In Defense of Pachamama

LA PAZ - Through their ancestral knowledge and traditions, indigenous peoples will make a unique and invaluable contribution to the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which begins Monday, Apr. 19 in the central Bolivian city of Cochabamba.

Julio Quette of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB) told IPS that the 74 different indigenous groups who inhabit South America’s Amazon region "have traditionally coexisted with nature and the forests," and that it is up to the industrialized countries to halt the pollution and destruction of the planet.

For her part, Jenny Gruenberger, executive director of the Environmental Defense League (LIDEMA), commented to IPS that "Bolivia could make an enormous contribution based on the traditional knowledge of the indigenous and aboriginal nations that make up this plurinational state."

The country is officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, in recognition of the fact that over 60 percent of Bolivians belong to one of its numerous indigenous ethnic groups.

A total of 17 working groups have been organized as part of the World People’s Conference, to address issues such as the structural causes of climate change, living in harmony with nature, and the rights of Mother Earth, or Pachamama.

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"Latin American organisations and governments could acquire all the capacity they need to confront the influence of the industrialized nations and become a center of resistance against the current development model, but first they need to agree upon a unified stance," LIDEMA research coordinator Marco Ribera commented to IPS.

Ribera said that it is time for the region’s countries to put aside the "different interests" they each pursue and to use the Cochabamba conference as a forum to build "strong technical and political proposals with a high degree of legitimacy to negotiate at the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Ribera believes the upcoming conference could become a new forum for the struggle in defence of the planet, given the opportunity it will provide for the world’s people to express their views and proposals, "an opportunity they are not offered in official forums for international negotiations."

more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/16-9">Common Dreams