Indigenous people, youth should lead the climate action

In major religions, leaders and scholars have been proclaiming that our spirituality needs to go wider and deeper by our active and effective involvement in poverty alleviation, the battle against climate change, nuclear disarmament and peaceful resolution of conflicts without resorting to war or violence. This week one of the world’s most viewed television channels Cable News Networks (CNN) is presenting several special programmes on ‘Earth Day’ and what we could do collectively or individually in a big way or small. 

Early this year, the United Nations marked the International Mother Earth Day saying it was a time when mother earth is sending us a message. Mother Earth is clearly urging a call to action. Nature is suffering. Oceans filling with plastic and turning more acidic. Extreme heat, wildfires and floods, have affected millions of people. Even these days, we are still facing COVID-19, a worldwide health pandemic linked to the health of our ecosystem.
In a statement, the UN says climate change, human-made changes to nature as well as crimes that disrupt biodiversity, such as deforestation, land-use change, intensified agriculture and livestock production or the growing illegal wildlife trade, can accelerate the speed of destruction of the planet.

This is the first Mother Earth Day celebrated within the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Ecosystems support all life on Earth. The healthier our ecosystems are, the healthier the planet - and its people. Restoring our damaged ecosystems will help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent mass extinction. But we will only succeed if everyone plays a part. For this International Mother Earth Day, let’s remind ourselves - more than ever - that we need a shift to a more sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet.

According to the UN, the report “Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies” translates the current state of scientific knowledge into crisp, clear and digestible facts-based messages that the world can relate to and follow up on. Get to know the current status of the world’s urgent issues and opportunities to solve them.

The planet is losing 4.7 million hectares of forests every year – an area larger than Denmark. A healthy ecosystem helps to protect us from these diseases. Biological diversity makes it difficult for pathogens to spread rapidly. It is estimated that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

Climate activist Archana Soreng belongs to the Kharia tribe in Odisha in India. Indigenous communities like hers make up only 5% of the world’s population. But they protect more than 20% of our planet’s land and 80% of its biodiversity. “Over the years, generations of us indigenous communities have been told that we are underdeveloped, we are savage, we are backward because of our own traditions, because of identities, because of our cultures,” says Archana, whose name means “rock” in her native language. 

“It is only now that over the years, we see that the rights of indigenous people, the perspective of indigenous people are being respected which is also incorporated in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC,” she adds, referring to the science-backed report of the IPCC that for the first time in 2019 recognized the vital role indigenous communities play in preserving ecosystems and forests. 

“Indigenous people, young people should be the leaders of climate actions, not victims of climate policies,” stresses Archana. “I think it’s important that we stop tokenizing the participation of young people and indigenous people and local communities and also make them part, because of their expertise, in the entire policymaking processes and in the implementation processes.”

The communal lands, natural resources and ecosystems sustainability managed by indigenous communities around the world - from the Arctic to Antarctica - support the lives and livelihoods of 2.5 billion people globally. But today, their food systems are severely affected by loss of wildlife and plants, drought and other erratic weather patterns

Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said the world is reaching the tipping point beyond which climate change may become irreversible. If this happens, we risk denying present and future generations the right to a healthy and sustainable planet – the whole of humanity stands to lose. Another former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said climate change is the single greatest threat to a sustainable future but, at the same time, addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.