Women Lead at United Nations COP16 Biodiversity Convention in Colombia

Women's Press Conference screenshot by Censored News

Women Lead at United Nations COP16 Biodiversity Convention in Colombia 

by Brenda Norrell, Censored News, Oct. 22, 2024
Video https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1z/k1z1e5wzg9

CALI, Colombia -- Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca, is at the United Nations COP16 in Cali, Colombia today. "The Ponca Nation is on the ground here at COP16 in Colombia, trying to raise up the issue of false solutions to the climate crisis, like carbon credits and biodiversity credits that are killing nature," she said, adding that fossil fuels must be phased out.

"My people are suffering from environmental genocide," Casey said during the press conference today, "Rights of Nature: A Systematic Solution to Protect Biodiversity."

Casey, introducing herself with her Ponca name, said, "I'm a Ponca woman from the occupied territory of the United States, an area called Oklahoma, that was a POW camp for all the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island at one point."

Casey said ConocoPhillips and all of the extractive industries, are mass murderers killing her people, and killing our Mother Earth. They are poisoning the air, poisoning the rivers and the Ponca people.

    Casey Camp-Horinek, Ponca

Describing the scam of carbon credits, she said carbon credits are a way for fossil fuels to continue what they have been doing for a hundred years. Buying into the carbon credit scam is the same as saying: "We give you permission to murder life on Earth and Earth herself."

Carbon credits give corporations the power to continue to pollute the frontline communities, as in Ponca, where the air, water and earth is already defiled.

"Don't give them permission to buy carbon credits."

"They are killing life on Earth."

The Ponca Nation is the first Nation in the United States to pass a statute around the rights of nature, among the nations of the world that have followed Ecuador's lead. 

"If you eat, if you drink, if you breathe, you are a part of nature, and nature is a part of you," she said.

"We are inseparable from nature."

Casey Camp-Horinek is the Ponca Nation Environmental Ambassador and Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) board member and project coordinator.