Amazonian indigenous peoples demand climate justice and respect of their rights ahead of the COP20 climate conference in Lima

A joint statement published on 9th August in Peru by AIDESEP, Peru's national amazonian indigenous peoples' organisation and COICA, an umbrella body coordinating the efforts of 9 national level amazonian indigenous peoples' organisations in South America, called on governments and the UN to address the growing climate crisis ahead of the next UN climate conference in Peru in December 2014 (COP20).Specifically they demanded that measures to address deforestation must address the real drivers of this destruction which include infrastructure and road projects, agribusiness, oil, gas and mining promoted and financed by the world's leading economies and multilateral banks such as the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) and The Brazilian National  Development Bank (BNDES) At the same time they highlighted the key role that indigenous peoples' territories in the Amazon play in protecting over 200 million hectares of forests but that these forests continue to be threatened as long as these much of these lands remain without adequate legal security and communities lack support for forest protection. 'Time is up. The environmental catastrophe has already begun. The glaciers are melting, the forests are drying, flooding and burning; Cities are dying of thirst, the seas and typhoons are bristling with anger, the islands are sinking. But nothing changes and the UN is powerless because of the untouchable god of economic growth "GDP growth" worshipped by both the economic giants who have already heated up the earth and those emerging economies who insist on heating it up even more. All the time knowing that the social costs will be paid by those who are at the bottom of the pile, and particularly the 6000 indigenous peoples of the world whose 500 million human rights have been trampled, punished and criminalized in our efforts to determine our own futures'.

COICA / AIDESEP del diario La República (Spanish Only)

Comunicado AIDESEP (Spanish Only)