The Important Role of Indigenous Peoples in Climate Change Adaptation

According to a paper published in Nature, indigenous peoples have always been viewed as victims of climate change rather than agents of environmental conservation. Indigenous people have always sought to participate in discussions and agreements on climate change and environmental protection.

The paper cites the dual role of Indigenous people living in the Amazon region in the East of Ecuador in fighting climate change.

• First, by resisting occupation and deforestation in the area.
• Second, by becoming increasingly aware of their responsibility in protecting the forests.

By choosing not to develop, they contribute significantly to reducing GHG emissions and protecting the rainforest and sites where precious resources and minerals are stored.

The article also laid out the history of indigenous people’s efforts to get involved in climate agreements and their desire to be acknowledged as effective agents in combating climate change and not as victims.

Hence, they want protection from enterprises seeking to explore and extract fossil fuels, which violates their human rights and contaminates their water sources.

Protecting the indigenous people and their territory is both a win-win solution for the indigenous people and combating climate change.

Although the Ecuadoran constitution and agreements with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) protect their lands and territories against other entities, there is a caveat, an escape clause that territorial landowners do not own the mineral resources in the subsoil.

The caveat is that a little loophole in their constitution can permit other entities to extract without the indigenous people’s consent. This indeed led to the exploitation and extraction of the oil in indigenous lands.

In 2012, an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favour of Sarayaku Kichwa, having their rights violated by an oil company. The legal struggle took 12 years for the government of Ecuador to be fined, a public apology was issued, and the oil exploration was terminated. Sadly, the ruling did not prevent oil exploration by other indigenous communities in Ecuador.

Under President Correa, Ecuador sold oil exploration rights on 500 thousand acres of forest to the Chinese state-owned oil companies for US$ 80 million in 2016.

The paper says that while Chinese companies drill away their oil and encroach upon their lands, usually with their private armies, the indigenous people have little power against them yet are prepared to risk their lives to confront military force.

Alicia Cawiya, one of the indigenous groups and vice-president of the Huaorani people, says, “The territory is not just for the indigenous people; it is for the world. Everyone must support it and fight for these territories.”

Indigenous people, since the 1990s, have considered their involvement in climate change and protecting their environment a vital role.

When governments recognise the rights of indigenous people not to develop, to be left alone, and to thrive in their lands, they are also helping them preserve forests and their resources and their function in fighting climate change.

To read the whole paper, click the link below: