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INDIGENOUS PEOPLES AND GLOBALIZATION PROGRAM |
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Indigenous peoples are on the cusp of the crisis in sustainable development. Their communities are concrete examples of sustainable societies, historically evolved in diverse ecosystems. Today, they face the challenges of extinction or survival and renewal in a globalized world. The impact of globalization is strongest on these populations perhaps more than any other because these communities have no voice and are therefore easily swept aside by the invisible hand of the market and its proponents. Globalization is not merely a question of marginalization for indigenous peoples it is a multi-pronged attack on the very foundation of their existence and livelihoods, for example:
At the time the IFG began the Indigenous Peoples and Globalization program, there was little awareness among indigenous peoples, especially in North and South America, how globalization's tentacles could reach directly into "sovereign" societies, and require them to make drastic accommodations to large-scale corporate development and resource raiding. The impacts were especially profound in parts of the world where native peoples—who often have had little contact with outsiders—lived in areas where pristine resources such as water, oil, forests, fish, and wildlife, minerals, biodiversity and medicines—were still in great abundance. To date, we have achieved two major steps. The first was to organize, for the first time, a large organizing meeting among globalization experts and some 25 leading native activists, including Winona LaDuke, John Mohawk, Debra Harry, Melissa Nelson, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, Atossa Soltani, joined by IFG Board Member/Philippine indigenous activist Victoria Tauli-Corpuz. At the meeting, the IFG committed to developing two very important new documents—a map and a report—to explain the impacts globalization has on indigenous communities. The map was issued in 2003 and has been well received in indigenous and other communities. The map is a first-ever visual representation of over 250 places in the world where global corporations and bureaucracies have impacted native peoples, who continue to voice opposition. In July 2005, IFG released Paradigm Wars - Indigenous Peoples' Resistance to Economic Globalization, a report on the impacts of globalization on indigenous peoples. Among topics discussed in the report are: the fundamental clash of world views between indigenous and westernized societies; the viability of traditional ecological knowledge systems; globalization as neo-colonization—including globalization and culture—and full reports on current goings-on including Plan Colombia, bioprospecting, industrial development in the Amazon, contamination from GMOs, oil and the Niger Delta, water privatization, ecotourism, mining, role of trade agreements and bureaucracies, and new international opportunities for action. (in late 2006, this report was updated and published by Sierra Club Books; it is available at local bookstores.) On September 13, 2007, after more than two decades of negotiations and work by indigenous groups and their supporters, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN General Assemby voted in favor of the Declaration. Read the Statement of Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indignenous Issues (and IFG board member), on the Adoption of the UN Declaration. In a press statement, Tauli-Corpuz said “The 13th of September 2007 will be remembered as an international human rights day for the Indigenous Peoples of the world, a day that the United Nations and its Member States, together with Indigenous Peoples, reconciled with past painful histories and decided to march into the future on the path of human rights.” |
IFG Teach-In: The IFG's Indigenous Peoples and Globalization program has completed a map depicting the negative impacts of economic globalization on indigenous peoples. The map provides a striking visual image of the totality of the problem. It offers a unique visual representation of globalization across the many sectors impacting native communities: oil, dams, biopiracy, logging, militarization, and industrial agriculture, to name a handful. The map also includes text describing the various impacts. There are examples from every continent, save Antarctica. The Bayaka in Central African Republic whose community is being destroyed by logging; the Dinka and Nuer in Sudan whose lands are being taken over for oil reserves; the Wichí in Argentina facing a major highway through their territory; gold mining on Miskito lands in Nicaragua; eco-tourism on Kuna land in Panama; mining on Australian aboriginal lands; Jharkhand tribal community dislocation due to megadam project in India; industrial plantations destroying tropical forests on which the Dayak people in Indonesia depend; export coffee plantations evicting Montangards from their homeland in Vietnam; uranium mining, and the resulting toxic waste contaminating the ecosystem on which the Dene and Cree in Canada rely; overfishing jeopardizing survival of Chukchi and Eskimo in Russia; mining on North American indian lands, including the Western Shoshone, Quechan Nation, Mohawk, and Zuni peoples.View or Download the map as a PDF
(865KB) IFG had input on the map from many NGOs, including: Amazon Watch, Indigenous Environmental Network, International Indian Treaty Council, Project Underground, White Earth Land Recovery Project, Oilwatch, Nicaragua Network, Survival International, Cultural Survival, World Rainforest Movement, MiningWatch Canada, and the Tebtebba Foundation in the Philippines. Hard copies of the map are now available ($10) Order at the IFG book store IFG REPORTS Draft Report: Toward a Campaign
in Support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples, August 2, 2007 Paradigm Wars: Indigenous
Peoples Resistance to Globalization Indigenous Peoples Declarations
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