CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

NGO Statement to the CSD-8 Intersessional Meeting on
Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development
February 28-March 3, 2000

Presented by Carol Kalafatic, International Indian Treaty Council
Indigenous Peoples as a Major Group, CSD NGO Steering Committee


Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

NGOs, including Indigenous Peoples and Women identified in Agenda 21 as Major Groups, look forward to the Dialogue Segment for a rich exchange of ideas, best practices and "lessons learned." But before the CSD can agree on actions to protect and foster the economic, social, cultural, spiritual and environmental roles played by  sustainable agricultural and land management, the CSD will need to address some key issues.

There is a need to address the underlying causes of lack of progress in the sustainable agriculture and land management sectors.  Among them is the imposition of Intellectual Property Rights systems on traditional, sustainable agricultural knowledge and practice.
    
Agenda 21, Chapter 26 emphasizes that Indigenous Peoples have a historical relationship with their lands and resources that is unique among Major Groups.  There are inherent as well as universal benefits to supporting existing and emerging local initiatives through which Indigenous Peoples, peasants and stable rural communities can strengthen their sustainable practices in these sectors.
    
Also, there is a need to recognize the integral relationships between, and the need for policy integration on, these sectors and Poverty, Consumption and Production Patterns, trade liberalization, Deforestation, Energy and Climate Change.

Indigenous Peoples have been practicing for millennia that which Member States should support at CSD-8. Member States should no longer allow the trade, biotechnology and non-sustainable activities such as mining and oil drilling, which destroy our Peoples' and others' ability to maintain their practices of sustainable farming and related animal husbandry, land management and, ultimately, to survive as Peoples.

By allowing the dumping of cheap agricultural products into Indigenous and traditional farming communities, the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) disables our sustainable practices in these sectors,  severely compromising our food security and health.  Also, commercial cash-crop plantations displace our Peoples and other subsistence farmers who, then, often migrate to cities and become jobless and homeless.

As noted in the Dialogue Segment Papers, and in the G-77 Draft Plan of Action for the UNCTAD-10, the strictly economic development paradigm which drives globalization is fundamentally antithetical to the objectives of Agenda 21 and UNCED agreements.  Natural law dictates that the survival of the natural world hinges on the integrity of the relationships among all living beings, including humans. The Brundtland Commission states that "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Development as currently practiced through globalization severs relationships within the natural world and across generations, and therefore will never be sustainable.

Some Member States and high ranking CSD officials have urged us to, for example,  speak only about the forest at the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests, rather than discuss the human, collective and cultural rights of forest peoples.  Yet Article I of the General Assembly Resolution on the Right to Development (A/RES/41/128), states that "The Right to Development is an inalienable human right by virtue of which every human person and all peoples are entitled to participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, in which all human rights and fundamental freedoms can be fully realized."
     
We therefore urge the CSD: