UNDRIP Report - English FINAL - International Forum on Globalization

indigenous delegation and articulate important
issues to those participating in the anniversary
celebration. As a Christensen Fund board member,
she also mentioned that the board is talking about
how to incorporate FPIC into any project that affects
indigenous territories, and that there has been rich
conversation about it, with a lot of support for the
process.
Roman Czebiniak of Greenpeace <strong>International</strong>
expressed support for Daphne Wysham and Victor
Menotti’s comments regarding REDD. He expressed
that implementation would obviously be key, and
that “the design of the mechanism will have a
profound impact on what kind of implementation
takes place.” He also confirmed that discussions on
policy are moving at a very rapid pace: Governments
are negotiating and making decisions now, and he
expects that there will be a rough architecture of the
Kyoto Protocol by mid-year next year. “My advice
would be that, at least on big-picture items, it would
be useful if you want your voices to be heard to come
out and describe what you like and what you don’t
like, as at least an entry point with governments and
with the COP. And then, given time and so forth, you
can elaborate on what would be the ideal
mechanism. But we need your minds and voices,”
Czebiniak said.
Anka Stock of Women in Europe for a Common
Future (WECF) shared her own inquiry into how to
implement <strong>UNDRIP</strong> into her organization’s network.
Realizing that Nurzat Abdyrasulova was the only
person present from a partnered eco-region, she
determined that she would first need to identify
partners from indigenous communities within their
programs’ reach, and then establish who was willing
to collaborate. Determining which components of
their programs were relevant to <strong>UNDRIP</strong> was a
future challenge for Stock, and she expressed a need
for training within her organization and for its
members. She also supported the creation of a
network or Listserv, and indicated it would be very
helpful for them to share information with others
“who have worked on these issues for much longer.”
Joseph Ole Simel of the Mainyoito Pastoralist
Integrated Development Organization expressed his
appreciation for all the comments and articulated his
experience—that the adoption of the Declaration had
occurred in a vacuum; work had not happened at a
national or international level, and he said that a
network was needed immediately. He then
referenced the disasters in Kenya that have come
with the adoption of the UN Millennium Goals,
where money was given to projects that displaced
people, destroyed culture, and damaged the
environment. The government is currently planning
to expand Nairobi, Kenya, by 40 to 120 km to meet
increasing population pressures, which means taking
indigenous peoples’ land. Currently, no one is there
to enforce the UN Declaration, to say that this should
not be done.
Ole Simel emphatically supported the development
of a network to collaborate on <strong>UNDRIP</strong> issues. “So I
think in order for what we have discussed here to
move to next level, and have continuity, we need an
alliance and we need it urgently. My appeal to the
organizers of this meeting, the IFG, really is to host
until another decision is made…we cannot afford to
create another vacuum…” Ole Simel stressed the
importance of having a strategy on how to move
forward, to avoid sreating a vacuum like the one
that occurred after the original campaign to support
the passing of <strong>UNDRIP</strong>.
In addition, Ole Simel said that utilizing existing
NGOs and environmental structures in Africa would
only serve to further marginalize indigenous people
due to the past history and tension around issues of
conservation. The way indigenous people have been
portrayed as a threat by many of these conservation
organizations would not bode well for future
collaborations. “The current opportunities that exist
can only be taken advantage of if we organize,” said
Ole Simel. “A lot of good ideas are here on the table.
We need a smaller kind of a structure to go to next
level. If you don’t have a framework to move it, then
those ideas will be very difficult to implement.” He
encouraged building a new structure to move
implementation forward quickly and to avoid the
bad blood of past alliances, as well as the pitfalls and
time constraints of working within the existing, and
potentially conflicting, frameworks of individual
organizations.
Jose Aguto, of the National Congress of American
Indians, introduced himself to the group as an
advisor on climate change, the environment, and
natural resource policy issues. He recently joined the
National Congress specifically to develop a climate
change strategy. Aguto just returned from its
national conference in Phoenix, where this strategy
was introduced to all the tribes.
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