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	Peru: Changes to forestry law will threaten survival of indigenous peoples by Francisco Cali Tzay Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples   Feb. 2024   Indigenous group calls on Ecuador to respect referendum to stop oil drilling in Amazon. (EFE)   The Waorani Indigenous people have called for Ecuadorians to stand together to pressure the government to respect last year’s referendum that called for an end to oil exploration in the Yasuní National Park, a highly biodiverse area of the Amazon.   In a press conference from the Amazon, the Waorani recalled that the majority of Ecuadorians voted in favor of stopping oil exploitation from Block 43-ITT (Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini) in 2023.   “We call for the unity of the people, that the consultation of Aug. 20 be respected, that the state, and newly elected President Daniel Noboa, comply with the result”.   The withdrawal of all oil extraction operations was supposed to take place within a year of the referendum, but in January Noboa proposed extending the exploitation of Block 43-ITT oil fields operated by the state-owned Petroecuador for another year.   Ecuadorians voted in favor of indefinitely leaving underground the country's oil reserves.   During the recent election campaign, Noboa supported the abandonment of Block 43-ITT and the dismantling of its facilities, arguing that its profitability would decline over the years as international crude oil prices fell.   In an assembly, the Waoranis declared a “Waorani Territorial Emergency”. They said Noboa’s proposal was an attack on democracy and a violation of “the sovereign decision of the Ecuadorian people” to stop oil drilling in the Yasuni National Park, part of the Waorani’s ancestral territory, and have decided to promote legal action against the Ecuadorian state in national and international courts “so that the will of the people to protect Yasuní is respected.”   http://news.mongabay.com/2023/09/hundreds-of-oil-spill-sites-threaten-amazon-indigenous-lands-protected-areas/ http://insideclimatenews.org/news/10082023/amazon-nations-debate-ending-oil-exploration/ http://news.mongabay.com/2022/10/the-amazon-will-reach-tipping-point-if-current-trend-of-deforestation-continues/ http://news.mongabay.com/list/amazon/   Jan. 2024   Peru: Changes to forestry law will threaten survival of indigenous peoples   Amendments to Peru’s Forestry and Wildlife Law could legalise and encourage the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples from their lands and threaten their physical and cultural survival, a UN expert warned today.   “This legislation will affect the ancestral territories of the Amazonian peoples of Peru,” said Francisco Cali Tzay, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples.   “This happens at a time when the State still has pending obligations to fulfill to legally recognise and secure Indigenous Peoples’ territories,” the Special Rapporteur said. “Approximately a third of the Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon have not been titled, leaving them without legal security and vulnerable against third parties,” he said.   The expert said the law explicitly mentions native and peasant communities and Indigenous Peoples in voluntary isolation but has not gone through a consultation process with a view to obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of these Peoples.   “Indigenous Peoples in situations of isolation and initial contact would be particularly vulnerable to regulatory change, which could threaten their physical and cultural survival,” Cali Tzay said.   The UN expert recalled that Peru had obligations under international law with regard to enacting laws that affect Indigenous Peoples, including article 19 of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.   Cali Tzay warned that provisions of the law classifying land and rules about agricultural activities would ensure that areas possessed by Indigenous Peoples and were once forests, where agriculture is currently conducted, would automatically become “agricultural exclusion areas.”   “Given strong pressures on unprotected indigenous territories, these exclusion areas could generate impunity for crimes of logging and usurpation, and imply weakening the fight against deforestation and aggravating the current climate crisis,” the expert warned.   “Under the new regulatory framework, activities such as illegal logging and deforestation would be legalised,” he warned. “These activities constitute crimes under the Penal Code, further encouraging deforestation of the Amazon which is especially worrying given the high levels of deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon in recent years,” he said.   “This situation could encourage greater pressure towards indigenous territories and their biological, cultural, environmental and spiritual integrity,” the expert warned.   The expert was gravely concerned that this setback in the country’s forest governance turns its back on threats, attacks and murders of indigenous and environmental defenders, who oppose illicit activities in the forests of their territories.   “In recent years, 33 indigenous leaders have been murdered, including the leader of the Kichwa people, Quinto Inuma. These reforms seem to ignore that territorial dispossession is the driving force of violence against indigenous leaders and implies a withdrawal of the State in rural areas,” Cali Tzay warned.   “This void is filled by criminal groups dedicated to illegal logging, informal mining, coca cultivation and drug and land trafficking, promoting illegal economies that destroy the social fabric and undermine public institutions,” the expert said.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/peru-changes-forestry-law-will-threaten-survival-indigenous-peoples-un http://news.mongabay.com/2024/02/critics-decry-controversial-bill-that-loosens-deforestation-restrictions-in-peru/ Visit the related web page
	One year on Global Biodiversity Framework set to allow more biodiversity loss by FIAN International   Dec. 2024   The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework was adopted a year ago to stop the rapid decline of biodiversity but serious flaws cast doubt on its ability to deliver.   Ecosystem destruction and the rapid loss of biodiversity are undermining the sustainable production of healthy and culturally appropriate food and thus the realization of the Right to Food and Nutrition (RtFN).   According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost since the beginning of the 20th century, as farmers worldwide have abandoned their local seeds for genetically uniform varieties.   Today, out of 6,000 plant species cultivated for food, just nine account for 66% of total crop production. In addition, 90% of cattle reared in the global north originate in only six breeds and 20% of livestock breeds are at risk of extinction.   The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) was adopted by the states parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) on 18 December 2022 as a global plan to protect biodiversity. However, a new policy paper Selling Nature or Protecting Rights? A Right to Food Perspective on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework shows that its underlying premises give rise to concern that it enables business as usual, allowing more destruction and violation of communities’ rights.   As our analysis shows, the framework fails to establish a path away from highly destructive industrial agriculture and other extractive activities and towards agroecology.   A case in point is the KMGBF’s Target 7, which fails to set a time frame to phase out pesticides, instead calling for a reduction of “overall risk from pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals.”   Embracing the monetization of 'nature'   It is particularly concerning that the KMGBF embraces so-called nature-based solutions (NBS), which have become the current buzzword among many governments, conservation groups, as well as “green” and ”blue” business and financial circles. The concept has a nice ring to it, but it is dangerously ill-defined and usually takes the form of offsetting schemes, which tie the protection of biodiversity in one place to its ongoing destruction elsewhere.   As such, NBS are becoming part of the problem, encouraging more land, forest and ocean grabs in areas owned and managed by Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food producers, and other communities.   Moreover, the KMGBF is an open door for profit-oriented interest group to set the priorities for biodiversity action as it allows private, blended and “innovative” finance, without any social and environmental safeguards.   Since its adoption, some governments have pushed for the creation of biodiversity credit markets. In addition, countries such as Barbados, Belize, Ecuador and Gabon have agreed to so-called Debt-for-Nature swaps to refinance their debt in return for conservation commitments. Developing countries’ largely illegitimate debt is thus used as a lever for neo-colonial financial exploitation in the name of biodiversity protection.   Protect biodiversity custodians’ rights   The KMGBF adopts a human rights-based approach to biodiversity and contains important provisions regarding the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as well as gender and intergenerational justice. However, the so-called 30x30 Target, according to which 30% of the world’s land and water surface needs to be under conservation regimes by 2030, revives a “fortress conservation” approach, which has led to systematic violations of local communities’ rights.   The conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity is only possible by respecting and protecting the rights of those people and communities who act as the stewards of much of biodiversity – peasants, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, forest people, small-scale fishers etc.   Agricultural biodiversity is the result of the interplay of cultural and biological diversity across all ecosystems over thousands of years, based on the knowledge, innovations and practices of communities. Peasants’ and Indigenous Peoples’ distinct systems to conserve, manage, nurture, and further develop their seeds and breeds within their territories and agricultural ecosystems hold the key for biodiversity protection.   Despite its significant shortcomings, the KMGBF and the increased attention to biodiversity that it has generated should be used in a tactical and pragmatic manner to advance agroecology and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, peasants and other rural people.   http://www.fian.org/en/press-release/article/one-year-on-global-biodiversity-framework-set-to-allow-more-biodiversity-loss-3257 http://www.fian.org/en/press-release/article/stop-corporate-attack-on-seeds-and-safeguard-right-to-food-and-biodiversity-2927 http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/indigenous-peoples-and-nature-they-protect http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/five-drivers-nature-crisis
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