37-4 The Future We Want: Indigenous Women of the World Unite

Indigenous media professionals and amateurs from all across the Americas met at the Second Continental Summit on Indigenous Communication in Santa María Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico from October 7–13, 2013. Participants representing various forms of Indigenous media, including newspapers, radio, and television, convened to contribute to the strategic strengthening of communication processes of Indigenous Peoples of Abya Yala (the Americas), within a framework of exchange, dialogue, reflection, and proposals.

More than 200 women from around the world gathered in Lima, Peru in October for the World Conference of Indigenous Women. They demanded greater prominence of Indigenous women at every level of decision making and called upon governments to dedicate funding to attend to the specific needs of Indigenous women. The delegates also used the platform as a preparatory meeting for the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples, which will convene at the United Nations in September 2014 in New York.

Indigenous women delegates at the World Conference of Indigenous Women exchanged experiences of “megaprojects” on Indigenous land and developed strategies to confront continued incursions on their territories. Forestry and agricultural initiatives have displaced forest peoples in Rwanda and Cameroon, while mining projects across the Pacific, the Arctic, and the Americas are affecting numerous Indigenous communities.

"Food sovereignty is knowing the species we have on our lands, knowing what kind of seeds to plant in each territory.” These are the words of Clemencia Herrera from the Colombian Amazon, a participant in the working group on food sovereignty at the recently concluded World Conference on Indigenous Women.

Extreme weather and climate change affect everyone around the world, but Indigenous Peoples are particularly vulnerable. Meenakshi Munda, member Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network, came to the World Conference of Indigenous Peoples from the state of Jharkhand in Central India, which is home to 32 Indigenous groups and where climate change has already dramatically affected her community. “The rains are falling too late,” she says. “This year our state was declared drought-afflicted for the third year in a row.

Indigenous youth face many issues when they decide to move to cities. Often they choose to move to urban areas seeking access to education or jobs, but many times it might not even be a choice. Dali Angel (Zapotec) from Mexico explains: “It’s not just the immigration issue that we are facing, or that young people want to move to cities.

I am the Woman Empowerment program officer at Kivulini Trust. From my community I am the first to come and attend this World Conference on Indigneous Women. I came here to learn so I can go and share with my people and so that we can try to fight for our rights which are in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I was born and raised in Niue, an island country in the South Pacific Ocean 1,500 miles northeast of New Zealand, educated and raised in Aotearoa, New Zealand and some of the United States, and currently reside in New Zealand. I am one of two Pacific Islanders here [at the World Conference of Indigneous Women, in Lima, Peru]. In the history of the Pacific peoples [and] the UN, we have been a disparate race. We comprise many islands, many hundreds of dialects, and we still haven’t gathered ourselves together.

Andrea Landry, who is also known by her Indigenous name, Migizi Odey Kwe (meaning Eagle Heart Woman) comes from Pays Plat First Nation in Ontario, Canada part of the Anishinaabe (Ojibway) people. She is part of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus for UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and has been involved in the preparatory process for the World Conference for Indigenous Peoples, as well as various other UN systems. Landry is young in years, but her age belies her experience.

On October 29, First Peoples Worldwide released its Indigenous Rights Risk Report at the SRI Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing. The report analyzed 52 US-based extractive companies listed on the Russell 1000 Index to address one question: why should investors and shareholders care about Indigenous Peoples?

The Tuva are ancient hunters and nomadic peoples whose lineage can be traced back more than a thousand years to the Tang dynasty. Described in the Tang dynasty-era book Tongdian as “skiing hunters” and during the Yuan dynasty as “forest people,” they lived a free, mobile life around the Yenisei River and the Altai and Sayan Mountains. According to Chinese historical records, the Tuva were hunters and nomads until the Qing dynasty, which lasted from the mid-1600s to the early twentieth century.