CONSEJO INTERNACIONAL DE TRATADOS INDIOS

The current text of the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states in Article 26 that, “Indigenous peoples have the right to own, control and use the lands and territories, including the total environment of the lands, air, waters, seas, sea-ice, flora-fauna and other resources which they have traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used.”

It further recognizes that Indigenous peoples have the right to the conservation, restoration and protection of the total environment and the productive capacity of their lands, territories and resources as well as the assistance for this from their government through International cooperation. 

The Declaration on Environmental Protection and Bio-diversity Commission of the 25th Anniversary Conference of the IITC at Mato Sapa (Bear Butte) in June 1999, also states  that “ Indigenous peoples affirm and assert our right to oppose any intrusion onto our lands, ecosystems, waters and natural resources which we own, occupy or use”.

We once again assert that environmental degradation exploration and destruction is equal to cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples.

For thousands of years the Gwich’in Athabascan Nation of Northeast Alaska and Northwest Canada have relied on Caribou for subsistence and continue to subsist on the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which is essential to meet the nutritional, cultural, spiritual and social needs of their people.

The Gwich’in have the inherent right to continue their own way of life.  This right is recognized and affirmed by civilized nations in the United Nations Covenants on Human Rights.  For example, Article I of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights states:

“In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence” .

We affirm that the health and productivity of the Porcupine Caribou Herd, their availability to Gwich’in communities and the very future of the Gwich’in are endangered by the proposed oil and gas exploration and development in the calving and post-calving grounds in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Costal Plain.

The entire Gwich’in Nation carefully addressed this issue and sought the advise of their elders.  The Gwich’in People of every community of Alaska, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon have reached consensus in their traditional way.  They  speak with one voice prohibiting oil development and extrication of “vadzaih googii vi dehkit Gwanlii”, the Sacred Place where Life Begins”, known as the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The IITC therefore resolves to reaffirm our unwavering support for the Gwich’in Nation in seeking permanent protection of the calving and post-calving grounds of the Porcupine Caribou Herd , the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, recognizing the inherent fundamental human rights of the Gwich’in and all Peoples to their own subsistence, cultures and way of life.

We strongly call on the North American industrial nations and communities to heed the alert of Global Warming impacts and alarming changes on Indigenous lands which we are now seeing.   We call upon the United States of America and Canada to greatly increase their commitment to halt Global Warming and Climate Change by developing alternative energy technologies, practicing conservation techniques, raising fuel efficiency standards and reducing reliance on fossil fuel use. 

We call on the Industrialized Nations of the Pacific and Europe to also heed our cry and adequately address this issue.

We call on Political, Environmental and Spiritual leaders of the world to respond to the needs of the Gwich’in People and all Indigenous Peoples of the world, and the very life itself. 

In addition we realize that serious climate change progress, with increasingly devastating signs of temperature increase in the Arctic seriously threatens to have tragic and catastrophic consequences on many parts of the world.

Glacial melt at unprecedented levels caused by fossil fuel extrication, development and consummation threatens to have increasingly devastating impacts on climate change, global warming, and rising sea levels with worldwide profound environmental effects.  This directly threatens low level island Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities and impacts the ecosystems, lifestyle, cultural and spiritual values of the Indigenous Peoples of the world.

We call on Governments, Trans-National Corporations and extractive industries to cease their destructive activities that threaten all of life and to respect the inherent right of all Peoples to enjoy a healthy environment and ecosystem by prohibiting more unsustainable developments affecting Indigenous lands.

We call for a moratorium of fossil fuel extraction and all other forms of unsustainable imposed development which result in Global Warming with its devastating impacts on our ecosystems, Indigenous lands and the health and well being of future generations.

Adopted by Consensus, February 9, 2002