4/23/2009

Caribbean Indigenous Peoples Speak Out on Climate Change

Participants in session at Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change. (Photo: Johnson Cerda)

Anchorage, Alaska (UCTP Taino News) – Approximately 400 indigenous peoples’ representatives from around the world are meeting in Anchorage, Alaska this week to seek a greater role in global climate negotiations. Among the participants is a delegation of Caribbean Indigenous Peoples who will present a regional report as well as their individual experiences.

The some of the members of the Caribbean delegation include Chief Charles Williams of the Kalinago Carib Nation, Naniki Reyes Ocasio (Boriken) of the United Confederation of Taino People, Damon Corrie of the Eagle Clan Lokono Arawaks (Barbados & Guyana), and Harriet H. Vreedzaam-Joeroeja, a Galibi (Carib) from Suriname representing Stichting Sanomaro-Esa and the Caribbean Organization of Indigenous Peoples (COIP).

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Caribbean is one of the regions most affected by Climate Change along with the Arctic and the Amazon.

A major goal of the Indigenous Peoples Global Summit on Climate Change is to help strengthen the indigenous participation at the December conference of parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in Copenhagen. There, the world's governments will negotiate a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol (which expires in 2012) to reduce carbon emissions and to create an adaptation fund to help poor countries.

The Indigenous Summit will conclude on Friday with a declaration and action plan, which is to be endorsed by Bolivian President Evo Morales Ayma and United Nations General Assembly President, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann.

UCTPTN 04.23.2009

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