“We are worried about the negative impacts of geoengineering and synthetic life forms on Africa,” said a representative from Malawi.

“We believe that there should be no field release of synthetic life, cell or genome into the environment until through scientific assessments have been conducted in an open, transparent and participatory process involving all parties (members), indigenous and local communities,” said Mundita Lim of the Philippines.

Read more at InterPress Service.

Photo: M. Pykkönen

The Stockholm Resilience Center recently covered a study of forest regulation and regeneration in Madagascar. The study, just released in the new book Reforesting Landscapes (Springer, 2010), looks at the interaction of social and ecological processes and how the southern dry forest was able to regenerate. In this case, taboos, informal rules and social networks played a major role in facilitating the resiliency of these forests.

Aside from the ecological devastation caused by the BP Gulf Oil Spill in the ocean, tribal lifeways of South Louisiana are also at risk. This leaves members of the Pointe-Au-Chien tribe angered over receiving no compensation for decades of providing oil and gas companies with the natural resources they required to prosper. This also leaves them more vulnerable.

“This is not a two-week story, but a hundred-year story,” said Michael Dardar, historian with the United Houma Nation tribe. “Coastal erosion, land loss and more vulnerability to hurricanes and flooding all trace back to this century of unchecked economic development.”

Read the rest of the article at Associated Press.

Scientists believe this will increase the whiteness, or albedo, of clouds and increase their ability to reflect more sunlight back into space, reducing global warming. The Gates-backed sea trial would be the largest known attempt to geoengineer the climate so far, reported to be conducted over an area of 10,000km2.

Advocates against the experiments claim the trials to be “risky”, though much stronger words can be used to describe such a mechanical, reactive intervention in a system so complex as that of the planetary ecosystem. Technological quick fixes of a complex problem only serve to proliferate the problem and create unintended consequences. A much wiser and cost-effective approach would be to focus on ground-level adaptation measures and reducing energy consumption in our societies.

The 2010 Federal Throne Speech of the Canadian government hinted at a shift in Canada’s position on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). It reads: “We are a country with an Aboriginal heritage. A growing number of states have given qualified recognition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Our Government will take steps to endorse this aspirational document in a manner fully consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws.”

The UNDRIP adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1992, was signed by all member countries except 4: New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States. These countries have the most indigenous peoples in their territories, and certain language (such as “peoples” and “self-determination”) left these States’ governments feeling skiddish about implementing the Declaration. Since then, Australia and New Zealand have changed their position from “no” to “yes,” leaving Canada and the United States in the spotlight as the 2 that won’t sign on.

That’s why the recent throne speech in Canada is so exciting to some: if Canada signs, then the U.S. will not want to be the sole refuser of the Declaration (so the logic goes). However, we shouldn’t jump the gun just yet. The wording of the speech itself is vague at best. It calls the Declaration an “aspirational” document and that it will “take steps” to endorse it. These things, unfortunately, can mean nothing. Endorsing and supporting a declaration is a far cry from implementing those standards in policy decisions.

My colleague Tiffany Waters and I attended the North American Indigenous People’s Caucus to the UN Permanent Forum in Edmonton, Alberta earlier this month at the Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation. In preparation for the 9th Session of the Permanent Forum next month in New York, participants discussed the policy obstacles in both the U.S. and Canada with regards to the UNDRIP. Members of the Caucus were not wholly impressed with the wording of the Throne speech, but did hope that it would urge the Obama administration to move more quickly in formulating a position on the Declaration.

Tribal nations in Canada have been rallying the federal government to adopt the Declaration. Other than applying that kind of pressure, what really needs attention are the “government-to-government” by which federal and tribal governments communicate with each other. Tribal governments need to initiate the creation of an intergovernmental framework with the federal government which will be the means to negotiation mutually-beneficial policies, instead of consultation policy (which essentially means “we talk, you listen”).

Worldfocus: Has the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People made a meaningful difference to the lives of indigenous communities around the globe?

Davis and Waters: The Declaration holds meaning in setting a standard of Indigenous sovereignty over their lands and resources and to self determination. However, at this point, the Declaration holds more meaning as a standard to be embraced than a legally enforceable document.

Worldfocus: Why do the United States, Canada and New Zealand refuse to sign the Declaration?

Davis and Waters: While Australia has recently overturned their opposition to the Declaration, the United States of America, Canada and New Zealand say they oppose the Declaration for various reasons.

Much of the opposition from the US, Canada, and New Zealand surrounds Articles 3 and 26, in which the inherent right to self-determination and control over Indigenous resources and lands are recognized, and Article 32, in which it is required that the State Government obtain an Indigenous peoples “free and informed consent” before exploiting resources or lands that affect Indigenous peoples.

One analyst, Ronald Kakungulu (2009), has suggested that there is a fundamental reason for opposition that joins these three states: “They have a history of using the now discredited doctrines of discovery and terra nullius (empty land) to grab indigenous people’s lands.”

Worldfocus: How does the treatment of Native Americans in the United States compare to the treatment of indigenous peoples in other English-speaking nations?

Davis and Waters: We can’t answer in a “better/worse than” way. Structurally, these States have similar relationships with their indigenous populations: treaties, trust relationships, etc. But there is something that does stand out. Compared to the other English-speaking countries, American Indians have a much greater bureaucratic interface with the federal government, cultivated over the last 40 years of American tribes assuming more functions of the federal government in their own communities.

Worldfocus: Are there examples of Indigenous self-government that you see as models that could be introduced across the world?

Davis and Waters: We don’t see one broad model of indigenous self-government that could be applicable worldwide. With so many culturally diverse societies, we can’t expect there to be one single way in which self-government emerges.

A structure of self-governance has to come from within and be built on a peoples own place and culture specific foundations. Thus, we cannot point to one particular group and take them as an example of successful self-government to be applied worldwide.

However, we can look at what qualities and characteristics can facilitate an indigenous nation’s strength: it must build and assert its political authority, formulate its own policies, laws, regulations and standards, and have Indigenous and tribal leaders that can maintain political flexibility and agility in a constantly shifting and changing world.

And the issue of climate-related relocations could be significant. Professor Norman Myers of Oxford University has estimated climate change will increase the number of environmental refugees sixfold over the next fifty years to 150 million. The IPCC has also predicted 150 million climate refugees by 2050 if warming trends continue.

A new documentary film by Michael Nash, Climate Refugees, details the human face of climate change. On the website the poster for the film can be viewed. It has a special message: “To the residents of America….Within the next few years millions of people are going to have to leave their homes because changes in the world’s climate will destroy the basis for their livelihoods.”

It’s interesting to note that this message is directed to America. There may be a dual reason for this: perhaps assigning some of the blame of climate change and looking to the United States to prepare to house these anticipated climate refugees. But it’s not only the U.S. who should begin to consider this trend. States and nations worldwide need to begin to plan how they would deal with so many displaced people, lest climate refugees become a very destabilizing force worldwide.

The global climate talks remain in a state of confusion. The UN and its member states repeatedly fail to come to an agreement on climate change adaptation and mitigation.  This leaves us to wonder if these bodies are equipped to really deal with this problem.

It’s becoming clear that the UN process is simply far too complex. As demonstrated in analyses of complex interactions (such as that of John Bodley in The Power of Scale), the human mind can only handle so many social interactions. Beyond that, the system becomes too complex for any one person to comprehend. Is it realistic to expect a consensus from a gathering of 10,000 people? Maybe it is. But so far, it hasn’t worked.

This also leads us to question whether States’ governments can effectively manage these issues. With too many short-term goals and corporate influences, they seem to be caught in a web themselves. NGO’s are not well-suited to deal with the problem either, given that they are not policy and law-making bodies and don’t represent (or are accountable to) a constituency. This points once again to the world’s indigenous peoples to pave the way for a ground-level approach to dealing the world’s changing climate.

Why do we find this impressively consistent pattern? Why do democratic countries ratify the protocols faster than the others? We find four theories about this in the literature:

1. Corruption: In countries with high levels of corruption, industry lobbying can more easily assert national policies against climate protection or similar “threats”.


2. Accountability: Democratic countries have a better capacity to foresee upcoming long-term risks because science, policy-makers and the media engage in an open, public discourse.


3. Collective goods and public choice: Climate protection is a collective good, and countries have an incentive to be freeriders regarding international agreements. But only autocratic countries can afford to do so because they do not have to face punishment by the voters.


4. Capacity: Non-democratic countries usually have a lower level of development, less money and more other competing problems, so they assign a low priority to climate protection.

I disagree with the methods and conclusions of the survey because they omit the indigenous nations that reside in some of these States’ territories. And I am very curious about the democratic/undemocratic distinction. Also of interest is the statement on their website: “Therefore, effective [climate] policy response depends on building an “epistemic community” that accepts the problem as serious and worthy of action.” I hope they can see the merits of a diverse global knowledge base, and that their hint of advancing a system of epistemological homogeneity is a false observation on my part.Societies have different information structures, actors and conflicts among them. As such, they will not process and respond to information in a standardized fashion. This is a blow to those who wish a global approach to mitigation and adapt to the world’s changing ecology. It supports what we are beginning to see with international climate policy: while we do need global cooperation, the real adaptation models will need to be developed on the ground level by the peoples that know the place.