By Daniel C Marotta and Jennifer Coute-Marotta , Truthout

Excerpts:

Nueva Colombia is a coffee growing hamlet straddling the border of a natural protected area within the Sierra Madres of Chiapas. A cloud forest of incredible biodiversity, the area is the one of the few remaining homes of the Quetzal bird, revered by the Aztecs and Mayans alike. Nueva Colombia is a coffee growing hamlet straddling the border of a natural protected area within the Sierra Madres of Chiapas. A cloud forest of incredible biodiversity, the area is the one of the few remaining homes of the Quetzal bird, revered by the Aztecs and Mayans alike.

Although some market-based strategies to mitigate global warming do benefit some communities, they more often serve as a cheap way for the world’s biggest polluters to avoid true ecological reforms and deprive people who can least afford it of their livelihoods, their land and their homes.
……….. One of the fastest growing international mechanisms for combating climate change, it is based on the theory that a ton of carbon sequestered by a forest in the Global South is identical in function to a ton prevented from leaving a smokestack in the Global North. However, the logic becomes suspect when one considers the burning of fossil fuels as an injection of greenhouse gases into an otherwise closed system known as the carbon cycle. Although some carbon offset projects do good for local populations, they more often serve as a cheap way for the world’s biggest polluters to avoid true ecological reforms and continue on with business-as-usual.

A Surprising Realization

A REDD project has been in existence in the coffee region buffering the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve since 2008. Managed by Conservation International and in partnership with Starbuck’s Coffee, the project creates carbon credits by growing trees as a shade cover for the coffee farms dominating the first slopes of the Sierra Madres. Starbuck’s buys the shade-grown coffee, which conforms to their Coffee and Farmer Equity (CAFE) practices, while participating farmers receive a subsidy to make up for the lower yield shade-grown produces. The subsidy comes directly from the Mexican government which, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, controversially obtains the rights to the generated carbon credits………
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Earth Peoples facilitated transport and accomodation at Kilmaforum during the Climate Change

conference (16th Conference of the Parties - COP 16) in Mexico, for indigenous Elders from Maya communities in state Quintana Roo. The 4 day information sharing gathering between Earth Peoples partners and the Elders resulted in the Climate Change Declaration of the Maya Elders from Quintana Roo, that was widely published in national newspapers and broadcasted on national TV.

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November 27th 2010

Declaration from the ELDER CIRCLE of the Indigenous Peoples Maya,
at Klimaforum10, Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Shared vision of our knowledge and of our feelings about the UN Conference of Climate Change

The Maya communities of the state of Quintana Roo, México: Tihosuco, Chan-chen primero y Dos Ojos (Ejido Jacinto Pat).

1. We, like all of the indigenous peoples of the world, are the guardians and protectors of Mother Earth, which cannot be sold, given away, nor rented, because she belongs to everyone and not just to a few.

2. We demand that the governments respect our traditional knowledge, for example: Coexisting in harmony with Mother Earth, with responsibility and justice.

3. As native peoples we feel defrauded and marginalized by the lack of respect for our rights, that’s why we demand: No to discrimination, and the dispossession of our lands. We preserve and our natural resources!

4. We demand self-determination.

PROPOSALS

1. To have the right to continue practicing our traditional system of cultivation as our ancestors did, with care and respect for our land.

2. We demand: No to the use of genetically modified seeds, chemical fertilizers, insecticides or polluting herbicides, that are the principal cause of the destruction of our land and the contamination of our aquifers.

3. We are tired of the injustice aimed at our traditional ways and customs. We say: No more false illusions, no more laws that prohibit the rational use of our forests and jungles.

4. We beg and insist the United Nations and the governments, especially Mexico: No to programs that are false solutions, like REDD, which is a threat, because it authorizes those who are polluting the earth and air to continue to pollute, causing global warming.

We who subscribed are youth and the Council of Elders, with wisdom and our feelings.

Eulogio Puc Tamay
Mauro Poot Dzib
Justino Canul Alamilla
José Guadalupe Poot Dzib
Gabriel Mazón Tun
Nelli Poot Rodríguez
Emilio Poot Dzib
Donato Chan y Moo

To download Declaration CLICK HERE

To see more photos CLICH HERE