Tag Archives: rio+20

by | 2012-06-23 · 11:30

Alternative voices from Rio+20

While world leaders negotiate in the Rio+20 meeting halls, thousands of activists have launched ‘The People’s Summit’.

AlJazeera – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil –  “The development – the drilling, mining and damming – is affecting everyone, our communities and the Earth, our home and the only planet we have.”

The piercing voice of 11-year-old T’Kaiya is enough to grab the attention of delegates passing by. With the aptitude of a seasoned speaker, this young delegate from Canada comfortably commanded the following of environmental activists staging a sit-in at the Rio+20 conference.

T’Kaiya is in Rio to represent the Indigenous Environmental Network and to speak out against the controversial tar sands project being planned by an energy transport company, Enbridge, that involves a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific northwest coast of Canada.
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by | 2012-06-22 · 17:00

What’s wrong with the green economy?: Indian human rights activist and journalist Jiten Yumnan

Throughout the week, Climate Connections is posting short videos of participants in Rio+20 and the Peoples’ Summit talking about the meaning of the “green economy.”

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by | · 12:00

Rio+20: Impressions from the Peoples’ Summit: forging a global social movement

By Avery Pittman, for Climate Connections

Henry Saragih, General Coordinator for La Via Campesina, and Alberto Gomez, from La Via Campesina Mexico listen as former Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations and director of Focus on the Global South talks about the need for a unified social movement strategy to challenge the green economy. Photo: Will Bennington for GJEP

June 21, 2012 – Rio de Janeiro – On the second day of UN Rio+20 “Earth Summit” negotiations, an hour away at the People’s Summit in downtown Rio, a crowd gathered to discuss moving forward as a global movement against the forces of the green economy. A mic was passed around the listening crowd, sitting in a ring of chairs three rows deep. There were bleachers and a stage at the venue, but the organizers of the event insisted that everyone be able to see each other and sit as equals. To the audience, Pablo Solon of Focus on the Global South posed the question “what can we do together, as social movements, after the Peoples Summit?”

Leaders and members from various social movements sat among the inner ring of chairs. The gathering was intimate and diverse, but the message was clear: together, social movements must deepen an analysis of the interconnections of oppression and create a road map to effectively and intentionally counter the logic of capitalism that commercializes nature.
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by | · 11:00

Indigenous deliver Kari-Oca II Declaration to Rio+20, as military halts hundreds

By Brenda Norrell, cross-posted from NarcoNews

Photos by Ben Powless, Mohawk, IEN

June 21, 2012 – RIO DE JANEIRO – Indigenous Peoples delivered the Kari-Oca II Declaration for the Protection of Mother Earth to leaders at Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainability, after the military halted hundreds of Indigenous Peoples from entering the area.

The Indigenous delegation delivering the Declaration today included members of the Indigenous Environmental Network and Lakota Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe.

The Kari-Oca II Declaration was presented to the UN Director for Sustainable Development Nikhil Seth, and Gilberto Carvalho, the Chief Minister to the Presidency of Brazil.

As world leaders seek to profiteer from nature at the summit, Indigenous Peoples, barred by the military from attending, are holding their own encampment at the Kari Oca II and produced the Kari-Oca II Declaration for the protection of Mother Earth. Indigenous leaders are demanding a halt to the false carbon market schemes which allow the world’s worst polluters to continue polluting and profiteering from nature.

Kandi Mossett, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara from North Dakota, was in the delegation of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Mossett said only a small group of Indigenous were allowed past the military to deliver the Declaration.
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by | · 09:00

Video: Indigenous Declaration of Kari-Oca II delivered to UN summit; condor visits solemn ceremony

June 22, 2012 — Yesterday at Rio+20, 400 Indigenous people from throughout the world attempted to enter the UN Rio+20 summit to deliver the Kari-Oca II Declaration to United Nations leaders (see previous post). Only a handful of the delegates were permitted to enter the summit due to military intervention. The delivery of the declaration was visited on by the overflight of a condor.

The Kari-Oca II Declaration (available here) states, in part:

“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… Indigenous activists and leaders defending their territories continue to suffer repression, militarization, including assassination, imprisonment, harassment and vilification as ‘terrorists.’ The violation of our collective rights faces the same impunity. Forced relocation or assimilation assault our future generations, cultures, languages, spiritual ways and relationship to the earth, economically and politically.”

(listen to audio interviews with members of the delegation here and here).

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by | 2012-06-21 · 19:00

Earth Audio Podcast: Sacajawea “Saki” Hall on KPFK Sojourner Truth Show, June 21, 2012

Interview with Sacajawea “Saki” Hall, the membership coordinator at the US Human Rights Network, in Rio de Janeiro with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, on KPFK’s Sojourner Truth show, June 21, 2012.

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod and the Sojourner Truth show for weekly Earth Minutes every Tuesday and Earth Segment interviews every Thursday–as well as daily interviews during international gatherings such as the Peoples’ Summit in Rio.

Click here to listen/download

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by | · 18:35

Video: What’s wrong with the green economy?: Dr. Mohammed Taghi Farvar of ICCA Consortium

Throughout the week, Climate Connections will post short videos of participants in Rio+20 and the Peoples’ Summit talking about the meaning of the “green economy.”

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by | · 13:00

New Photo Essay from the Peoples’ March in Rio yesterday

A photo essay from yesterday’s march in Rio by Will Bennington from Gears of Change–a part of Global Justice Ecology Project’s delegation.

Uncle Sam attempts to dominate the Peoples’ March in Rio. Photo: Will Bennington for GJEP

To see the full photo essay, click here

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