Introduction by Croakey: Indigenous peoples from around the world are meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to discuss a rights-based approach to human health, planetary and territorial health, and climate change.
Adjunct Professor Janine Mohamed, CEO of the Lowitja Institute, and Deputy CEO Paul Stewart, were among those attending the 22nd session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) last week. The Forum is being held from 17-28 April.
Mohamed called on the UN and member nation states to take full responsibility for decolonisation and anti-racism when addressing climate change and its impacts on Indigenous peoples’ rights, health and wellbeing. Her presentation is published below.
Janine Mohamed writes:
As the CEO of the Lowitja Institute and a Nurrunga Kaurna citizen, we urgently call for action on the pressing issues facing Indigenous communities worldwide, as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) paints a clear picture of our changing climate and its impacts, and its connection to colonisation.
We, as Indigenous peoples, contribute the least to climate change, and yet we are impacted the most.
The devastating impacts of climate change threaten our cultural heritage and traditional knowledge, as recognised in Article 8.
Furthermore, the destruction of sacred sites and loss of traditional lands compromise our right to practise and revitalise our cultural traditions and customs, as stated in Article 11.
Climate change is a direct result of colonisation and has caused destruction to our lands, sacred sites, and our way of life.
We must heal the deep relational wounds between nation-states and Indigenous peoples, through historical truth-telling, decolonisation, and anti-racism, as central to achieving this goal, as outlined in Article 46.
Our peoples survive and thrive because of our connections to our communities, cultures, ceremonies and languages.
These are the social and cultural determinants of health.
Centring these cultural determinants in policies and practices is integral in ensuring the sustainability of our planet and the achievement of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
We call on nation-states to:
- take full responsibility for decolonisation and anti-racism, as recognised in Article 11, by transforming the principles and practices that guide all decision and policy-making, to be centred on Indigenous ways of knowing and doing, as stated in Article 18.
We urge the United Nations and member nation-states:
- to fully implement the UNDRIP in accordance with Article 42, convene a meeting to discuss decolonised approaches and actions, and monitor progress on climate change and its effects on Indigenous peoples’ rights – particularly their health, as stated in Articles 24 and 31.
We seek :
- support for Indigenous workforces who are at the forefront of climate change mitigation and adaptation, utilising our ancient knowledge and custodianship to care for our lands, as recognised in Article 29.
It is imperative to ensure self-determination as stated in Article 3 of the UNDRIP.
Finally, we urge nation-states to:
- commit to understanding and including the cultural determinants of health as foundational to achieving equitable social determinants of health, as recognised in Article 24.
We must act on these recommendations to guarantee the survival and thriving of Indigenous communities and our lands, as guaranteed by the UNDRIP.
• This presentation was made on 18 April.
More from the Forum
Also participating in the Forum was Dr Hannah McGlade, a lawyer and representing the Kurin Minang Noongar people. In this interview with UN News, she described the violent history of colonisation in Australia, and its ongoing manifestations, including racism, the removal of children from their mothers, and high incarceration rates of Aboriginal people.
“We are now looking at a national referendum to change the Australian Constitution, to enshrine a democratically elected Aboriginal voice in parliament, that will be consulted and heard on matters affecting Aboriginal people. This would represent a historic, very substantive reform to the Constitution,” she said.
“I’m really hoping that we are going to make this change. But of course, we are a minority, just four percent of the population, and a majority of Australians will need to vote in favour of the reform.”
This article in The Guardian reports that world Indigenous leaders meeting at the Forum have warned that the west’s climate strategy risks the exploitation of Indigenous territories, resources and people.
The longtime advocacy group, Cultural Survival, in partnership with other organisations, highlighted how mining for minerals such as nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper – the resources needed to support products like electric car batteries – are presenting conflicts in tribal communities in the United States and around the world.
Gunn-Britt Retter of the Saami Council, an organisation representing the Sami peoples of Finland, Russia, Norway and Sweden, said she had been raising awareness about the “green colonialism” driving harmful sustainability projects on Sami and Indigenous lands. The most recent example was an onshore windfarm that was built despite a supreme court ruling in Norway in defense of Sami reindeer herding grounds.
The Guardian reported that Deb Haaland, US interior secretary and tribal citizen of the Pueblo of Laguna, received a standing ovation after acknowledging a litany of historic injustices against Indigenous peoples and a collective need to heal, saying Indigenous peoples must be brought into the fold in global human rights decision-making.
See other recent Croakey articles
- Learn from the world’s oldest psychologies of flourishing
- A powerful call to decolonise harm reduction
- Global Public Health Week puts focus on climate crisis, decolonising and workforce matters