest under the stewardship of indigenous peoples
sequester carbon better than areas with little protection, leading to less
deforestation and degradation. “We are the defenders
of nature, of the life of the forests, of our territories,” said Katan,
vice-president of Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon
River Basin (Coica).
“The world is
investing lots of money to implement public policy to combat climate change,
help conservation and restoration. But these policies are made in offices by
technical experts with little or no knowledge of the Earth.” Biodiversity loss was
named as the
third biggest risk to the world in terms of likelihood and severity
this year by the World Economic Forum, ahead of terror attacks, infectious
diseases and interstate conflict....
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