Article by Brenda Norrell
Photos by Ben Powless
Censored News
RIO DE JANEIRO -- Indigenous Peoples delivered the Kari-Oca II Declaration for the protection of Mother Earth to leaders at Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainability, after the military halted hundreds of Indigenous Peoples from entering the area.
The Indigenous delegation delivering the Declaration today included members of the Indigenous Environmental Network and Lakota Chief Arvol Looking Horse, 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe.
The Kari-Oca II Declaration was presented to Director of the Division for Sustainable Development Nikhil Seth, and Gilberto Carvalho, the Chief Minister to the Presidency of Brazil.
As world leaders seek to profiteer from nature at the summit, Indigenous Peoples, barred by the military from attending, are holding their own encampment at the Kari Oca II and produced the Kari-Oca II Declaration for the protection of Mother Earth. Indigenous are demanding a halt to the false carbon market schemes which allow the world's worst polluters to continue polluting and profiteering from nature.
Kandi Mossett, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara from North Dakota, was in the delegation of the Indigenous Environmental Network. Mossett said only a small group of Indigenous were allowed past the military to deliver the Declaration.
Mossett said 500 Indigenous were halted by the military from entering the area. "We can not commodify the sacred and expect a good outcome," said Mossett, whose homeland in North Dakota has been devastated by oil and gas drilling. Mossett said during this age of capitalism, Mother Earth has been assaulted. She said the Kari Oca Declaration confirms that Indigenous have the answers to climate change and how to halt the devastation.
The Declaration of Kari-Oca II states, “We, Indigenous Peoples from all regions of the world have defended our Mother Earth from the aggression of unsustainable development and the over exploitation of our natural resources by mining, logging, mega-dams, exploration and extraction of petroleum. Our forests suffer from the production of agro-fuels, bio-mass, plantations and other impositions of false solutions to climate change and unsustainable, damaging development.”
“The Green Economy is nothing more than capitalism of nature; a perverse attempt by corporations, extractive industries and governments to cash in on Creation by privatizing, commodifying, and selling off the Sacred and all forms of life and the sky, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and all the genes, plants, traditional seeds, trees, animals, fish, biological and cultural diversity, ecosystems and traditional knowledge that make life on Earth possible and enjoyable.”
