António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in a statement on the conclusion of COP26, said the conference outcome reflected the state of political will in the world today and provided building blocks for progress. “We are in the fight of our lives, and this fight must be won,” he said. “Never give up. Never retreat. Keep pushing forward.”

The International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) was established in 2008, as the Caucus for Indigenous Peoples participating in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes. The IIPFCC represents the Indigenous Caucus members who are present/attending the official UNFCCC COPs and intersessional meetings of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA/SBI) bodies in between COPs. Its mandate is to come into agreement specifically on what Indigenous Peoples will be negotiating for in specific UNFCCC processes.

Climate change can affect our health, ability to grow food, housing, safety, and work. Some of us are already more vulnerable to climate impacts, such as people living in small island nations and other developing countries. Conditions like sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion have advanced to the point where whole communities have had to relocate, and protracted droughts are putting people at risk of famine. In the future, the number of “climate refugees” is expected to rise.

Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas. Burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gas emissions that act like a blanket wrapped around the Earth, trapping the sun’s heat and raising temperatures.

For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on earth for global climate summits – called COPs – which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. In that time climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority. Cultural Survival's Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications Daisee Francour (Oneida) spoke to Gertrude Kenyangi (Batwa), Executive Director at Support for Women in Agriculture and Environment (SWAGEN) from Uganda, at COP26 which is taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021.

In November 2021, the 26th Conference of the parties is being held in Glasgow.
Cultural Survival’s Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications Daisee Francour (Oneida) attended the summit and spoke to Carson Kiburo, Executive Director of the Jamii Asilia Centre, who is a youth leader and a community organizer from the Endorois Peoples of Kenya. He works on Indigenous Peoples' rights, youth empowerment, and global governance. 

"Indigenous Peoples must be part of the solution to climate change. This is because you have the traditional knowledge of your ancestors. The important value of that knowledge simply can not—and must not—be understated. You are also essential in finding solutions today and in the future. The Paris Climate Change Agreement recognizes this.

Indigenous Peoples have always been at the forefront of climate change issues, whether that is in protecting forested areas, being disproportionately affected by sea-level rise, or leading protests and movements to shift consciousness and paradigms. However, their access to having a seat at the table when it comes to international climate change negotiations and treaties has been little to none. The UN has made some progress in including Indigenous voices in these processes, and Indigenous leaders continue to leave their mark on important agreements.

Thought leaders and environmental activists from all over the world have come together at the 26th UNFCCC Conference of Parties, in Glasgow, Scotland, in an effort to unite in the battle against climate change, and to share ideas of how Western science and Indigenous Knowledge can come together for the common good of mankind. Indigenous Peoples from Ecuadorian Amazon, Chad, Alaska, Sweden, Indonesia and Australia, Russia, the USA, and many other places are making sure that Indigenous voices are heard at COP26.

La COP26; la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre cambio climático conocido como COP26 se esta llevando a cabo en Glasgow Escocia del 1 al 12 de noviembre 2021.

En este encuentro se reúnen mandatarios de 196 países, además destaca la participación de líderes y lideresas Indígenas , integrantes de organizaciones locales y regionales para visibilizar los aportes hechos por los pueblos Indigenas en el mundo para detener el cambio climático.

Joan Carling (Kankanaey), Co-convenor of the Indigenous Peoples’ Major Group for Sustainable Development (IPMG), is an Indigenous activist from the Cordillera in the Philippines with more than 20 years of experience in working on Indigenous issues from the grassroots to the international level. Her expertise includes areas like human rights, sustainable development, the environment, climate change, and also the implementation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.
Joan Carling attended the 26th convening of the Conference of the Parties or COP 26 in Glasgow in November 2021.

Cultural Survival’s Lead on Brazil, Edson Krenak of the Krenak Peoples was at COP26, joining Indigenous delegations in making sure Indigenous voices are heard and listened to in the fight to combat climate change. 
Produced by Avexnim Cojti (Maya Ki'che) and Shaldon Ferris (Khoisan)
Soundclip: Edson Krenak at COP26
Image: Edson Krenak 
Music: "Anania2" by The Baba Project, used with permission

From October 31 until November 12, 2021, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP 26) is happening in Glasgow, Scotland.
For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on Earth for global climate summits. In that time, climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority.

There are over 476 million Indigenous Peoples living in 90 countries across the world, accounting for 6.2 percent of the global population. Indigenous Peoples are the holders of a vast diversity of unique cultures, traditions, languages, and knowledge systems. They have a special relationship with their lands and hold diverse concepts of development based on their own worldviews and priorities.
In this radio program, we hear from Nailejileji Tipap, who works as the Gender and Public Relations Coordinator at Pastoralists Indigenous NGOs Forum in Tanzania.

Indigenous Peoples around the world have always been innovative in finding ways to use their environment to their advantage, while respecting mother earth at the same time.
Saturday June 5th is World Environment day, and in this podcast we speak to Nelson Ole Reiya from the Nashulai Conservancy in Kenya, who will tell us how to make soap from Elephant Dung!
Nelson will tell us how the Masaai people Reimagine, Recreate and Restore.
Produced by Shaldon Ferris (Khoisan, South Africa)
Interviewee: Nelson Ole Reiya (Maasai, Kenya)

En Común es una plataforma virtual que busca ser un puente informativo entre la investigación científica y las comunidades indígenas, rurales y urbanas de México a través de los podcast y aquí le presenta este programa con información relevante sobre agricultores zapotecas en 16 comunidades en los Valles Centrales de Oaxaca y su uso de tecnología para capturar y filtrar el agua de lluvia que ahora usan en sus cultivos. El informe también se centra en la lucha legal de los agricultores para gestionar el agua en sus propios términos.

UNESCO calls on radio stations to celebrate World Radio Day's 10th anniversary and the more than 110 years of radio. Cultural Survival's Indigenous Rights Radio supported the Khwe people from the Okavango region in starting Khwedam Radio – a radio station that will assist the Khwe and !Xun speaking San Peoples  to be able to communicate better with each other in remote regions of Namibia.

Indigenous Peoples play a crucial role in conservation of the environment and ecosystems, as their survival very much depends on the water, land, and natural resources. Indigenous Peoples are often called the custodians or stewards of the Earth. It is estimated that 25 percent of earth land surface is occupied, owned, and managed by Indigenous Peoples. This is no coincidence as Indigenous cultures are rooted in relationships with lands and territories.

Producer: Dev Kumar Sunuwar

World Tourism Day is commemorated each year on 27 September in order to foster awareness among the international community of the importance of tourism and its social, cultural, political, and economic value. This year, tourism has been among the hardest hit of all sectors by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the theme of the 2020 edition of international day is "Tourism and Rural Development." Undoubtedly, the tourism is one of the largest industries in the world. One out of every 10 jobs in the whole world is in the tourism industry and 30 percent of the world revenue comes from tourism.

Governments or states make use of geographical boundaries to demarcate territories. Political entities come to agreements on which area belongs to whom. In some cases, borders are agreed upon by two countries, and in other cases it may have been suggested by a third party like an international conference.  In many cases, borders are imposed on places, without taking into consideration the people who live in that area. In this program, we speak to Aslak Holmberg from the Saami Council in Finland, who tells us how borders have affected his life, as well as his environment.

Shannon Foster is a Sydney D'harawal Knowledge Keeper, educator, and artist. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. with the Center for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Technology in Sydney. Drawing on traditional knowledge, Indigenous leaders have advocated for changes to current land management practices for decades to help limit anticipated future fire damage. Aboriginal people have a deep knowledge of their lands, and traditional burning practices can help prevent massive destruction.

El Agua es un vital liquido que ha sido cuidado por pueblos indígenas desde hace miles de años, esto en base al conocimiento de que sin agua no hay vida de todas las especies.

Radio comunitaria Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a de Guatemala ha abordado y analizado este tema con varios expertos en uno de sus programas, que han preparado para que usted pueda escuchar, descargar y compartir de forma gratuita.

Imagen:
Capturada por Cultural Survival

Realización:
Producciones Xyaab’ Tzuultaq’a

Luiz Henrique Eloy Amado is an Indigenous attorney from the Terena Peoples’ village of Ipegue, Brazil. Eloy Terena, as he is commonly known, has first-hand knowledge on the situation of Indigenous Peoples in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and an extensive experience on defending criminalized Indigenous grass-root leaders and representing Indigenous communities in land rights cases before Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court.

Cultural Survival's Avexnim Cojti (Maya Ki'che) spoke to Janene Yazzie about the participation of Indigenous Peoples at the UN's Climate Action Summit.
Janene Yazzie (Navajo) is Development Program Coordinator for International Indian Treaty Council and the council’s representative as co-convenor of the Indigenous Peoples Major Group of the U.N. High-level Political Forum on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
Production: Shaldon Ferris (San, South Africa)
Image: Janine Yazzie

The 18th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on the rights of Indigenous Peoples was held from April 22nd to May 3rd 2019. The theme for this year was Traditional Knowledge: Generation, Transmission and Protection.

We got a chance to speak via Skype to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli Corpuz, on the meaning behind this particular theme and why it was chosen.

MUSIC
Lights in the Forest by Yarina.
Used with permission.

The world will indeed be a poorer place without the languages and cultures of Indigenous Peoples.
So it is necessary to celebrate and promote Indigenous Languages, thereby improving the lives of the peoples who speak the languages.
Producer:  Shaldon Ferris (KhoiSan, South Africa)

Interview: Kaimana Barcase, Hawaii and Denver Breda, South Africa.

Music : Whispers by Ziibiwan, used with permission.

Picture:  A man plays a Khwe finger piano, West Caprivi Strip. Photo by Julie Taylor 2007, Courtesy of Cultural Survival

Indigenous Rights Radio Program on a case where  the Newar indigenous community in Nepal obtained a victory in their legal battle against the government after about 7 years of continuous struggle.

Interviewees: Advocate Shankar Limbu

Music: Remember your children: by Solidummay.

Introductory Music: "Burn Your Village to the Ground" by A Tribe Called Red. Used with permission.

The reduction in size of the Bears Ears National Monument by the Trump Administration runs contrary to the principles established in Article 26 of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We spoke to Braidan Weeks, the Communications Coordinator for Utah Diné Bikéyah, about the importance of Bears Ears, the unlawfulness of the actions taken by the Trump administration, and the advocacy currently underway to defend the monument led by the Tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.

En este entrevista especial con Ada Villareal, Representante de la Red Centroamericana de Radios Comunitarias Indígenas de la que también Cultural Survival y nuestro programa de Radio de Derechos Indígenas es parte; te contamos la importancia que tienen la Radios Comunitarias en su función educadora, promotora y defensora de los recursos naturales para la garantía de la preservación y el buen vivir de las comunidades.

A close relationship with local environments and ecosystems is more critical than ever in the face of a rapidly changing climate. This program features two perspectives from Indigenous communities that are practicing resiliency to global warming by adapting their traditional knowledge and science to put a changing climate into the context of their communities' history and lifeways.

INTERVIEWEES
Elizabeth Azzuz (Yurok), Cultural Fire Management Council
Jannie Staffansson (Saami), Arctic and Environment Unit of the Saami Council

What can Western science learn from Indigenous knowledge? We speak with Dr. Daniel Wildcat (Yuchi) and Tui Shortland (Maori) about the value of Indigenous longitudinal place-based knowledge that Indigenous People have gathered over millennia. We unpack what positive collaboration between Western science and Indigenous science can look like and why it is important.

Credits:

Background music:
"Atahualpa" and "Lights in the forest" by Yarina. Used with permission.

In Mbororo communities in Chad, Indigenous women are the most affected by climate change because they are the ones collecting food, water, and traditional medicines for their families. Changes to their environment have cause increased hardship on the Mbororo who are pastoralist cattle headers, as they are forced to move more frequently to cope with increasing drought conditions.

Lakes and forests in the Mt. Talinis area of the Phillipines are under threat from recent expansions of the energy industry. Apolinario Carino is working with the organization PENAGMANNAK, a federation of 17 Indigenous Peoples’ community groups, to pioneer community management strategies of reforestation designed to empower the Indigenous groups to shape the future of their lands. Apolinario hopes to share the knowledge that they have gained from these experiences in order to better combat climate change on a global scale.

Indigenous communities often hold invaluable knowledge about medicinal plants and healing practices rooted in the environment and resources of their traditional homelands. Anoop Pushkaran Krishnamma is working with the Kerala Kani Community Welfare Trust in partnership with Indigenous communities in India to record and preserve this knowledge, allowing for healing practices to be utilized by future generations.

George ‘Bic’ Manahira describes how his community established the
world's first community-run octopus, sea grass, and mangrove reserve in partnership with Blue Ventures, a UK-based NGO, in order to strengthen the traditional sea-resource-based livelihood of the coastal Indigenous communities in Madagascar. They hope to expand and improve on the model in collaboration with other Indigenous groups and leaders in the coming years.

Indigenous solidarity has coalesced into a powerful movement thanks to the activism and perseverance of Indigenous leaders from communities around the world. Indigenous leaders that are defending land, language, culture, and the environment face acute persecution, both from governments directly and from extrajudicial actors.

Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Shaldon Ferris interviews Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, about the Dakota Access Pipeline. Vicky describes the central tensions underlying the current conflict, and details the opportunities for recourse available to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe through both local and international governing bodies.

Credits:
Interview with Vicky Tauli-Corpuz
Production by Shaldon Ferris

Music:
"Danum", by Salidumayy DKK

El programa ha constado de dos talleres de capacitación y un periodo de formación virtual de cuatro meses en el que los participantes han desarrollado investigaciones dirigidas para identificar los principales problemas y necesidades relacionadas con la tenencia de recursos en sus comunidades, cuyos resultados se presentarán en este encuentro.

Dr. Dawn Lavell-Harvard (Anishinaabe, Canada) explains how the concerns that have been labeled as “women’s issues” are in fact central to the progress of Indigenous rights. Often, concerns such as domestic abuse, schooling, and healthcare are often sidelined in favor of focusing on issues that are seen as more universal. Dr. Lavell-Harvard places them at the center of her activism efforts, showing that there is no need to compromise or postpone the rights of Indigenous women in Indigenous movements globally.

Producer: Avexnim Cojti

Terra Madre means "Mother Earth" in Latin. The theme of the Indigenous Terra Madre conference was to celebrate the bio and cultural diversity that is the asset of Indigenous communities. The aim of this gathering is to share ideas, to come together, and be inspired or be warned, and to make people aware that our local food systems. It also seeks to build awareness that "the way we cooked in the past, and the wild plants around us are more important for our health than all the medicines we take.

Interviewees discusses the main challenges to food security for a rising global population. Dhrupad Choudhury of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, argues that Indigenous farmers are doing important work to tackle challenges the world is facing today due to climate change. Indigenous farmers have the building blocks of stress tolerant crops, as well as sustainable agricultural practices because they are dependent only on the resources available to them.

Dr. Winona LaDuke describes her practices experimenting with various types of maize.

Researcher Elizabeth Hacker describes research about how Indigenous individuals create their own frameworks to define "well-being" to counter Western ideas of well-being. She found three important concepts for Indigenous well being are, Meeting basic material needs; social harmony and sense of belonging; and cultural identity. Dev and Elizabeth discuss examples from her research in India and Kenya.

Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn speaks about her favorite interventions in the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. She believes the interventions regarding climate change have been very important in her community and across the world.

Catherine Murupaenga-Ikenn speaks about consumerism in the modern world and our responsibility to care for the earth, and gives advice about how we can enact chance for future generations.

Josh Cooper speaks about climate change and its impact on Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples are being impacted by climate change, specifically in Oceania, and Josh Cooper is working to create World Climate Justice Day to bring further awareness to the issue.

Statement from Special Rapporteur Vicky Tauli-Corpuz on the sustainable development goals proposed by the United Nations and how Indigenous Peoples' rights must be respected in order to solve climate issues such as deforestation.

Conservación de la tierra y el territorio es un derecho de Pueblos Indígenas que está violado en muchas partes del mundo. El mapeo territorial de tierra de Pueblos Indígenas es una estrategía para proteger territorio y tierra propios y conservar el ambiente allá. Esta es una entrevista con Henderson Rengifo, un líder Indígena de Peru, sobre su experiencia con un mapeo territorial.

Julian Kunnie connects food soverignty to the spiritual and reflects on how disconected we are today from where our food comes from.

Santa Fe, Panamá. La coordinadora del programa de educación, Iris Sánchez comenta sobre la labor que ha realizado la cooperativa fundada por el activista desaparecido Héctor Gallego al igual que la labor  que cooperativa desempeña en la comunidad entre ellas enseñar el cultivo orgánico a los campesinos de forma alternativa al uso de químicos. 

Estas entrevistas tratan de la reunión de la Asamblea General de la ONU conocida como la Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos Indígenas, que se realizó el 22 y 23 de septiembre del 2014. Se escuchará análisis y crítica del estatus de observador que tuvo la mayoría de la gente indígena que asistió; la intervenciones de los representantes de México y Costa Rica; y estrategias para hacer cumplir a los estados con el Documento Final.

Michael Preston speaks about how Indigenous youth can get involved in the UN system and defend their rights on the international level.

En noviembre del 2013, un equipo de Sobrevivencia Cultural visitó a la comunidad de Nuevo Andoas en Loreto, Perú, para conocer la situación de grave contaminación medioambiental causado por la explotación petrolera en la región.

En noviembre del 2013, un equipo de Sobrevivencia Cultural visitó a la comunidad de Nuevo Andoas en Loreto, Perú, para conocer la situación de grave contaminación medioambiental causado por la explotación petrolera en la región.

Indigenous leader and Chairperson of the Cordillera Peoples' Alliance of the Philippines gives his perspective on the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples. "The bottom line in advancing the recognition of Indigenous Peoples' rights is fighting for these rights right in our own territories and communities."

World Conference of Indigenous Women 2013

Agnes Williams - Seneca 

Native Seneca woman Agnes Williams notices the consequences of climate change and contamination in her community. Changes in temperature have caused the plant-growing season to be shorter, and a nuclear waste plant has leaked into creeks near her reservation. Seneca people and indigenous communities near Williams have been protesting and working to clean up the area.