Appeal to the indigenous peoples representatives at COP5

APPEAL TO THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES REPRESENTATIVES AT COP5

Lorenzo Muelas Hurtado (*) Indigenous Authorities Movement of Colombia

7 May 2000

I have decided to share these lines with you before the fifth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP5 of the CBD) because of the worry I have carried home with me from Seville, Spain, where we attended the first meeting of the Open-Ended Ad Hoc Intersessional Working Group on Article 8j of the CBD. That Working Group was a space that we fought so hard for. It was meant to provide an arena through which we could discuss with world governments and help them understand our vision of the universe and our thoughts about what they call "biodiversity". But it seems it will only serve as a negotiating arena, over our wealth and our knowledge, between some indigenous groups and the governments.

My worry is not new. It has been with me ever since I started attending CBD meetings at COP3 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The non-indigenous people there were talking about "traditional knowledge". What they were referring to was something so intimate to us, something so inseparably tied to our Mother Earth and to everything that forms part of her. That is why the discussion touches us in the deepest of our being -- because it's part of our spiritual world, the world of our gods, touching on the very essence of life. That is why, as an indigenous person, it affects me very profoundly. And it hurts me deep down. Because I see that we are on a path that is mortally harming the future of Indigenous Peoples throughout the world.

Already in Buenos Aires, I could sense that there is a real drive to take something away from us in all the pronouncements coming from the governments that were there. This drive is veiled by all the talk of protecting biodiversity, of course. But I could also sense a strong tendency among many indigenous representatives there to want to negotiate. So I expressed this publicly -- not only at the First International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, but also in my intervention at the closing of COP3. I continued sharing this worry and fear in the later meetings in Madrid (Second Indigenous Forum and Workshop on 8j) and in Bratislava (Third Indigenous Forum and COP4), not only verbally but also through documents that I prepared and distributed widely among both indigenous and non-indigenous participants.

Although the years have seen me representing the indigenous peoples of Colombia in the highest spheres of political life in our country, I am fundamentally a local leader. I am permanently in touch with our people because I spend my time in the communities, listening to and learning from our elders. That is how I know that our people there in their territories, our traditional authorities, have always defended our basic rights along the fundamental principles of our Laws of Origin, our Natural Laws and our Higher Law. These have always been the central axis of all discussions and positions upheld, be it at the local, regional, national or international level.

In relation to what the white people call "biodiversity", our laws rest on two fundamental principles which our peoples, our traditional authorities, have always put forward and defended in all of our struggles:

1. For us, the world is not something you can divide into little boxes. It's integral and you have to look at it as one whole -- with all of its components, all that exists in nature, all that nature produces -- including in its relation to knowledge. Ours is a circular world where our gods exist, where our sacred sites, the great rocks, the big rivers and the mountains are, where the plants and animals live, where the sun rises and its ray impregnates the earth so that she can give birth. And there, as part of nature, the indigenous people are as well.

2. Nature belongs to the gods. We are only its caretakers and stewards. The earth is our mother and for that reason we cannot even think of exploiting or negotiating with her. On the contrary, we have a great appreciation and respect for her, and we always take care that our dealings with her never violate her integrity, that they ensure this delicate balance that has to exist between all things.

Because of this, there is no distinction for us between "biological resources" and "traditional knowledge of biodiversity", and no part of it can be privatised or sold. Life is something that can never be the property of anyone because only the gods have dominion in the world. Based on these principles, it is not possible for indigenous peoples to accept or accommodate any property system over these "resources" or "traditional knowledge of biodiversity" because they are Mother Earth, they are life.

The traditional authorities of most of our peoples maintain the fundamental principles of our laws. I recently had the chance to discuss with Kogui, Arhuaco and Wiwa mamos of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with U'wa werjayás, with taitas of my own Guambiano people, with the authorities of indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon like the Shuares, the Achuares and many others. And everyone shares these principles. For this reason, they reject any privatisation and commercialisation of life, a mandate that those of us who serve as bridges between our peoples and the non-indigenous world have the sacred duty to RESPECT, defend and push forward.

However, throughout the CBD process I have seen -- with real concern -- that the indigenous representatives, as a whole, are lacking firmness. They act as if they have been overcome and they seem to deviate very easily from our principles, getting closer and closer to what seems like a dangerous process of accommodating what is imposed by the laws of trade and privatisation of life, both of which demand intellectual property rights and make the sharing of economic benefits the prime issue.

It seems that this is happening because people have been heavily pushing -- and we have been accepting, without putting up much resistance -- the notion that everything is lost and that against industrialised countries and multinational corporations, which want to appropriate everything for themselves, we cannot fight. Like the hat of a drowned man, we end up dedicating ourselves to argue over economic crumbs that they're ready to drop down on us at the negotiating table. This will only lead us to forget our fundamental principles and use their systems of appropriation -- as we see among those who conform with intellectual property regimes, whatever the cost they may pay for it.

I want to be very emphatic in saying that we the representatives of indigenous peoples in these international fora have an enormous responsibility to defend the rights of ALL indigenous peoples in the world, including those of the thousands of peoples whose own wise men, drawing on their own laws, are saying that they want to live as indigenous peoples and that there is no place in their world for privatising or doing business with life, with our mother earth, or with our knowledge.

Indigenous organisations which have been part of the CBD process have maintained some of these principles in their speeches. But the tendency to take ambiguous if not openly pro-negotiating positions with people who consider that everything on this planet must be for sale, if only to benefit a few, has been notorious as well.

Recommendation 7 of the document which came out of the Second International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, which was annexed to the official report of the Madrid Workshop on 8j at COP4, says that we should:

"Impose a moratorium on all bioprospecting and/or the collecting of biological material in the territories of indigenous peoples and protected areas and on the patenting of these collections...[as well as] on registration of knowledge...."

In its document presented at this meeting, COICA stated:

"As indigenous peoples, our opposition to any form of patenting life forms must continue to be firm."

A few months earlier, COICA had sent an official note to the European Union which reflected Resolution No. 1 adopted at its Fifth Congress which states:

"We consider that patenting systems and other intellectual property rights on life forms are unacceptable for indigenous peoples... The possibility to get a patent on life forms is immoral and unacceptable. This includes genetic material of animals and plants and the knowledge associated with them..."

In an uproar of repudiation against the commercialisation of our resources and knowledge, the International Alliance of Indigenous-Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests said during its intervention at COP4:

"...We see more and more that our rights are being violated in the name of biodiversity conservation. Each day there are further attempts to commercially exploit our knowledge....The genetic varieties of plants...they are being taken away from us and they are patenting them... 'Ecotourism' is being promoted, transforming our cultures into an economic good..."

Even the intervention of the Fourth Indigenous Forum before the inaugural plenary session of the Seville working group contained fundamental elements of our laws:

"In the framework of the CDB and other related instruments, the recognition of our collective sovereignty over our knowledge, science, technology, innovations and indigenous practices is important. This implies that the different indigenous peoples have a legitimate right to participate in decision-making related to access to our knowledge and resources. We are not only referring to prior informed consent but to our right to deny access to our knowledge and to say NO to bioprospecting, exploration, exploitation or the application of intellectual property rights when these procedures are contrary to the principles and collective rights of our peoples...

"...we feel it is important to stress here that we do not agree with the application of intellectual property rights on different forms of life and on traditional knowledge in any manner whatsoever. In the same fashion, we do not agree with the artificial division between tangible and intangible components of genetic resources. Also, it is necessary to discuss...the fundamental principles of the indigenous peoples before discussing the equitable distribution of benefits..."

It's worthy to point out as well how the Mataatua Declaration, the Santa Cruz Declaration and many others which have also sought to ensure the respect of these fundamental principles and defend the rights of all indigenous peoples affirmed that:

"...For Indigenous Peoples, a system of intellectual property rights means legitimatising the illegal appropriation of the knowledge and resources of our peoples for commercial purposes... Patents and other intellectual property rights are unacceptable for Indigenous Peoples... We must avoid that currently ruling intellectual property regimes, with their monopolistic rights, rob us of our resources and our knowledge in order to generate more power against us... We must maintain the possibility to deny access to our indigenous resources..." Santa Cruz Declaration, 1994

"...we need a moratorium on all future commercialisation of indigenous medicinal plants and genetic material until the indigenous communities have developed their appropriate mechanisms of protection..." Mataatua Declaration

In spite of all these declarations, when it comes to concretising what the documents say, when it becomes necessary to fight in defense of what was said, all the ambiguities which can be seen in the documents I've referred to above start to emerge. That's when we see the negotiating and conciliatory tendencies budding, bringing the indigenous representatives, as a group, to project unclear positions. In the end, the inclination of the Indigenous Peoples to pursue the negotiation of proposals that are each time more narrow, more threatening and contrary to our vision of the world manifests itself, as happened in Seville.

In Seville, we were supposed to discuss, for the first time, the issues of substance -- not issues of form, which had been discussed up to then -- that have us ensnared in the CBD. Yet the governments did not capture our basic concerns and interests in their final document, as the Closing Declaration presented by the indigenous organisations said:

"...the fundamental principles of our peoples are not reflected in the final documents of this first Working Group..."

Nevertheless, this Declaration failed to make any analysis of the problems of substance that Indigenous Peoples had with the position of the governments as laid out in their final document. Nor did the Declaration state the position of protest against the manipulation that we were subjected to -- whereby we had to sit and discuss for many long days our thoughts and proposals, only to find that what is really important for our people was dismissed at the end. On the contrary, the Declaration thanks the governments for their "positive and constructive" attitude, even though they completely ignored our fundamental concerns, and offers to continue dialoguing within the very narrow framework of their proposal.

I think it's time to clarify that if this "indigenous participation" in these fora is just a formal affair -- that is to say, it's only to talk and talk and even participate in the steering groups for the workshop, as happened in Seville -- with no real possibility for our thoughts and our rights to be taken into account and included in the decisions that are adopted by the governments, then the only thing that is clear that we are doing through our dear participation is to legitimise decisions that go against our Peoples. As a governor of my Guambiano people used to say, all of this "I participate, you participate, he participates, we participate... and they decide" is meaningless to us indigenous people.

So why are the indigenous people going to COP5? Does it make any sense to discuss a document which does not respect the most basic elements of our thoughts and does not guarantee even the most basic rights of indigenous peoples?

According to the rules of the United Nations, when a document is not adopted by consensus, it cannot represent a formal decision. In Seville, due to a process of conversation with the Colombian delegation, this was the only government which abstained from adopting the final document. This means that it cannot be considered an official recommendation of the Working Group to COP5. This fact is in our favour and it opens the possibility to rediscuss the issues that were dealt with in Seville.

In any case, the position of the governments is clear and it is reflected in their document: trade is the driving issue. We should not, therefore, deceive ourselves trying to eek out bits of opportunity to have any influence in the further development of the CBD. For my part, I want to appeal to all of you that we put up a fight to defend what is fundamental for our Peoples, taking up, in practice, the basic principles that arise from our laws and from our own natural rights.

If the defense of these rights cannot be assured because circumstances don't permit it, then I think the time has come to ask why we are there at these meetings. We really have to ask whether it makes sense to participate and direct our efforts towards a forum where the struggle for our basic principles is excluded and where they only give us some margin on the edge of the discussion for the primary purpose of selling off life and knowledge through the Western intellectual property systems.

And then perhaps we'll arrive at the conclusion that many Peoples have already reached: that it's much better to dedicate all our efforts to strengthen our own processes to use, manage and control our resources and knowledge in our own homes, in our own territories.

The great responsibility and the challenge for those who act as representatives of the Indigenous Peoples in the meetings of the CBD is to know how to defend what all our peoples, generation after generation, through collective processes, have produced for thousands of years. These resources and this knowledge which have sustained the cultures and lives of our peoples are the fruits of many generations past and present. They cannot be negotiated away by a handful of representatives of today's generations.

(*) Lorenzo Muelas Hurtado is a Guambiano from southwest Colombia. As representative of the Indigenous Authorities Movement of Colombia, he was a delegate to the National Constituent Assembly which drafted the Constitution of Colombia in 1991. He was later a Senator of the Republic.

Lorenzo Muelas Hurtado Calle 7 #2-20 Silvia-Cauca Colombia Email: loremart(at)col3.telecom.com.co