Determination and resilience: Forest Peoples’ appeal to secure their existence and curb deforestation

"Whenever a forest is destroyed, a way of life and a language are lost: It is a form of cultural  genocide that is committed”.

This alarming alert, sounded by an indigenous women from the Camentsa people (Colombia) during the Palangka Raya international meeting on Drivers of Deforestation and Forest Peoples’ Rights, voiced each participants’ main concern: despite the proliferation of international initiatives to halt forest loss, more than 20 million hectares of forest were cleared in 2012 alone. Notwithstanding international concern about the current environmental and climate crisis, the meeting in Palangka Raya, Kalimantan, Indonesia (9th to 14th of March 2014) showed that  forest peoples continue to suffer from invasion of  their lands and territories and destruction of forest resources on which their entire way of life and survival depend. Working with civil society organizations and representatives of international agencies, forest peoples used the week-long meeting to assert their rights, seek remedy for abuses, secure their future and find concrete ways of curbing  deforestation.

More than 60 forest peoples’ representatives from Indonesia, Malaysia, Cameroon, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Paraguay, Peru, Colombia and Guyana came to Palangka Raya to share their experiences on the ground. In each of these countries, forest peoples are facing land grabs from agribusiness (especially from the rapid expansion of oil palm), timber, hydropower, oil and gas drilling, large-scale mining and other land development schemes imposed on their ancestral territories without their free, prior and informed consent. They are being evicted from their lands, deprived from their resources and means of subsistence, their villages are being razed and when they protest against these violations of their basic rights, they are severely repressed. As the export-led, extractivist model of development continues to be imposed, these abuses are justified by governments as being in the national interest.

Through deforestation, it is forest peoples’ very existence that is continuously being neglected and threatened. As an indigenous representative from Papua stressed during the meeting:

“It is astounding that today, we are still in the position of having to remind policy makers and the private sector that forests are inhabited”:

Tropical forest countries are home to an estimated 500 million forest-dependent people of whom at least 200 million are indigenous people. Forest peoples’ whole identity is based on their connection to the forest environment:

“Without the forest, we Orang Asli are deprived of our spirit and life, and therefore of our identity, which is worse than being a squatter or illegal immigrant on one's own land" (community forest guardian, Malaysia).

Forest loss is accelerating despite global efforts to halt deforestation, through agencies such as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UNREDD) and the World Bank. These initiatives are failing because they do not effectively recognise and protect forest peoples’ rights.  Too often these schemes have a narrow focus on protecting forests by imposing conservation areas on forest peoples’ land, often denying the rights of the very peoples who inhabit and have preserved the forest for centuries.    As Noerhadi, representing indigenous communities from Kapuas, Indonesia, stressed:

“We urgently need to overcome the contradiction between government initiatives that seek to exploit the forest and take land from communities, and conservation initiatives like REDD schemes. Both are seeking land and forest but continuously exclude local communities.” Curbing deforestation, requires that international agencies, civil society, policy makers and forest peoples work together to ensure  that forest peoples’ rights are secured and so that their knowledge, beliefs, institutions, and customary laws are used to guide forest management.

"Communities have proven the ability to manage the forests for many generations,” said Edy Subahani of Indonesian co-organizers POKKER SHK Kalteng.

“They have innovative knowledge to protect the forest and develop food and economic livelihoods as well as spiritual life within the forest. They also contribute to local and national and participate in the restoration of damaged forest. Governments should empower and develop these communities' skills and knowledge."

More determined than ever to secure their traditional way of life and looking ahead for concrete and immediate action to curb deforestation, forest peoples’ representatives united their call to governments, the private sector, financial institutions, international agencies and the international community through the Palangka Raya Declaration, urging all those concerned to:

• Halt the production, trade and consumption of commodities derived from deforestation, land grabs and other violations of the rights of forest peoples;
• Stop the invasion of forest peoples’ lands and forests by agribusiness, extractive industries, infrastructures, energy and “green economy” projects that deny forest peoples’ fundamental rights;
• Take immediate and concrete actions to uphold forest peoples' rights at all levels including the right to land, territories and resources, the right to self-determined development and to continue to own, control and manage their customary lands according to their knowledge and livelihoods.

The Declaration does note some progress. In some countries in Latin America and South East Asia, advances have been made to revise Constitutions and adopt new laws that respect the rights of indigenous peoples, reform forest tenures and encourage community based forest management. It also welcomed recent pledges by leading private sector companies to reform the way they do business, in order to halt their involvement in deforestation and to respect rights in accordance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. But the participants highlighted the yawning gap between what is written on paper and what is implemented on the ground.  

Forest peoples’ representatives stressed the need for the Declaration and the detailed recommendations to be circulated and be rigorously taken in account in the upcoming international events, including the next meetings of the UNFCCC to be held in Lima and Paris in 2014 and 2015, the United Nations Conference on Indigenous Peoples (UNWCIP) in September 2014. Participants pledged to work together in solidarity to form a global grassroots accountability network to independently monitor, document, challenge and denounce forest destruction and associated violations of forest peoples' rights, demonstrating their ceaseless will and resilience to assert and secure their traditional ways of life. 

Béata Delcourt

To read the Palangka Raya Declaration and list of original signatories please click here

To view the Press Room from the International workshop on Deforestation Drivers and the Rights of Forest Peoples please click here