Statement of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change

SBSTA - December 10, 2008

Chair,

We acknowledge the efforts of some Parties who have supported and worked with us to reflect our rights and our full and effective participation in this COP14. However, we denounce those Parties, including Canada, the United States, New Zealand and Australia who continue to exercise, outmoded, outdated colonial power structures that the rest of the world left behind decades ago.

We remind the parties that UNFCCC is not a consensus document and perhaps a time has come for a simple majority vote that lets these four nations know how isolated their position is.

Today, on the 60th Anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights it is appalling that any United Nations body still denies extending the Rights enshrined in this document to the Indigenous Peoples of the planet. It is a abrogation of BOTH the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Reference to the draft text ON SBSTA 29 agenda item 5, on REDD (Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action] .In the annex of this document, 1 ( c) , we are profoundly disappointed that the Indigenous Peoples fundamental rights, INCLUDING the UNDRIP and other existing Human Rights instruments (Convention ILO169) are not included in the operative paragraphs of the latest document of SBSTA29 .

We, are not one single indigenous people, as the document states. we are a multitude of indigenous Peoples from multiple countries, with multiple languages, diverse cultures and background and experiences. To reduce all this, to the concept of a singular unitary experience is a denial of the richness of diversity that exist within, the framework of indigenous peoples as a collective of individual nations.

For this reason, we, appeal to the UNFCCC and Parties to take affirmative action to reaffirm the rights of Indigenous Peoples as codified in UNDRIP and other relevant Human Rights instruments (EG. Convention ILO 169). Any decision or measure that will be adopted at
this COP, in particular the REDD process, should consider the principle of free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples and our rights as Indigenous Peoples, to say No. Indigenous Peoples must not be excluded from, and should be centrally involved in and
benefit from, all climate change and forest programs and policies at all levels to ensure that they deliver justice and equity and contribute to sustainable development, biodiversity protection, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

We, demand an immediate suspension of all REDD initiatives and carbon market schemes in Indigenous Peoples territories until indigenous peoples rights are fully recognized, protected and promoted.

Please, we urgently call for the ministers to take the issue of Indigenous Peoples Rights up at the High Level segment.

Thank you.