Oppening statement of IIPFCC at COP 17 Durban

International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change

Durban, South Africa, November 28, 2011

Mrs. and Mr. Participants:

I thank the presidency and CMP7 for this opportunity. I am the President of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia. I speak on behalf of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change to convey our history of defending life and profound unity with nature. The impacts of climate change are very grave and an expression of a crisis of civilization.

We need decisions like the following:

1. To prioritize the consolidation of Territories of our Peoples with the holistic, harmonic management of Living Well, Full Life, of the strategic ecosystems for cooling the planet.
2. To halt the destruction of nature and territories by extractive industries, agro-industries, biofuels, megaprojects and assume the corresponding reparations.
3. To identify and halt “carbon traders and carbon cowboys” and establish a system of accreditation of REDD+ operators that is transparent and trustworthy.
4. Direct access of our Peoples to the Green Fund and other climate funds, and prioritizing the territorial rights of peoples in their entirety including the forests and natural resources.
5. To strengthen the agriculture of our peoples, guaranteeing food security and sovereignty, without which they are subjected to perverse privatizing incentives of markets.
6. To build alternative funding mechanisms for the social and environmental sustainability of forests, based on public funds.
7. Durban must deliver a legally binding outcome in the form of an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol for the further commitment period that supports a binding aggregate emissions reduction target for developed countries (Annex 1) of at least 45% with a preferred level of 49% below 1990 levels by 2020 and at least 95% by 2050. CMP7 must have mechanisms for the participation of our Peoples in accordance with the implementation the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We invite you to meetings with the Indigenous Caucus to advance in these directions, including the Rio+20 process.

Africa is full of culture and history. We feel the clamor of her peoples to make decisions so that humanity, which was born in these lands, has continuity.

Thank you very much.