By Jeff Conant, for Climate Connections
Signing of the Kari-Oca Declaration. Photo: Ben Powless
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 19, 2012 — Over five hundred Indigenous Peoples from Brazil and throughout the world gathered at Kari-Oca II, an encampment seated at the foot of a mountain near Rio Centro, to sign a declaration demanding respect for Indigenous Peoples’ role in maintaining a stable world environment, and condemning the dominant economic approach toward ecology, development, human rights and the rights of Mother Earth.
“We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the “Green Economy”, and its premise that the world can only ‘save’ nature by commodifying its life-giving and life-sustaining capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years”, the declaration states.
Hundreds of Indigenous representatives plan to march from Kari-Oca on Wednesday, June 20, to deliver the declaration to world leaders at the opening of the Rio+20 Summit. Continue reading
