Fourth Conference of the Parties, Convention on Biodiversity, Bratislava, Slovakia, May 11, 1998: Oral Intervention, International Indian Treaty Council, Agenda item 10, Implementation of Article 8(j)

International Indian Treaty Council

CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

	“WORKING FOR THE RIGHTS AND RECOGNITION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES"

Fourth Conference of the Parties, Convention on Biodiversity, Bratislava, Slovakia, May 11, 1998: Oral Intervention, International Indian Treaty Council, Agenda item 10, Implementation of Article 8(j)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman,

Mr. Chairman, the International Indian Treaty Council addresses the question of Indigenous participation on the implementation of Article 8(j).

The Convention on Bio-diversity and Article 8j require that implementation include the approval and involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles. The CBD recognises in this and other articles, directly and indirectly, that Indigenous Peoples are major contributors to the world's remaining bio-diversity. The CDB thus seeks to promote its major purposes of conservation and sustainable use precisely with the approval and involvement of those who have had the wisdom to conserve and use biological resources sustainably. Article 8j requires Indigenous approval and involvement in the implementation of 8j and related articles.

Throughout the world, the exploitation of biological resources is proceeding at an alarming rate. Even as the CDB is being implemented, trans-national economic interests are continuing their globalized unsustainable development that promise to destroy the little bio-diversity that remains. There is little time for the world to learn of conservation and sustainable use from Indigenous Peoples in the face of this onslaught. Mr. Chairman, my delegation urges the Conference of Parties to adopt the consensus Indigenous proposal of an open-ended intersessional working group which reports directly to the COPS, in order that the best witnesses to the use and abuse of biological diversity inform the COPS directly, and the world, not only on the state of biological diversity from the very ground of its existence, but also on those elements in national, regional and global implementation of the Convention that best serve the Convention's ends. To delay or impede, or to filter this urgently needed perspective will lead to an ignorance that will ultimately lead to even greater irreparable losses of bio-diversity.

Mr. Chairman, many Parties to the Convention are even now implementing the CDB. The Conference of Parties needs to know how national implementation affects bio-diversity, whether ill or well, and how these national implementations affect regions and entire bio-spheres. The best reporters, the best witnesses are Indigenous Peoples, cultures that inhabit these great areas across national borders, cultures that embrace large regions and bio-spheres of the world.

We are told, Mr. Chairman, that there are some parties to the Convention that would limit severely the participation of Indigenous Peoples, claiming that they have no indigenous peoples within their borders. My delegation would only point out that even if it were truly the case, these states themselves reap the benefits of the exploitation of biological diversity at the expense of Indigenous Peoples and local communities embodying traditional lifeways from throughout the globe. Indeed, the loss of bio-diversity will in the end, directly affect the world's populations and the sustainability of life itself.

Mr. Chairman, it has also been suggested that Indigenous Peoples have been marginalized too long, and that a committee which reports directly to the SBSTTA would serve to overcome this marginalization. It has been suggested that a subsidiary body to SBSTTA, composed of “experts” would serve to incorporate Indigenous Peoples more directly with the workings and implementation of the Convention. Mr. Chairman, Indigenous Peoples know what marginalization is. This defiance of logic, this twisting of reason, does little to serve the Convention's stated goals and frustrates the requirements of Article 8j, Indigenous Peoples approval and involvement.

We do not believe that SBSTTA is the appropriate body to accomplish the broad mandate, the approval and involvement of Indigenous Peoples in the implementation of Article 8(j) and all other related articles. It's focus has proven too narrow, its purposes and mandate not inclusive enough.

In addition, Mr. Chairman, reports to this COPS point out that SBSTTA is highly political and not entirely scientific. These reports also point out that the reductionist method of western scientists do not adequately serve the holistic, biosphere approach to bio-diversity. Mr. Chairman, SBSTTA appears not to see the forest for the trees. The Indigenous and traditional perspective, that all life is related appears to be incomprehensible to SBSTTA.

Indigenous Peoples fully intend to continue providing advice and guidance to SBSTTA, as we have done in the past. But SBSTTA has ignored Indigenous perspectives that it has received. SBSTTA has not been entirely functional. To limit the mandate of Indigenous approval and involvement under 8j and related articles to SBSTTA and to expect Indigenous Peoples to correct their dysfunction in order to accomplish the broad mandate of Article 8(j) is too great a load to impose on Indigenous Peoples. We have too little time and too few resources for what all evidence indicates to be a monumental task.

My delegation urges this Conference of Parties to accept an Open-ended Woking Group that reports directly to the Conference of Parties. The momentum and the promise of Madrid and the CBD itself can no longer be frustrated or ignored.