Native Americans in heart of peoples' climate dialogues

Now in progress at the Cancun Climate Summit: Casey Camp, Ponca, on a panel at Dialogo Climatico, Climate Dialogue, Monday morning. Photo copyright Brenda Norrell.
Watch this panel live now, Monday morning on Red Road Cancun:
http://redroadcancun.com/?p=454
Casey Camp, Ponca from Oklahoma, speaking at the Dialogo Climatico, said, "I come from occupied territory." Camp said she was honored to bring the voices of the Ponca people to Cancun from their sacred lands.
Camp spoke of the genocide and false promises of the United States, and how the US promised it would help the Ponca to keep their land sacred.
Camp described the traditional way of life, fishing and hunting, and how the Ponca breathe the same breath of all in nature.
Camp said the Ponca have treaties, but these were never honored by the United States. She spoke of their history and the displacement of the Ponca people. From the beginning, the Ponca were pressured to be apart of the colonizers, the oppressors, she said.
"They didn't understand the water is not for sale, the land is not for sale," she said of the US colonizers.
"They took our lands, they chopped down our trees," she said. She described how their lands were sold to white farmers who poisoned their land.
Now, the water is too polluted to fish, the land is too polluted to grow food.
Today, major corporations around the world are selling the world false solutions, which will lead to the loss of lands and loss of forests for Indigenous Peoples. The false solutions of global carbon trading -- carbon credits and REDDs -- are the same trickery which the United States used to steal the land and forests of the Ponca people, she said.

Cancun: Native Americans in heart of peoples climate dialogue
By Brenda Norrell
CANCUN -- Native Americans from the United States and First Nations from Canada are gathered with Indigenous Peoples from around the world at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun, engaged in dialogue to protect Mother Earth and halt the scam of carbon credits. Casey Camp, Ponca, is on an Indigenous Peoples' panel now at the Dialogo Climatico, Climate Dialogue, underway Monday.
At La Via Campesina, the Peoples Climate Movement, Ofelia Rivas, O'odham and an independent grassroots Indigenous delegate, sang a sacred water song Sunday night. A panel of Indigenous Peoples spoke on the theft of their natural resources and lands by corporations and capitalist governments.
A representative of the Zapateca community of northern Oaxaca said the governments of other countries do not need to meet in Cancun to tell them what to do. "We have respect for our own land, we have our own customs, and we are not harming the environment."
Tom Goldtooth, Navajo and Dakota, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, described the corporate scheme of REDD, which allows corporations and governments to continue polluting, and continue the genocide of Indigenous Peoples. Read article:
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2010/12/cancun-native-americans-heart-peoples-climate-dialogue
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SPEECH BY BOLIVIA IN COP16
Speech by Ambassador Pablo Solon of the Plurinational State of BoliviaDecember 4, 2010 – Cancun, Mexico
Thank you very much, President. We would like, first of all, to emphasize the great effort put forth on the part of Margaret in presenting us this text, which we will study very carefully. We would like to express in a preliminary manner that, nonetheless, we lament the fact that the imbalances in the earlier text have not been overcome in this second version. Read more ...
http://pwccc.wordpress.com/

Casey Camp at Via Campesina!

Now at Via Campesina Cancun: Casey Camp, (second from right) joins Ofelia Rivas, Robert Free, Sarah James and more climate heroes! Photo copyright Brenda Norrell.

At La Via Campesina, Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, sang a sacred water song tonight. Indigenous Peoples are now speaking on the theft of their natural resources by corporations. While speaking on the scam of carbon trading, Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, asked Casey Camp, Ponca, to stand. Goldtooth said because of the carbon credits of Conoco Phillips, the Ponca in Oklahoma continue to die from the pollution. Carbon trading is a means of allowing corporations to pollute and continue the genocide of Indigenous Peoples. Read more ...

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/12/goldtooth-at-via-campesina-beware-of.html

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LISTEN to VIA CAMPESINA LIVE:
http://www.giss.tv:8000/viacampesina.ogg
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VIA CAMPESINA: The Peoples Climate Movement

NOW at Via Campesina in Cancun. Photos by Brenda Norrell.

LISTEN to VIA CAMPESINA LIVE:http://www.giss.tv:8000/viacampesina.ogg
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Greetings from Cancun: Sarah James and Ofelia Rivas

Greetings from Cancun! Ofelia Rivas, O'odham from the US/Mexico border, and Sarah James of the Gwich'in Steering Committee in Alaska, are among the grassroots Indigenous Peoples here at the Cancun Climate Summit today, Sunday, Dec. 5. Watch for interviews, live from Cancun, as Via Campesina is outside rallying to protect Mother Earth (outside the Radisson downtown.) Photo Brenda Norrell/Censored News.

Press statement from the movement for the Protection of Mother Earth, solidified in Bolivia at the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth:
Fate of Cancun Climate Summit is At Stake
ALBA Denounces Developed Country Attempts to Rupture Kyoto Protocol
http://pwccc.wordpress.com
CANCUN, Mexico (12/3/10) -- In his evaluation of the development of the Climate Summit held in the Mexican city of Cancun, the Ambassador of Bolivia to the United Nations Pablo Solon said in a press conference today: "Unfortunately, as of the fifth day, we have advanced very little on substantive issues. There was progress on issues that are not related to the core of this negotiation, which is the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions. What we have, after five days of work, is total uncertainty about the continuity of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol."
"This is unacceptable, because we came here to discuss the amount of emission reductions for the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, not just to discuss secondary issues," Solon said.
ALBA countries joined the press conference called for by the Plurinational State of Bolivia. The representative of Venezuela, Claudia Salerno, said: "We cannot give ourselves the luxury of failing. Our countries are suffering the consequences of climate change."
Bolivia’s ambassador also said that "there are countries that in an honest and transparent way have told us that there will not be a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (which requires greater carbon emission reductions). But there are other countries that have proposed that in order to have a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, they must first open the door to different protocol, which we could be part of in the future. "
Solon used an analogy to explain the problem with this proposal: "this is like telling someone, in order to stay married to you, I want first you let me open the door to having a second wife.”
When asked by journalists which countries were blocking the second period of Kyoto, the diplomats said they prefer not to mention names while negotiations are still in process, with the hope of reaching a common agreement. The representative of Nicaragua made it clear that the ALBA countries have the support of African and Arab nations, as well as important members of the BASIC.
Meanwhile, Venezuela’s Salerno was categorical in stating that "the world needs commitments." Salerno said: "We have been trying to make progress, while on the other side there are representatives saying they would rather to go to the beach because there is nothing to do here. So, they have the sense that, to stay here is politically a waste of time, even though this would mean guaranteeing a scenario that is a thousand times worse than what we have already seen."
The government delegates said that they will continue to work toward an agreement despite the lack of optimism. Salerno said, "we are extremely frustrated and we want to arrive at what could be a fateful December 10th. We need to use the remaining hours in the day to move forward and try to change the position of these [developed] countries before the text of the working group chairs is produced tomorrow.”
The Venezuelan representative was emphatic in stating that "the positions of our countries are not for sale. No money in the world can buy a decision of the ALBA countries that could mean the death of any human being on this planet."